- Welcome
- A Change is gonna come, by vickysg1
- A Little Bit of History Repeating, by Cutebunny43
- A Vacation on Shadow, by Mizzy2k
- A Vampire Apocalypse in Four Parts, by Grav_ity
- Anathema, by kungfuawynewho
- Before the Storm, by Alley Skywalker
- Between the Shadow and the Soul, by Cinaed
- Blighted by Sin, by Lullabymoon
- Broken Bird, by meekosan & toomuchfandom
- Carnivorus Plantae Mobilis, by roeskva
- Collide, by bluelilyrose
- Dead, But Not Forgotten, by fringedweller
- Discovery, by Danakate
- East of Albuquerque, by Eldanna
- Finding Family, by Heartundone
- First Amendment, by xakliaaeryn
- From the Last to the First, by Hiddencait
- Graven with Diamonds in Letters Plain, by AngelQueen04
- Hanging By A Gossamer Thread, by red_b_rackham
- He Always Gets What He Wants, by Sirenofodysseus
- Home, by Anr
- House of Heretics, by Slumber
- In Oculis Mentis, by Adrenalin211
- Jump in the Line, by Rinkafic
- Life is a Road, by scoobydumblonde
- Living on the Edge, by Traycer
- Love in Search of a Word, by Mzmtiger
- Maid of Honor, by TaleWeaver
- Melting the Ice Queen, by Tanya Reed
- Neither Duty Nor Honour, by buckbeakbabie
- New Hosts, by Hathor_Girl
- Not in Kansas Anymore, by Gelbes_Gilatier
- Now and Then, by ShirleyAnn66
- On the Nature of Daylight, by failegaidin
- Our Old World is Hard to Find, by lucklessforhim
- Pirates of the Caribbean: Sirens, by Lupinskitten
- Rearview Mirror, by ndnickerson
- Rowing in Eden, by Ancarett
- Saved by Grace, Badboy_Fangirl
- Somebody's Hero, by sadwal1538
- Someone Borrowed, by always_a_queen
- Stranger Than Fiction, by Lanna-kitty
- Take Off Your Kid Gloves, by Seren_ccd
- Taking Charge, by h_loquacious
- Taking the long way around, by isdon_isgood9
- Taming the Rider, by YappiChick
- The Ancient History of Solaris, by Sache8
- The Golden Lotus, by Rise Your Dead
- The Law of Tangents, by htbthomas
- The Lies You Live, by Alyse
- The Past is Prologue, by Lit_Chick08
- The Salt Skin, by Hariboo_Smirks
- The Story Of Us, by Shafeferi
- The Tension and the Spark, by lonelywalker
- The Veil That Keeps Me Blind, by Spyglass_
- What If You Catch Me, Where Would We Land, by leigh57
- Winter's Heart, by Rawles
- Yggdrasill Dreaming, by Mekosuchinae
- Dragonsinger - We Want to Live Like Trees Artwork
- Janus_74 - Out of the Dark Artwork
- Lormats - Trouble in Paradise Artwork
- Mizzy2k - The Bad Blood Artwork
- Nicky Gabriel - Happily Chaotic Artwork
- PPanic - The Gentle Princess Artwork
- SGMajorShipper - Time Enough at Last Artwork
- Slr2Moons - Fear the Night Artwork
- TheRisingMoon - Your Hands Artwork
- Site Info
Title: love in search of a word
Author(s): mzmtiger
Fandom(s): Harry Potter
Pairing(s): Remus Lupin/Nymphadora Tonks
Word Count: 25,077
Rating/Warnings: K+ (just a tiny bit of language)
Beta: My friend Hailey
Summary: "Music is love in search of a word." --Sidonie Gabrielle. Band!AU During the first war with Voldemort, soon after leaving Hogwarts, Remus Lupin and his fellow Marauders became one of the best known wizarding bands of all time. Now, with the second war looming, a moody Sirius on his hands, and growing feelings for Nymphadora Tonks, Remus must learn how to balance his life as a rock star and his role in the Order once again, all while trying to keep his sanity and friendships in tact. And how will Tonks react when she finds herself falling for her cousin's best friend, the quiet musician she's known almost her whole life?
Author's notes: FINISHED AND IT FEELS SO GOOD.
~~~~~
Sirius was strumming the opening of Wild Horses against his chest, chair pushed back on to two legs, long hair hanging down in front of his face, and Remus found himself humming along, the words fuzzy but the rhythm sure as Sirius plucked the soft bass line out with his fingers and voice. Remus cringed at how off-key even that was, and turned back to his book. Sirius rolled his eyes and leaned forward, snatching the book from between Remus’s fingers with a click of the chair legs.
“What are you reading now? ‘Play The Piano Drunk Like A Percussion Instrument Until The Fingers Begin To Bleed A Bit’? Bloody hell, Moony, what type of title is that?” he asked, scooting back from the table to keep out of Remus’s longer reach.
“It’s Bukowski,” he said, sighing and continuing at Sirius’s blank stare, “Charles Bukowski. American Poet.”
“Agh!” said Sirius, dropping the book on the table as though burned and pushing back his chair even further. Remus rolled his eyes and reached across for it, flicking through to find his place before settling back in his chair again. Sirius had never been a fan of poetry, unless it was about beautiful women and very short, and was consistently puzzled by Remus’s interest in it.
“Before this moment, I was unaware that humans could actually produce that sound, Padfoot. Thank you for enlightening me.”
“Come on, Moony! I’m bored and all you’re doing about it is reading depressing poetry.”
“And how do you know it’s depressing? Read a lot of Bukowski, do you?”
“It mentions blood in the title! Anything that mentions blood in the title is by law required to be depressing! And you never denied that it was depressing,” said Sirius, talking in exclamation points as usual when he was bored, attempting to lean back in his chair with a smug grin of victory, but being stopped by the counter.
Remus laughed as Sirius tried to scoot the chair forward while still tilted backwards with minimal success, “It’s not all depressing. Some of it is quite inspiring. we should build a great bonfire, we should congratulate ourselves on our endurance. And later, the generals and doctors may kill us but we have won. That’s just brilliant, Padfoot.”
“Moony,” said Sirius, as he attempted to untangle himself from his chair, which had gone over backwards, “you’re concentrating on the wrong part of that sentence. See, you heard ‘depressing poetry’ and leapt to defend it. The important part of that sentence was ‘I’m bored’.
“And what am I supposed to do about it? The others will be here in,” Remus paused to glance at the watch face at the inside of his wrist, “less than a half hour, and, I would like to place special emphasis on this point, you are a grown man.” He spoke the last five words as though to a small child who’d just been Confunded. “Why don’t you go play your bass for a while? I know you’ve still got some Stones stuff memorized, and you’ve been complaining so much lately about how you feel out of practice.” But Sirius seemed to be placing special emphasis on the ‘important’ part of the sentence again, and had hopped up to stare out the one tiny, dirty window in the basement kitchen, which really looked out on nothing but a patch of dead grass and the flat back tire of a rusty car, but to Sirius contained most of what he currently saw of the outside world.
“They’re bringing Tonksy along today, aren’t they? Merlin, it’s been…” Sirius trailed off as he tried to calculate how long it had been since he’d last seen his little cousin, and Remus filled in the gap for him.
“Thirteen years, two months.”
Silence reigned in the kitchen as they remembered, a bright sunny day in March, a few days after Remus’s birthday, the first day without rain in what felt like months, Andromeda’s new garden full of bright, bright colors and Ted’s poetry collection full of all the words that Remus wished he could write and Sirius could never understand. And in the middle of it all, a nine-year-old girl with a shock of pinkish spikes, who seemed to be sucking up energy from the sun, bouncing around the four of them in anticipation of their music and fun.
Remus remembered Sirius, sitting in a corner with her, fitting her fingers over the strings of his huge black bass, making up silly little rhymes to help her remember the notes. Sometimes, when he hummed old Stones songs and let his hair fall in front of hollow eyes, Remus could almost imagine him as the carefree boy Sirius had still been at 22.
“I remember. It was just before that show where James blew a string in the second song, ‘cause the idiot had tuned it to within an inch of its life with that spell he liked to use, and he just kept playing. His solos were full of these bloody holes, and he just had that stupid grin on his face the whole time. Nothing stopped him from enjoying himself on stage.” Sirius paused for a moment, shaking his head. “He always used that damn spell.”
It was the only thing Remus knew of that Sirius and James hadn’t eventually come to agree on. They would sit next to each other, messy, dark hair hiding their faces, James patiently tapping each string with his wand, Sirius adjusting tuners minutely by hand over and over again. Shoulders touching, voices low, they’d never looked more like brothers.
Remus thought for a moment, about how he’d never felt so close to the others as in that time before they took the stage, in the cool and quiet before the heat and noise of the moment overtook them. In those moments where they were still just boys, and not yet rock stars.
~~~~
Really, it had started because of a dare, if you thought about it. It was as though the universe was daring the four of them to come together and do this thing, and if there was one thing the Marauders had never able to say no to, it was a dare.
So at fifteen, upon returning from Christmas break, with Remus’s tattered notebook of half-finished songs and two old guitars, constructing Peter’s drum set out of textbooks with broken spines and rusty pots nicked from the kitchens, the four friends had capitalized the T in front of their nickname and set off to rule the world.
It had been a slow, gradual conquering, because they were young and hopeful with talent and drive, but they had nothing to play and nothing to play it on. But in March of that year, Remus’s father sent him a worn book of Shakespeare’s sonnets and a tape, half Beatles and half Stones, with a note that said Poetry is important. Share it with the people you love. -JL Remus Spello-taped the note and Sonnet 18 above his bed, Sirius learned to play Satisfaction within a week while James bummed a pack of magic candy cigarettes from a seventh year and Peter found a huge pot with a mysterious green crust around the edge which probably wasn’t toxic that worked perfectly as a bass drum.
Remus spent much of a very hot March in the dark dormitory sitting on his bed, surrounded by papers in his small handwriting, some of the words his own, some from his father’s tape or book. The other three sat with him sometimes: Sirius with his bass hugged near him, James drawing rhymes in the air with his wand lazily, Peter with his knack for writing simple choruses to fill the spaces between Remus’s more complicated verses.
Sirius and James had all the Stones songs from the tape memorized by the time April came around, and Peter seemed to agree with their taste, though he did enjoy Sgt. Pepper’s because Ringo sang. The other two were quick to forbid him from following that example, instead choosing to fill the dorm with their own off key renditions of Satisfaction and Ruby Tuesday. The Rolling Stones were new to the two purebloods, and they embraced them happily and fiercely as kindred spirits.
The early days had been made of little triumphs, of new guitar strings and bridges that fit the sound of a song, days and nights spent in sweat and laughter inside a tiny, unused classroom down a dusty corridor. They’d spread their books out between them and study between songs, collapsed on the floor in a circle, Remus’s worn tape playing in the background.
They had four covers and three original songs by the last Hogsmeade weekend of the year, and while James and Sirius dragged Peter to a used clothing shop at the edge of the village, Remus wandered, singing Let It Be and When It Rains She Dances under his breath. Lily walked with him a little, and he sang her parts of their originals, let her smile at him during I Am Unable without feeling guilty.
Finally, a week before finals, when rehearsals had been replaced with more studying time, Sirius strode into the room, their room, wearing a baggy red plaid shirt and dark jeans, and announced that they were ready. Remus just rolled his eyes while Peter and James jumped to their feet. And so the plan was set in motion, quietly, secretly, in between study sessions and classes and very little sleep.
They moved breathlessly through the castle and over the grounds in dusk and dawn, setting up, making sure everything they needed was in place. Peter took to wearing his leather jacket under his robes and James spent hours trying to perfect his hair, as Remus hunched over books and Sirius hunched over his bass.
When the last day of tests came, the four of them raced out into the hot sun, laughing, insane and happy and ready, Sirius pulling off his robe to reveal red plaid, Peter his leather jacket from the shop in Hogsmeade and James plain blue jeans and a plain white shirt, candy cigarette clamped between his lips giving off its pale, sugary smoke. Remus had still worn his uniform, had purchased no special clothes for the event, but pulled off his tie and pushed the sleeves of his shirt to his elbows, grabbed the charmed microphone from the stage as a group formed around them. By this time, most of the school knew that running Marauders meant something exciting was happening.
They opened with Satisfaction and ended with Let It Be, mixing Beatles and Stones with their own songs, and the crowd steadily grew, drawn in by the music and the excitement of something new and strange. And the four boys on the stage had never felt quite like this, as though they were made of pure energy and sound, the world at their feet as it never had been before. When it was over, Remus pushed his long hair back from his face and smiled out over the crowd of students while Sirius and James jumped off the stage to mingle and Peter stared out at all of it in amazement.
Remus woke up in the hospital wing after the last full moon of the school year with Lily sitting next to his bed, humming I Am Unable, and he was sure he’d never been this happy in his entire life.
He spent the summer writing and teaching himself to play the piano, swimming in the lake behind his house and reading poetry along the shore when the heat of his room grew stifling. Once a week, his father drove him into town and Remus wandered the cramped aisles of the small music store there, fingers running over the thin sleeves of the records and the plastic cases of the cassettes. Most of his savings that summer were spent on music, new and old, popular and unknown, anything that caught his eye in the dim lights of the tiny shop.
Sirius left home in late June, walked out of his parents’ house while his mother screamed and his father scowled, bass under his arm, humming Wild Horses under his breath. He moved into the Potter’s and Remus found that he and Peter were drawn there as well, some inexplicable force pulling them all to the huge house. They practiced in a basement room of the huge house, with a real drum set and fair acoustics, and when Remus’s voice began to scratch and Sirius and James’s fingers grew sore from the metal strings, they just sat around, writing, listening to music, talking.
And that’s all Remus had ever expected it to be, the four of them crowded together in small rooms, laughing and playing, losing themselves in the music as the world swirled hectically around them. How wrong he had been.
~~~~
He hadn’t changed a bit.
Well, that wasn’t true. There was a darkness around his eyes that hadn’t been there before, and his skin had the slight yellowish quality of malnutrition and sadness, but the crooked, manic smile was the same, and he wore the dark jeans and red plaid she could remember her mother teasing him about.
She realized now that he was only a little taller than her, no longer looked down at her through his long dark bangs, had lost that advantage in the time since she’d last seen him, his nose touching her forehead as they hugged. They stayed that way for a long time, as though maybe lost time could be made up if they embraced for long enough. Eventually though, Sirius pressed a quick kiss to her forehead and moved her out to arm’s length.
“You grew up. Who told you that you were allowed to do that, little cousin?” he said, and Tonks smiled, reached to push him away playfully, remembered how much she’d missed him. “Kept the hair though, I see. It suits you.” He reached up to touch the pink spikes gently, moved more carefully than she ever remembered him moving when she was small. There was a sort of reverence now, as though each moment was breakable.
“Hello, Nymphadora,” said Remus, from behind Sirius, and she looked up at the more familiar voice, dark button-up, faded jeans, long sandy hair curling at the ends. He had always seemed toweringly tall to her, impossibly angular and skinny, but his embrace was full of easy warmth and old affection.
“I’ve spent my entire life telling you not to call me that, and yet every time I see you, I have to explain it all over again. My name is Tonks,” she said, swatting him on the shoulder, and Sirius laughed.
“He still hasn’t caught on yet? Moony, mate, I knew you were slow, but she’s been Tonks for about two and a half decades now,” he said, looking over his shoulder at his taller friend.
“Of course, my apologies, Nymphadora,” Remus said, and Sirius laughed again as Tonks glowered at him. Before she could speak though, he cut in, moving back around the table and flopping down into his chair once again.
“So, little cousin, welcome to my humble home, the Ancient and Noble House of Black, headquarters of The Order of the Phoenix. Lovely, isn’t?” he said, spreading his arms wide as though to encompass the whole of the filth and general stuffy atmosphere of the house.
Tonks looked around the kitchen, glancing toward Remus before answering, “It’s about what I was expecting, honestly. Though I haven’t seen much of it,” she answered, as the heavy clump of Moody and his wooden leg came down the stairs. Remus and Moody had both worked to recruit Tonks, bringing her slowly into the fold of the Order over lunches and training sessions, both of them wanting her to know what she was getting into before they showed her headquarters. She’d rolled their eyes at their protective instincts, but appreciated the warning she’d been given about the state of the house, and the state of her cousin.
“Well, lass, you got your fill yet? Your lunch break won’t last forever, and it won’t do to be barely in the Order and already bringing Scrimgeour’s suspicion down on your head,” said Moody, nodding hello to Sirius and Remus as he dropped heavily into Remus’s vacated chair.
“Oh, calm down, Mad-Eye, I’ve still got a half hour, and I’ve already eaten. Plus, I’ve got more to worry about from Kingsley than I do from Scrimgeour. I’ve already been late twice this month, and he’s threatened to hex me if I do it again. Tempted to do it just to see his face turn the funny color it does when he’s trying to keep up his I’m-all-calm-and-composed-all-the-time act even when he’s annoyed.”
Remus laughed, “But Kingsley knows you’re here today, so Moody is right about needing to avoid getting on Scrimgeour’s radar. Are you going back with her, Alastor?” he asked, and Moody shook his head.
“No. Old Rufus knows I’m up to my neck in this,” he said, sinking further into his chair, “Figured I’d rest here for a while, let her find her own way back.” Leaning on the table next to Remus, Tonks rolled her eyes and mouthed Constant vigilance just as Moody ground out the same phrase in his gravelly voice.
“I saw that, Tonks,” he said, and Tonks pouted for a moment, muttering “Unfair,” under her breath, but Moody just huffed out a laugh, “When you’ve gone through everything I’ve gone through, lass, maybe they’ll give you one.” She looked at Remus and pulled a disgusted face, which he laughed at and stood from his leaning position at the table.
“Come on, Tonks, I’ll walk you out, leave Moody to entertain Sirius for a few minutes,” he said, and Sirius rose quickly from his seat before Tonks could do more than stand from her own leaning position, sweeping her into a tight hug which she quickly returned on instinct.
“Sorry,” he said, his voice scratchy, “Just wanted one more.” Tonks just nodded and hugged him again, Remus and Moody watching silently. When the two cousins finally broke apart, the kitchen was silent for a few moments until Tonks spoke.
“I’ll come back soon, I promise, tomorrow maybe, and we’ll catch up, okay?” Sirius nodded, and she turned to Remus, smiling widely, but he’d known her long enough to see the glassy quality of her eyes and the tears she was holding back. They walked quietly up the stairs; the only sound the squeaking and groaning of the wood underneath their feet.
When they reached the door, the two of them stood, Remus leaning against the door, hands in his pockets, as Tonks fidgeted with the sleeve of her Auror’s robe before he spoke, “So, honest answer, what do you think?” And she knew he wasn’t talking about the house or the Order.
“A little older, a little more cautious. But just like I remember,” she said, and he laughed, pushing away from the door and pulling something from his pocket.
“Good to hear. Got a present for you, by the way,” Remus said, but Tonks looked suspiciously at the items in his hand and did not reach out to take them.
“Is this some type of hazing? Are they going to blow up or turn my hands a funny color? Aren’t you a little old for that?”
He laughed again, a pleasant, familiar sound in the dark, strange surroundings, and she relaxed a little. “Well first, you’re never too old for a good prank. Ask your cousin sometime. Secondly, of course it isn’t some type of hazing, it’s a present. Two tickets to my show tonight. Thought you might like to come and bring a friend or something, or I don’t know, scalp the tickets at the door, make yourself a few Knuts. And afterwards, I thought maybe you could convince your friend to go home and you could come back here and keep your cousin company.”
“Really?” said Tonks, snatching the tickets from his hand to examine them, “That’s excellent, Remus! I’d love to! Kingsley will be so jealous, he loves you guys!”
He smiled at her enthusiasm, moving away from the door to get out of her way, “I’m glad you like them. Show starts at 7 tonight. Stick around afterwards and I’ll buy you a beer. But speaking of Kingsley, you’d better head back now, before you become the target of his wrath and end up working until ten tonight.”
Tonks rolled her eyes as she shook her head, “I swear, it’s like you’re all conspiring to make me into a good, old, responsible adult.”
“I think you’re plenty responsible,” Remus said automatically, thinking of the commitment she had just made in learning about this place, “But I think you could use a little less work stress in your life, and being on time might, surprisingly, make that possible. See you tonight, Nymphadora,” he said as she slung her bag over her shoulder, turning to glare at him.
“My name is Tonks,” she said, narrowing her eyes at him, and he laughed again, closing the door as he answered, “My apologies. See you tonight, Nymphadora Tonks.”
She spun around fully at the bottom of the steps to glare at him properly, but met with the closed door and the sound of his laugh ringing in her ears, she shook her head and went searching for a good place from which to apparate.
~~~~
The bar where the show was taking place was located a little way down a side alley of Diagon, and the cobbled street was already crowded with people standing around, anxiously awaiting entry. Tonks handed her extra ticket to a young girl with a sign stating her need for one with a hand-drawn picture of Remus below the words, figuring the extra work deserved the reward. The girl had been speechless, and Tonks had walked through the door smiling, flashing the VIP ticket Remus had given her to bypass the crowd.
It was dark, warm, and crowded inside, but Tonks was able to weave through the mass of people and found a small, open table in the middle of the room a few back from the stage and ordered a Butterbeer. She could see Remus out on the stage already, but it was darkened still and his back was to the crowd as he tuned his guitar and checked the microphone. Sipping on her drink, she could already feel the familiar, unique energy that she always associated with The Marauders and their shows, and especially with Remus.
Five minutes after she’d sat down, the bar was packed with people crowded around tables and the stage lights had been lit up, revealing Remus, wearing dark jeans and a wrinkled blue oxford, smiling out over the crowd as he pushed his fringe away from his eyes. Adjusting the strap of his guitar over his shoulder, he leaned close to the microphone.
“I can’t get no satisfaction,” he sang, strumming the soft first chord as the crowd came to life, “I can’t get no satisfaction, ‘cause I try and I try and I try and I try.”
He finished the Stones song, the one that had started off every show he’d ever done, and the crowd applauded again. Tonks smiled at the familiarity of it, at Remus’s easy grace as he pushed the stool away with one foot as he stood to speak. “I’m Remus Lupin, from The Marauders, and I’m hoping you all enjoy the show tonight. If you’ve been to a show before, I hope it was great and that this one lives up to your memory, and if this is your first show, I hope it lives up to your expectations.” The crowd cheered, and he began again.
“She likes books with happy endings, and songs with no rhymes, and making up stories ‘bout the people outside,” he started, and the crowd erupted in cheers at the first word, Remus pausing with a smile for a second to let them finish. “She dreams of learning to play the piano,” here he reached one long arm back and dropped three stark, pretty notes from the piano, “And spending time by the sea, but I’m just wondering now, if she likes spending time with me.”
Tonks had heard every song that Remus knew, had been to many, many of his concerts and those of The Marauders, and yet she was swept up into the music just as much as anyone else. Though she remained at her table, quietly sipping on her second Butterbeer and applauding at the ends of songs or the short stories that Remus told, she almost wanted the join the growing crowd around the front of the stage, grouped together tightly and mesmerized by the quiet musician on the stage. Remus had his own sort of magic up on stage, something that captured and held your attention every time he played, sang or simply talked, something that lent the already meaningful words even more power.
Remus played for an hour and a half with three encores, and still left the stage to calls for more. Tonks smiled as she watched a small man who must have been the bar’s owner shaking Remus’s hand enthusiastically after he had replaced his guitar in its case. The taller man nodded and thanked him for the opportunity, picking up the case in one hand and making his way over to Tonks’s table as the owner rushed off, probably hoping to continue to build on possibly the best night the bar had ever had.
“Hello, Tonks,” said Remus, setting the case down under the table and waving a waitress over as he took his seat. He ordered a Butterbeer and a plate of fish and chips before to turning to Tonks. “So, good show?”
“Brilliant, Remus. As usual.” He smiled shyly, a blush staining his cheekbones, and he looked away. Tonks sighed. “Honestly, you get up on a stage and regularly perform in front of at least a couple hundred people, songs you wrote from some very personal memories and feelings, and yet you are the most easily embarrassed man I have ever met.”
“It was good?” he asked again, and Tonks threw up her hands in defeat.
“Brilliant,” she said, enunciating each syllable, and he laughed as the waitress approached the table with his drink and another for Tonks. Remus thanked her after she’d set the dark bottles down and told him his food would be out in a few minutes, and then turned back to Tonks.
“So, you’re so hideously unpopular that you could not find a single person to come with you to my show?”
She swatted his shoulder. “Did you consider the possibility that no one wanted to come with me because no one wanted to see your show, because you are boring and dreadful?”
“In addition to being brilliant?” he asked with a smirk, and she swatted his shoulder again before taking a short drink and answering.
“I honestly didn’t look that hard for anyone else. I was right though, Kingsley was insanely jealous. If he hadn’t had plans with his girlfriend for tonight, he would have come with me.”
“Well, let Kingsley know that if he ever wants tickets, I’d be –Thank you- happy to get him a couple,” said Remus as their waitress placed his food in front of him, unfailingly polite.
Tonks smiled cheekily and wiggled her eyebrows, “I don’t think leaving their new apartment factored much into their plans tonight. Or at least, that seemed to be his indication.” Remus shook his head as Tonks continued to wiggle her eyebrows, snatching a chip from his plate.
“Well, your dirty mind aside, let him know that I’ve always got some tickets in reserve that I’d be happy to send along to him.”
“Won’t the Ministry be a little suspicious if you’re suddenly handing out tickets to random Aurors?”
“Possibly, but Kingsley and I did attend school at around the same time, and he was a third year at the first concert The Marauders ever did, so he has a bit of an excuse.”
“Oh, so he went to one concert and happened to attend school with you, and he has an excuse, but little old me, who grew up around you and your friends, and has been to more concerts than I can count, doesn’t have an excuse to interact with the lead singer of my favorite band and a longtime friend?”
“Maybe I’m just a little more protective of you than I am of Kingsley, huh?” he said, lowering his voice slightly and Tonks was struck speechless for a little bit as Remus ate, half listening to the guitarist that had taken the stage after Remus. He was fairly good, clearly talented but a little nervous, possibly about performing in front of such a large crowd and possibly about performing in front of a large crowd that had come to see Remus Lupin of The Marauders and were sticking around to soak up the atmosphere in the aftermath of the show.
“Well, thank you, I suppose,” she said finally, trying to project an annoyed front, but by Remus’s smile she could tell that he wasn’t buying it at all.
“My pleasure,” he said, taking the last bite of his food as Tonks let out a huff and turned back towards the stage. Almost instantly, their waitress appeared and whisked the plate and their empty bottles away, and they settled into quiet companionship again, watching the young performer on the stage.
“Mr. Lupin?” said a small voice, and Remus and Tonks both looked at the waitress, who had returned holding what appeared to be his plate, though the remains of his meal had been washed off. “Would you mind signing this for us? We’d love to put it on the wall.”
Remus smiled, reaching for the plate as he asked, “Do you have a quill?” The nervous waitress pulled one out of her apron and handed it to him, and he carefully signed and dated the plate before tapping it with his finger to seal the small, neat signature.
“Thank you very much,” she said as Remus reached into the pocket of his jeans and pulled out several Galleons, handing them to the waitress, who blushed even deeper than before and tried to hand them back.
“Oh, no, Mr. Lupin, acts don’t have to pay for drinks or food,” she stuttered, but Remus just laughed and closed her hand over the coins.
“Make sure my friend’s drinks are taken care of, keep the change for yourself,” he said with a wink, and the waitress could only stutter out a thank you and say she’d be back with more drinks before taking off toward the kitchen.
“It’s always interesting, how they react,” he said, and when Tonks raised her eyebrows and gave him a confused look, he continued, “How they react to my lycanthropy. When people first found out a little after that first album came out, I thought my career, and probably The Marauders, were done for good. But sales for our music and concert tickets soared. Apparently being a werewolf, or even being in a band with one, makes you infinitely more interesting to people. But there are bars and other venues that are all for me playing a few sets, but throw away everything I touch while I’m there- cutlery, plates, even microphones and other stage equipment. And then there are the bars like this, that are proud to say I played here, want to hang my signature up on the walls.”
“Must be uplifting and depressing all at the same time,” she said, and he laughed, nodding.
“Well, since I’ve signed my plate and settled your tab, that means there’s just one more thing I’ve got to do, and then we can head over to Grimmauld. Hopefully, we’ll catch your cousin early enough in the night,” he said, his good humor fading a little as he glanced at the inside of his wrist.
Quickly, he made his way over to the side of the stage, where the young musician was standing, replacing his guitar in the case reverently, and for a moment Tonks was reminded of James Potter, treating his guitar as though it was made of crystal and air as soon as he’d gotten done going all out on stage. The boy was even similar to James in appearance, dark hair, thin build, and his hazel eyes grew huge when he noticed Remus approaching, hand outstretched. He shook the older man’s hand enthusiastically, and Tonks could hear Remus complimenting his performance over the record now playing softly through the speakers since that the live acts were done for the night. After a few minutes, Remus said good-bye and came back towards her, while over his shoulder she could see the young man staring at his hand in amazement and was unable to hold back a wide smile as she reached toward Remus.
~~~~
“Let’s go then,” she said, grabbing his hand to pull him through the crowd, obviously not sharing his worries, excited about seeing her cousin again, and Remus, though the back of his mind was concerned that Sirius would only be a disappointment to her, couldn’t help but be caught up in her excitement, and followed her out of the bar, weaving and dancing his way through the crowd to keep hold of her warm hand.
They arrived at 12 Grimmauld Place in a matter of minutes; Sirius ecstatic, sober, welcoming, and Remus found himself fading into the background of the cousins’ reunion and their joyful chatter back and forth. He was exhausted from the show and still trying to shake off the last bits of achiness and fatigue from the most recent full moon, just a week past, so he was content to drift off into the background as Tonks filled Sirius in on the past 13 years of her life and he asked questions in all the right places and told stories with the skill of someone who had clung to those memories as a last lifeline.
Remus only spoke when asked a direct question to clarify a fact or settle an argument, and spent most of the evening and into the early morning with his cheek resting against his right hand, watching Tonks and Sirius banter back and forth, reciting Bukowski in his head and trying to remember the second verse of Wild Horses.
~~~~
Summer passed into fall and they returned to Hogwarts and their classroom, hauling pieces of Peter’s new drum set, a belated birthday gift from his parents, down from their tower under James’s cloak, although their secret was clearly out after the concert of the previous year. People stopped them in the corridors almost every day, asking when they were planning on having another show. When, not if, and that was what struck Remus the most about all of it.
He didn’t have access to a piano, but he spent rehearsals imagining and writing the parts for all their songs, when Sirius and James would sit on the floor, knees touching, guitars on their laps, weaving together their sounds as Peter filled in with his own rhythms. Remus sat at a desk and wrote on scraps of parchment, snippets of lyrics and pieces of piano music.
And then James and Sirius would come together at the start of a song, Peter falling into the groove that came so naturally to him in a way that nothing else seemed to, and the words sprang to mind for Remus, who traded his quill for the rusty old microphone they’d ‘acquired’ from the Muggle Studies room.
Of course, James and Sirius weren’t content with a single concert held outside on the grounds at the end of the year. They believed that anyone could pull something off then, when teachers were looking forward to the summer just as much as the students, meaning discipline was pretty much non-existent. And what could you judge something by if not the number of rules broken or property damaged?
So they all planned, spending hours locked in their room, sneaking back to the dorms late under James’s cloak. They spent dinners looking for hiding places in The Great Hall and came down for breakfast early every morning to stash their minimal equipment. On October 30, Sirius, looking thoroughly sleep deprived and manic, James shoulder to shoulder with him, rubbing his hands together as a physical representation of his anxiousness, announced that they were ready.
And on Halloween, just as the feast was coming to an end, Dumbledore ready to make his remarks and almost everyone quiet and tired from good food, James’s guitar sang out the opening chords ofSatisfaction under his skilled fingers. The crowd seemed unsure of how to react until the twang of Sirius’s bass and the thump of Peter’s drum joined in, and then they roared to life as one, surging toward the corner of the huge hall where The Marauders had turned a large, sturdy table into a small stage.
“I can’t get no satisfaction,” Remus sang, looking over the heads of the excited crowd at the group of teachers still seated behind the Head Table. Most of them looked simply dumbstruck, though Slughorn looked like he’d just struck gold and McGonagall had a smile on her thin lips that could only be described as proud. And Professor Dumbledore just sat in his high backed chair, fingers steepled in front of his lips, bobbing his head back and forth to the beat, blissful smile in place.
The teachers eventually all resumed their seats for a few songs before they began to filter out. Dumbledore was the last to leave, waiting for a break between songs to bid them all a good night and remind them not to stay out too late with a wink. And then the concert really began.
They played through every song they knew once, twice, three times, and the other students danced and sang along and generally just had fun, forgot about anything terrible or tragic that was going on outside of the walls of their school as the war, by now having lasted over five years, continued. And even when Remus’s voice started to scratch, when Peter’s beats started to drag and James and Sirius abandoned their intricate playing for simpler chords, the crowd still joined in on the choruses, the exhaustion not managing to sap any of the energy from the room.
It was electric and filled the Great Hall to every corner, lifting every person there above the late hour, and Remus wondered how anyone could ever get enough of this feeling of flying, fizzing, magic, better than any magic that had ever come from his wand. One last time, he sang I Am Unable; his eyes finding Lily in among the giant mass of other students, drawn to her bright hair and brighter smile easily.
“So red haired girl from the coffee shop,” he met her eyes as they reached the bridge, and suddenly all the energy in the room seemed to connect the two of them alone, everyone else fading into background importance. “If you can hear me now, just know that I loved you for such a long time, and I think I still love you right now.”
They played Let It Be and Golden Slumbers/Carry That Weight/The End one last time, because James and Sirius had agreed to Beatles’ songs at the end because they played a Stones song to start the concert. And then it was almost like the whole school snuck back to their common rooms together, laughing and whispering. Even from the Great Hall where they were packing up their equipment, exhausted but unbelievably, impossibly happy and excited, they could hear the random bursts of giggles and singing that echoed around the old castle.
Remus noticed Lily standing in the huge doorway, smiling over at them, and he made his way over as the others packed up their instruments, Peter shrinking his drums carefully and stowing them in the special box James had given him for his birthday. When he reached her, she said nothing, but she smiled her million watt smile and pushed up on her toes to kiss him on the cheek, before Lily walked away, smile still in place as she mounted the steps and glanced over her shoulder at him.
He smiled goofily back and stared after her for a few moments before returning to help the others lug things back to their hideaway practice room. They didn’t make it to bed until nearly three in the morning, but when Remus woke up early for breakfast the next morning, the goofy smile was still in place.
~~~~
In October of seventh year, Lily kissed him. One hard, quick press of her lips on his under a stormy gray sky, and he backed away from her as though burned, mumbling excuses with wide eyes. She laughed and moved after him, told him he was being ridiculous.
“Of course we’d work, Remus,” she had said, red hair whipping around in the wind and green eyes bright with laughter, “Stop being silly. I know you fancy me,” here she’d captured his hand, holding him in place, “You wrote that song about me. For me.” And it was then that he had done both one of the best and one of the hardest things he had ever done.
“James wrote the song,” he said in a whisper that had frozen Lily and broken his heart in one go.
“What?” she said, dropping his hand but remaining close to him, close enough that the clouds of her breath in the cold air mingled with his. He could still feel the heat of her hand wrapped around his.
“James wrote that song. He wrote I Am Unable, about you. For you. We all worked on it, but he was the one who really wrote it.” Lily looked shocked and a little lost, as though he’d told her the sky had actually been orange this whole time, she just hadn’t been paying attention.
“James Potter? The same James Potter who hangs people upside down for fun, the one who jinxes who ever he feels like jinxing just because he’s bored? That James Potter wrote that song?” she asked, and she almost seemed to be pleading with him, wanted him to smile and tell her that he was joking.
“He really loves you, Lily.”
“And you? Don’t you love me?”
“He really loves you,” was all he responded, not able to meet her eyes, and he walked away quickly, hands thrust into his pockets. He had band practice in twenty minutes.
She asked him once more, a small, folded piece of parchment pushed onto his desk in Transfiguration,Really? written in her curly handwriting, and he’d pushed it back with a simple Yes, and that had been the end of it.
And it was almost true, in a way. James had been there, in the room, had agreed with Remus about it being a red haired girl in the song, arguing against Sirius’s preference for blonde, talked about playing the song for Lily. But it had been Remus’s song, from the beginning, for years, before they’d ever thought of starting the band. It hadn’t even been a song at first, really just a list of the things he liked about Lily. But he could never tell James that, let his friend tell Lily the story of the week of grossly hot days that the four of them had spent locked in their dorm room, much to the annoyance of Frank and Tim, only emerging occasionally for meals or to shower. When It Rains She Dances and I Am Unable had both come together in that week, and Let’s Just Dance Instead had gotten its start there as well, in the small, sweaty dormitory they called home.
Two months later, she accepted James’s invitation to Hogsmeade, and it didn’t hurt as much as Remus expected it to. He was surprised by this, but didn’t fight it, spent that visit in The Three Broomsticks, writing and drinking Butterbeer while he listened to Sirius alternate between complaining about James’s absence and flirting with Rosmerta.
And one day, Remus sat down and wrote a love song that wasn’t for Lily, was just a love song written to try and impress a pretty Hufflepuff girl he liked named Sarah. It wasn’t any good really, but it made her laugh and she said yes when he asked if she’d like to possibly sit next to him at the next Quidditch match, or go for a walk over the snow covered grounds.
James had Lily, Lily had James, and Remus had his music, got to see his friends happy, got to do something that he loved with the three people who were most important to him in the entire world. And then Sirius returned from Christmas break with a crumpled letter clutched in his hand and a smile that could have lit up entire cities.
His name was Raymond Tilling Yates, which is what he went by as a talent scout for his family’s record company, Yates Records. But The Marauders knew him as R. T. Yates, a Hufflepuff Quidditch captain and prefect who had graduated when they were fifth years. He had seen their concert on the last day of exams that year, had been impressed by the raw talent of the band, had kept an eye on them through friends of his still at Hogwarts.
And with graduation approaching for The Marauders, he’d sent a letter to Sirius, inviting them to a short studio audition in late May, a few days after their return from Hogwarts for the final time. It was dream come true for James, Sirius and Peter, and a complete surprise for Remus. A pleasant one, but a surprise nonetheless. But he of course agreed to go with his friends, could never say no to the three boys who had seen him through every hardship of adolescence, not to mention lycanthropy. So, while Remus poured over notes about Transfiguration, Charms, Defense Against the Dark Arts, Sirius and James poured over musical notes, making the slightest little adjustments until every song sounded perfect to them, Peter bouncing between them, desperately studying over Remus’s shoulder before moving to the other two, tapping out beats with the pencil he had been furiously scribbling with moments before.
They all passed their NEWTs, Peter sweating his way through every test while Sirius and James breezed through them with the self-assurance that had been their trademark for the entirety of the time that Remus had known the two of them. And as the other three had dashed out to the grounds to set up for what had become the annual last day of tests concert, the concert that would be their final planned concert as Hogwarts students, Remus had sat on the steps in front of the huge, open oak doors, staring down at the piece of parchment Dumbledore had handed him a week before.
An offer to assistant teach the Defense Against the Dark Arts class next year, and a plan already outlined for how to deal with his ‘furry little problem.’ But he was the only one of the four of them with any sort of certain plan after graduation, he knew, what with Sirius disowned by the most ancient and noble house of Black and the health of James’s parents fading in their old age. Peter didn’t seem to have any plans at all.
But now there was this offer from Yates Records, for a record and a tour and it seemed like all those dreams, born in their cramped dormitory where they couldn’t have seemed farther away, suddenly were immediate and possible. He knew how ready the others were to accept the offer, how much each of them wanted this dream, and he knew that if he said no, if he took Dumbledore’s offer instead, that the Marauders would come to an end.
The four of them together were The Marauders, and replacing Remus as a singer was possible, but replacing him as a Marauder was impossible, and so for this dream to come true for any of them, it had to come true for all of them. Peter was running towards him across the lawn now, and Remus slipped the parchment into his pocket as his friend slid to a stop in front of him.
“Ready to go, Moony?” he said, giant grin in place even as he gasped for breath, and Remus stood, stretched out his back for a moment and then took off running, Peter close behind, laughing despite how tired he had seemed just moments before. He took the stage at a run, one giant leap using his long legs to his advantage to land on the slightly shaky wood, skidding to a stop by the microphone before pulling his tie off and reaching out for the microphone, letting it become almost a part of his hand as the opening of Satisfaction thumped from the bass and guitar, the drums coming in slightly late as Peter scrambled for his seat.
And in that moment, his decision was made for him as much as anything else would make it, as the first cymbal sounds came from the drums and the first roar came from the crowd. In a few days, Dumbledore would make him another offer, to join a secret organization that was fighting against Voldemort, and when he told him that his friends were being invited too, well, what choice did Remus have? All he could give back to his friends was his loyalty, so he signed the deal and asked when the next meeting was. On the same day, Remus Lupin officially became a member of Yates Records newest signees, The Marauders, and the Order of the Phoenix.
~~~~
Sirius gravitated toward his cousin Andromeda as a fellow black sheep of the Black family, and often dragged the other three along when he went to see her. She and her husband Ted became unofficial sounding boards for the band, and their daughter Nymphadora became somewhat of a mascot for the band.
And in that way, Tonks had gained four of the best friends she’d ever had, from her boisterous cousin Sirius and his loud friend James, to shy Peter with the round face and quiet Remus, who was very tall and very skinny and very, very good at reading stories and singing songs. They took her to the big lake by her house, played games with her, sang her songs and told the best stories that she’d ever heard.
They came over every week or so when it was possible, and spent the entire day with Tonks and her parents, playing short acoustic sets in their living room before whisking her off for another adventure, whether adventure was getting ice cream at Fortescue’s in Diagon Alley or playing a modified game of Quidditch in the backyard. She loved listening to them play, first really heard music from those four boys, seeking out the original versions of songs only after hearing The Marauders cover them.
Remus would often stay inside after the others had filtered out to the back porch to drink Butterbeers and talk with Andromeda and Ted, about the war or about their tour schedule or the new songs they’d rehearsed that day, Tonks watching him as he perused her father’s huge poetry collection or played the huge black piano they had in their living room. He’d never had a piano of his own, had used a neighbor’s when he was learning at sixteen, and he was fascinated by the Tonks’. She would watch him copy things into a little black journal he always carried.
“What’s that?” she’d asked him one time, as he copied from a worn edition of Leaves of Grass.
“For we cannot tarry here,/ We must march my darlings, we must bear the brunt of/ danger,/ We the youthful sinewy races, all the rest on us depend,/ Pioneers! O pioneers!” he recited, and then smiled, “It’s a collection of my favorite pieces of poetry. See?”
He held the book down towards her, and she moved over to look at pages upon pages of small, neat black handwriting, sometimes whole poems and other times just one or two lines, but all carefully copied on to the parchment.
“I’ve been keeping this journal since I was seventeen, just before I graduated. It was a gift from the others. I copied Shakespeare’s Sonnet 18 later that day,” he said, flipping back to the front page to show her, “And I’ve just never stopped.” She stared in amazement, taking the book from Remus’s hand to flip through the pages with her small fingers.
“Would you read me some?” she asked, and he reached for the Whitman book on the desk, but Tonks shook her head and held the black journal out to him. Remus smiled and took his notebook back as she settled down against the side of the chair he was sitting in.
“Shall I compare thee to a summer day?” he read, smiling as he read poem after poem from the little book, skipping ahead to share some of the best he knew, re-reading old favorites he hadn’t seen in a long time, but mostly reading sequentially, page after page, until the others came in and Tonks fell asleep, head resting against his leg.
After that, it became part of their routine, Tonks sometimes falling asleep in time for him to slip outside to talk with the others, but more often than not, they’d filter in, talking quietly so as not to wake her up, finding Remus still reading silently or copying more poems for future readings.
Eventually, Tonks began to read the poems on her own, even though she struggled with a lot of the words. But she never looked in the dictionary for the definitions, because she loved the poems for their existence, for the way they sounded, more than anything they actually meant. Someday, she would appreciate that meaning; another gift from Remus when she was older, a student at Hogwarts then, but his first gift to her was the love of the words themselves, the sounds and feel of them, with his songs and his poems.
~~~~
She’d spent almost all of her free time at 12 Grimmauld Place with Remus and her cousin, and she’d grown used the generally undisturbed quiet that filled the house whenever the three of them fell silent for a few moments before Sirius launched loudly and enthusiastically into a new story. Remus had yet to arrive back from a meeting with his scheduler and Sirius had just dashed upstairs, yelling over his shoulder that there was a record he’d just rediscovered that she must listen to. The now comfortable silence descended as the clunk of Sirius’s heavy footsteps faded and Tonks set about making tea.
She heard feet pounding down the stairs behind her much too quickly to be Sirius already back, and Tonks whirled around, wand at the ready, knocking the kettle of hot water to the ground with her elbow. Remus burst through the door, hair messy, eyes sparkling, thousand-watt smile in place, and she eyed him wearily as he looked around the kitchen.
“Is your cousin here?” he asked, striding back to the door and peering up the staircase. He looked around for a moment, then at the puddle of water that had just reached the toes of his worn shoes, before glancing up at her, asking, “Nymphadora, why is there water everywhere?”
“No, he ran upstairs to grab something quick. A record he wants to show me, I think,” she answered, still looking at Remus suspiciously. “Remus, what in Merlin’s name has gotten into you? You scared me and I knocked the teakettle over. I thought you were an invading force of some kind!” she stopped for a moment, and then glared at him properly, “And don’t call me Nymphadora.”
Remus just smiled and laughed quickly before continuing, “I have a plan, but it all centers on you being willing to help me out,” he said, excitement clear in his voice. “Have you ever had to pretend to be blind for work?”
“If you had given me a million and one guesses, I would never have guessed that that was what you were going to ask me. Why do you need to know?” she asked, all weariness quickly giving away to curiosity, as it so often did when one of Remus’s plans was involved.
“I think I have an idea of how we might be able to get Sirius away from here, even if just for a few hours or so, but again, it hinges heavily on your cooperation.”
“Yes, I have, a few times for undercover assignments. I like to think I’m fairly good at it. It’s one skill where my clumsiness is actually useful, since I just naturally walk as though I can’t see the world around me anyway.”
Remus grinned, “Perfect. I’m playing a gig at a new bar tonight, All Play and No Work, and I think you could use Sirius as your guide dog. He would get a chance to be away from this dreadful house for a while, and he’d get to see me performing our songs in front of a real, live audience.” His expression sobered suddenly, and he seemed to be staring at something Tonks couldn’t see. “I think it’s the best gift I can give him,” he looked up at her, snapping back to his excitement, though the sadness didn’t leave his eyes completely, “So, will you do it?”
She smiled and said, “Of course I will, Remus. It sounds like a great idea.”
“What does?” asked Sirius from the doorway, leaning against the frame with arms crossed and eyebrows raised at the two of them. Remus pulled something from his pocket and held it out to his friend, winking at Tonks as Sirius moved towards him warily.
“It’s not going to explode or turn my hand a funny color is it, Moony?” he asked, and Remus laughed, looking at Tonks.
“You two have obviously spent too much time together. You’re starting to suspect me in exactly the same ways,” he said to her, but Sirius just glared at him.
“I’ve known you too long, mate. James and I were always the ones that got in the worst trouble or got the most blame for the pranks, but this one here,” he said, jabbing a finger at Remus while turning to Tonks, “was the creator of more than a few, the mastermind that made almost every single one of them work efficiently and realistically, and the main executioner behind his fair share.”
“You’ve told me before, Sirius,” said Tonks, laughing as Remus rolled his eyes.
“And I’ve told you before that he and James didn’t seem to mind taking the ‘blame’ when it came from pretty girls. Of course it is not going to explode or turn your hand a funny color or anything else of the sort. It’s a gift, Padfoot.” Still looking suspicious, Sirius took the offered ticket and his eyes widened as he took in what it was.
“For me?” he asked, looking up at his friend and his cousin in astonishment, and Remus smiled.
“Technically it’s for Tonks, as you’ll have to go as a dog, but yes, it’s for you to come to my show tonight, spend a little time out of this house, get to judge if I’ve kept up the Marauder legacy well,” Remus said, and Sirius just stared from his friend to the ticket and back again before throwing his arms around Remus’s shoulders in a tight hug.
“Well,” Tonks said, wanting to give a little privacy to the two old friends, “I’d better get going if I want to get ready for tonight. Meet here at six?” she asked, and Remus nodded as she headed out the door, tossing a “See you then!” over her shoulder as she left.
~~~~
Tonks arrived at Grimmauld Place at 6:00, Remus standing at the end of the block with Sirius already in dog form and wearing an official seeing-eye dog harness and leash. She’d left her hair normal and brown tonight, hoping it would help Sirius if she looked inconspicuous as possible with a giant dog. Remus smiled at her quickly in thanks before ducking into a small alley to apparate, still needing to set up for the show. Tonks followed shortly after, crouching down and hugging Sirius tightly to her chest. As soon as they’d arrived, Sirius bathed her face with licks, she supposed as a sign of gratitude that she really could have done without.
Once she was inside, she found good seats, moving cautiously behind Sirius’s guide, and then transformed a plate into a dog dish for Sirius. Initially she poured a glass of water into it, but at his mournful look she poured the remains of her beer into the bowl and turned to listen to Remus.
The concert was excellent as usual, from Satisfaction to I Am Unable to Brown Eyed Girl to Let’s Just Dance Instead to The End. Sirius seemed to enjoy himself, or as much as she could tell from his dog form, although after Brown Eyed Girl, he’d seemed to withdraw a little, lying under the table rather than sitting next to Tonks’s chair and swaying a little to the music. She thought nothing more of it after noticing it initially, turning back to watch Remus’s performance.
~~~~
Remus made his way over the table after he’d introduced the next act, a young band called Colorblind, sitting down next to her and ordering a beer of his own. He was glad she’d agreed to bring Sirius, and smiled at her as he reached down to scratch behind the dog’s ear for a moment.
“Thank you for coming tonight, Tonks,” he said, reaching out to touch her hand, “And for everything else.”
“Of course, Remus,” she answered back, staring a little over his left ear to keep up the charade, “I’m glad you played Brown Eyed Girl. It’s my favorite Van Morrison song.”
He laughed, “I know. You made me sing it to you all the time when you were little. I called you ‘my brown eyed girl’ sometimes.” From under the table, Sirius gave a low growl and Remus looked at him strangely for a moment, but when the large dog didn’t return his gaze, he looked back to Tonks again, really noticing her hair for the first time that night.
“Ah, your natural hair. I forget how much I like it,” he said, and Tonks snorted.
“You are the only person I’ve ever met that likes this hair at all. Even my mother admits it’s a bit bland, and she hates the daft things I usually do with my hair. But I figured I’d better stay as unnoticeable as possible tonight. Why did we have to do it on a night where you were playing in a new bar anyway?” she asked, and Remus looked away, suddenly awkward just for a moment, wondering if he should tell her the truth.
“Well, uh, apparently, we’re quite recognizable. No matter what you look like, a lot of the owners of places I play a lot tell me they can always tell it’s you, because they say I act differently around you than I do anyone else they see me with. I act special. Even at bars that I’ve only played at once or twice before, we’re very noticeable, I’ve been told,” he said, and that’s when he realized something had changed between them, that they were more than the friends they’d been for years now, and they had been for a while.
Suddenly his hand felt too warm over hers and he pulled it back, not meeting her eyes as he wrapped it around his cold beer and took a long draw. He acted differently around her than he did around anyone else because he felt differently about her than he did anyone else. He fancied Nymphadora Tonks very much, and it had taken him a while to realize it, but now that he had, it seemed all too apparent. And he had no idea what to do about it.
Just as he was about to do something stupid, like tell Tonks what he had just realized, Sirius let out a loud growl from under the table, and they both looked at him strangely for a moment.
“I think Sirius is ready to go,” Tonks said, and Remus nodded, still looking at his friend with concern.
“I’ll walk you out, and be back at Grimmauld in a few minutes. I’ve just got to collect my check and grab my guitar,” he said, wrapping a hand around Tonks’s arm and guiding her to the door before wishing her good-bye and letting Sirius take over.
The owner was very grateful when Remus approached him, and invited him back anytime. Smiling, Remus retrieved his guitar from behind the stage, signed a few autographs and stepped outside into an alley to apparate.
When he knocked on the door of Grimmauld Place softly, Tonks answered, looking concerned. “He’s acting all funny,” she said, and Remus left his guitar in the front hall to hurry down to the kitchen. Sirius, back in human form, sat at the table, looking sullen as he poured himself a glass of Firewhiskey. It didn’t look like it was his first.
“Padfoot, what’s wrong? Did you like the concert?” he asked, and Sirius scoffed before draining the glass in a swallow.
“Everything’s fine, Moony, you were great, holding up the legacy very well. Except that you broke your promise,” he said darkly, and Remus could see Tonks’s look of confusion, even as he himself paled.
“Padfoot, it’s nothing personal, I swear, but-,” he started, but Sirius cut him off.
“But what, Remus? Afraid your precious fans will turn against you if you mention your prison escapee former band mate? You promised me that any time you played Brown Eyed Girl, you’d playMoondance. But I suppose your loyalty only extends to James and Peter, huh? You told plenty of stories about them, I noticed, but you couldn’t even play my song.”
“Padfoot, I swear, there’s a reason, but I can’t explain it to you. I am sorry though, I promise,” he said, because he couldn’t explain to Sirius why he never told that story or sang that song anymore. He could barely explain it to himself.
“You know what, Remus, don’t even worry about it,” Sirius said, and Remus didn’t know what to say or do when Sirius stopped calling him Moony, so he just turned around and left, leaving the two cousins glaring.
~~~~
“That’s how you treat him? After everything he did for you tonight? He put his neck on the line for you, and you know that Snape is going to give him trouble about this, and Dumbledore probably isn’t going to be exactly thrilled about it,” Tonks said, staring in disbelief at her cousin. Sirius just poured himself another drink and shook his head.
“You wouldn’t understand, Tonks. He made me a promise.”
“Yeah, and he’s your friend. That’s not worth your forgiveness?”
Sirius scoffed, “Just because he’s some sort of idol in your eyes and you’ve got more than friendly feelings toward him doesn’t mean the rest of us just forgive him everything. You don’t understand what that promise meant at all.”
Tonks wanted to respond, but just gaped as Sirius drained his glass once again before stuttering, “W-what?”
Sirius laughed and shook his head, “Oh, come on, Tonksy, it’s fairly obvious you fancy the man. Honestly, you two are the most oblivious people I’ve ever met. You’ve fallen in love and don’t even realize it.”
“I’m not in love with Remus, and he’s most certainly not in love with me,” she said, but Sirius just shook his head again.
“You can deny it all you want, cousin, but I’ve known you both a long time. You might be able to fool yourselves, but you can’t fool me,” he said, and she could see him drawing back into his shell, out of the argument and into the Firewhiskey.
Shaken by how easily Sirius had spotted something she’d been unwilling to admit to herself, Tonks went off in search of Remus. She’d known him for a long time, but she didn’t think she’d ever seen him look as hurt as he had when he’d left the kitchen.
~~~~
He’d retreated to the library, settling into the old chair he’d brought over from his flat after they’d finished cleaning out the room. Remus had brought over some of his own books as well, mostly thick research books of spells and history, which he’d left stacked in high piles on the floor, worried that the shelves of the Black family might not react so well to his ‘tainted’ books.
But kept two stacks of his favorite poetry volumes and novels on the small table, mostly books that he had two or more copies of, and he blindly reached for one now, Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman coming easily from the middle of the stack. He’d flipped open to a random page, starting with I Sing The Body Electric and continuing on, and tried to escape from Sirius and Tonks, broken promises and new emotions that were perhaps not so new after all.
He had just finished the first part of Song of the Open Road when he heard the cautious knock on the doorframe, and looked up to find Tonks standing there, smiling faintly.
“Can I come in?” he nodded, and she joined him on the couch, glancing over at his book. “Whitman?” she asked, and he nodded again.
“I suppose I fall back on old favorites most of the time.”
They were silent for almost two minutes before Tonks spoke, “You don’t have to let him treat you like that.”
Remus shrugged, “He was drunk and upset. And he was right to be upset, I did break my promise to him.”
“He still shouldn’t get to treat you like that. Friends forgive each other,” she paused for a second, “Why don’t you play the song?”
Silently, he stared at the page, and he could see that Tonks wondered if she was ever going to get an answer before he spoke. “I’m afraid. That if I tell that story, if I play Moondance, they’ll react badly, will boo or leave. And it’s not about me losing fans, or at least that’s not what most of it is about. But to see his memory treated like that? I think it’d kill me.”
“And you couldn’t tell him that?” she asked, and he wondered how to really make her understand how Sirius thought.
“Sirius had just turned 22 when he was sent to Azkaban. He spent 13 years stuck in that place, and while he was there, the world moved on. I moved on, and when he came back, I wasn’t the friend he’d left. And I think that still bothers him. Still bothers him that I’m not the person he left. That’s part of the reason Harry is so important to him; it’s mostly because he’s James’s son, but there’s a small part of him that sees Harry as the James that Sirius lost.”
Without warning, Tonks suddenly wrapped her arms around his shoulders and pulled him into a tight hug. Remus returned it gladly, closing his eyes as she spoke.
“He’ll come around, I promise. He loves you so much, but he’s so sad right now. But I know he loved the concert.”
Remus just nodded against her shoulder, thinking about all these new feelings, but how no matter how much some things changed, a lot of things stayed the same.
~~~~
Tonks had stayed away from Grimmauld for a few days; letting the two men work out their problems without her interference. She also wanted to give herself a chance to work through her own feelings for Remus. Eventually, she decided to just act as normal as possible around him. She had no evidence other than Sirius’s word about Remus’s feelings, and who knew if his word was worth anything.
But on Thursday, she got off work early, grabbed take-away from a little restaurant down the street from the Ministry, and apparated to Grimmauld. When she walked into the kitchen, Sirius was sitting at the table alone, jumping up as she entered.
“Food, thank Merlin!” he said, taking one of the heavy bags from Tonks and moving to unload it quickly. She left her bag on the table and went to retrieve plates as Sirius unpacked that one as well.
“Remus not here yet?” she asked, surprised. Tonks knew he’d just started recording sessions for his third solo album, but he was usually here an hour or so before her.
“He had to run back to his flat to grab some book he needs for a report he’s writing for Dumbledore. Should be back any minute,” he paused for a moment to scrape food onto the plate Tonks handed to him. “About what I said that night, Tonksy? I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said it, and even if I had a right to say it, you shouldn’t have had to hear it.”
“It’s fine, really, Sirius, as long as you’ve made up with Remus,” she said, raising her eyebrows at him, and her cousin nodded.
“Yes, we did the whole airing of grievances and hugging the next day, after I’d sobered up and he’d gotten some sleep. We’re all back to being best friends now.”
“Good. I don’t like when you two fight. You know each other much too well to be doing that,” she said, and Sirius laughed, nodding as they started on their dinner.
“True,” he paused to take a bite, and when he’d swallowed, continued, “And the other thing I said? About you and Remus? I think maybe you misunderstood me. I’m glad you two feel that way, because you’re two of my favorite people in the entire world. And you’d be absolutely adorable together.”
Tonks blushed, and Sirius laughed loudly, reaching out to place his hand over hers, “And I would be the first to offer the two of you congratulations. In fact, if I wasn’t, than I would be greatly offended. I would have to stop being friends with you both.”
She laughed with him this time, “Thank you, Sirius. It means a lot to me, but I don’t think anything will be happening for a while. I’ll make sure to let you know though.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure about that, baby cousin, but if you need to keep telling yourself that, go right ahead. I can wait.” They both laughed again, and Sirius pulled her into a hug at an awkward angle, messing up her hair before letting her go.
“What are you two doing?” Remus asked from the doorway, looking at the two cousins with a smile.
Tonks felt herself blush as she struggled for an answer, but Sirius filled in quickly, “Tonksy was nice enough to bring us dinner, and look, you’ve brought the huge case of Butterbeer! It’s like a party. We were just talking about the June concert.” Remus smiled, setting the twenty-four pack down on the table before retrieving one and a plate for himself.
“Merlin, that was a good day,” he said, looking through the cartons before making his choice.
“Moony, mate, that was one of the best days.”
~~~~
By the time they were nineteen, The Marauders were a fairly popular band in the wizarding world, particularly with young adults, the people who had grown up in the middle of the war, who looked at the band as peers, people who had gone through what they had, whose music was created by that shared experience. But they were not yet legends.
No one could have predicted that they would become legends on an overly warm day late in June that promised storms either. The concert was small, maybe 600 people, in a tiny outdoor stadium well away from any prying Muggle eyes. But legends they became.
The forecast may have called for storms, but that had never stopped The Marauders before, and they took the stage with a strange, sizzling energy about them, as though they had some hint about what this night would hold. They started the show with Satisfaction, which had started off every show they’d ever done, and everything just grew from there, each song building and building until the small stadium had seemed to crackle with energy.
The crowd exploded as they launched into I Am Unable and I Saw Her Standing There, flowing from one song to the next and back again, before dropping off into As Much As Lying, the crowd going silent as the heartbreak of Remus’s voice washed over them, the lonely piano notes and the soft, low thumps of Sirius’s bass strings and Peter’s drum, every single one of James’s chords like a teardrop.
In the silence of the stadium then, Remus had spoken for a moment, his voice a low rumble accented by the distant thunder. “Rise like Lions after slumber, In unvanquishable number, Shake your chains to earth like dew, Which in sleep had fallen on you- Ye are many- they are few.” There was no great explosion from the crowd at his words, a small part of Masque of Anarchy that he had memorized years early, but the air became even more charged, if that was possible, and the roar that began when they started Let’s Just Dance Instead could have blown windows out.
“And honestly, the world’s going crazy, and I’m just going crazy for you. All of it is falling apart, and all I’m falling for is you. This life may swallow us up whole, but you know what, baby, I think we’ll be okay, let’s just dance instead!” The song filled with the love and joy that Remus had written it with, infectious as the thunder grew louder around them.
It rained then, big fat drops that turned quickly into a drenching downpour, but it was a warm summer rain, and Remus just smiled, let James and Sirius take the lead, and followed them into the song he knew they would play.
“When it rains, she dances,” he sang, tasting rain and sweat against his lips as he wrapped one hand tight around the microphone and leaned toward the crowd. “When it rains, she dances, when it rains, she dances, oooh, how she dances.” He let the simple, repetitive chorus flow, closed his eyes and just sang, wondered how things in the world had come together so perfectly in that moment.
The rain had stopped shortly after, left the air feeling heavy and wet, everything and everyone soaked, but it couldn’t steal the atmosphere from the place, the crackle like lightning that still remained as the show wound down. And then Remus’s microphone began to pop and fizzle in his hand, some combination of his tight grip and the rain and the very electricity of the air around them shorting out the magic, and for a moment, he had just stared at it in his hand before tossing it aside and launching into Golden Slumbers at the top of his voice.
As he went on with Carry That Weight and The End, he pushed his voice further and further, but hit every note, the strange energy that had filled him the entire concert pouring out of him, propelling him forward now. But as he reached for the final note in The love you take is equal to the love you make,it broke, shattered into millions of tiny little pieces.
But moments later, the roar of the crowd filled in around the missed note, the edge and grit of it filled in by the sheer noise of the crowd, and Remus, having fallen to his knees in exhaustion, looked up through his damp fringe at the crowd in amazement. The others behind him had stopped playing to stare as well, letting the sound wash over them.
They stood like that for a while until Remus could no longer take it, could do nothing but stumble backstage and collapse to the ground. The thick wood of the stage was cool against his wet, heated back, the soaked fabric of his shirt clinging to his sweaty skin as he stared up at the starry sky, listening to the continuing roar. Someone thrust a bottle of water into his hand, but he could do nothing but breath, slowly and deeply, trying to memorize this moment.
Because the moments on stage had been perfect, but this was more perfect somehow, this world made simply of sound, warmth and solid wood against his back. Moving his hand just slightly seemed to use all of the energy in his body, but the cool water coursing over his raw throat was worth it. He continued to lie there, perfectly content to never regain his energy if it meant that this feeling never went away.
Closing his eyes tightly, he lay there for what seemed like forever and a day, but must have been only five minutes. Feeling someone above him, Remus finally opened his eyes to see Sirius hovering a few inches from him, his eyes bright and dancing and alive, his face nearly split in two by the toothiest grin Remus had ever seen on his friend.
“Moony, mate, I think that’s what they call the power of music,” he said, clapping a hand down on each of Remus’s shoulders in a sort of hug, and Remus could only nod slightly in response, his voice non-existent and most of his energy gone as well. Sirius had given him a little shake of joy before letting him go with a whoop that seemed to fill the whole world as he moved to embrace Peter, who looked stunned and glowing with pride.
Turning his head just slightly, Remus could see James out of the corner of his eye, down on one knee, and Lily standing in front of him, tears on her cheeks, nodding furiously. He smiled, remembered the ring James had shown him earlier in the day, how perfect it was for Lily, how happy he was for them. Silently wishing them congratulations, Remus let his eyes close again and soaked in the feeling.
At that moment, he had no idea that he and his friends would become legends because of that night, had no idea what they would come to mean to the wizarding world in the coming days, months and years, how far their words and songs would echo. But he knew how important these moments were to find in the middle of war he’d grown up in, and he basked in it for just a while longer.
~~~~
For almost two years, The Marauders were on top of the wizarding world, a beacon of hope and energy in a war that was so short on both. Their third album, Rise Like Lions, came out, was met with instant success, the band’s reputation and fan base growing by the day it seemed. And then Halloween, 1981 came.
Remus knew the second he opened the door to find Minerva McGonagall standing on his doorstep at 4 AM. He’d grown up in a war, been a soldier for 4 years now, and he knew that you didn’t get calls at that hour that did not bring some tragedy. They didn’t yet know of Sirius’s betrayal or Peter’s death, but the loss of James and Lily cut deeply enough by itself.
He could remember listening to McGonagall giving the news, the startling shiny tears on the Gryffindor Head’s face as she’d stared at him, watching for a reaction. But he’d been numb, the ragged hole in his chest gaping, just coldness and pitch blackness where before there had been warmth. Remus had nodded slowly, McGonagall watching him, as though waiting for him to snap suddenly, before rising slowly and surprising him by pulling him into a tight hug.
After she’d left, assuring Remus that Harry was in ‘the hands of the people Dumbledore thought best’, he’d stumbled into the living room of his flat and collapsed onto the long couch, staring up at the dark ceiling. In the dead silence of the night, he listened to his own heartbeat, too fast and too hard, but there, somewhere within the empty hole of his chest.
Later that day, as Remus counted his heartbeats again, for the thousandth time, an owl had flown in a window he’d left open the night before, dropping a letter on the coffee table that would tell Remus of Peter’s ‘death’ and Sirius’s betrayal, and it would seem like just another part of the great tragedy to Remus, the hole in his chest ripping outward until it seemed to encompass his entire being, until he was nothing more than a gaping hole with a heartbeat that kept him going forward despite his utter emptiness.
He truly planned on never rising again, lying there on his couch as the wizarding world around him celebrated one of its greatest triumphs while he mourned his greatest tragedy, lying there until all the pain and coldness, the empty blackness of the chasm in his soul faded away and he could be with his friends again.
The Beatles saved him, and the thought of a family that would understand and need him as much as he understood and needed them.
~~~~
Remus sat on the back step of the house, staring out over the concrete yard, which was full of dead weeds and rubbish, but was cooler than the clogging heat of the old, dusty house. Sirius had retreated to his bedroom earlier with a case of Butterbeer and a half bottle of gin, and Remus could hear the old Stones album from here.
“Mind if I join you?” said a voice from behind him, and he turned, painfully, to see Tonks standing there, a Butterbeer in each hand.
“Not at all,” he answered, accepting the bottle she handed him after setting his empty one on the ground next to him, flashing her a smile before settling back down into the hunched position that seemed to cause his sore muscles the least amount of distress. Remus could feel Tonks’s gaze on him as he took a long drag of the drink, avoiding the gash in the right side of his lip.
“Is that from last night?” she asked, eyes drifting from his face to the waning, nearly full moon. He nodded, looked at the moon with her.
“Yes. Regrettably, my transformation from wolf to human is not very efficient, you could say. My mouth returned to its human size rather more quickly than I lost my fangs this time. Otherwise, it was a rather-,” he paused, searching for the correct word, “Well, it was not any more unpleasant than usual, I suppose you could say.”
Tonks smiled sadly, recalled a younger Remus, on their trips to the lake when she was little, when the four boys would sweep down into the Tonks house and whisk her off for adventure. Smiling, wet curls plastered to his scalp, pale even when the others were burned bright red, his skin seemingly impervious to the sun. She remembered the huge mass of scar tissue that composed one shoulder, the angry red stretch marks on the other, pale scars along his forearms and calves catching the sunlight as he popped out of the water, sputtering and lunging after James and Sirius. Afterwards, when the light was dying, James would get out his guitar and they would sing, all four of them, Peter quiet and nervous, James and Sirius very, very loud and hideously off-key, Remus shaking his head and laughing the entire time.
“Did you always want to be a rock star?” she asked, suddenly, and he laughed, turning to look at her.
“Why do you ask?”
She shrugged, took a long drag of her drink, and he rubbed at his right shoulder for a second before answering. “No. I just liked music. When we got the record deal, nobody was more surprised than I was. I enjoyed performing with my friends, but I never imagined it would end up like it did.”
“What did you want to be?”
“A teacher. I still do, really. I’m certified to teach Defense Against the Dark Arts and Transfiguration, and I could probably do Charms as well, though I’d have to finish the actual certification.”
Tonks laughed, shaking her head, “Imagine, a kid wanting to be teacher instead of a world famous rock star.”
Remus laughed as well and shrugged, “My parents were both teachers. Aside from James, Sirius, Peter and Lily, no one showed me more kindness than Professor McGonagall. Professor Dumbledore gave me a chance that no one else would have given me. Even Slughorn, who knew what I was, always treated me well, although I was absolute rubbish at Potions and, until my seventh year, showed really no promise of being that successful at anything.” He stared into the middle distance for a moment, “I wasn’t in his class when that first album came out, but he made a point of seeking me out and congratulating me personally. The man was a Slytherin through and through, but they’re not all bad.” He paused again, took a drink, the bottle slightly awkward in the side of his mouth. “In my eyes, there weren’t any greater heroes in the entire world than teachers.”
They were both silent for a moment, Tonks picking at the label of her bottle, Remus staring off into somewhere only he could see. Sirius had changed the record, still The Rolling Stones, but earlier now, the songs that had been on the tape Remus’s father had sent him all those years ago.
“Why didn’t you become a teacher?” she asked finally, and it was Remus’s turn to pick at his bottle.
“The others needed me. When the album got so big, so fast, I couldn’t quit on them. They’d never quit on me before, in all the time I knew them. They broke the law for me, when they became Animagi, and all they needed me to do was to continue doing something that I already loved doing? They were my best friends in the entire world.”
“And now? You’ve got all the money you could ever want, and with the concert schedule you’re doing now, it wouldn’t be too hard to have a job as well. I remember you reading to me, teaching me things when I was little. I remember how much I loved it.”
Remus stared at the hand clenched around his Butterbeer, the other straying to his shoulder, and Tonks wondered if he noticed he was doing it. “I’ll never forget how glad I was that my lycanthropy seemed to hardly be an issue with your parents, how much that trust and love meant to me. Not everyone is as accepting as you or your parents. People are all right about their children listening to music by a werewolf, but I don’t think they’d be so accepting if I was teaching them, do you?”
Tonks felt a flare of anger for Remus, who was still rubbing at his shoulder, and she set her Butterbeer down, reaching across him to grab his hand. Trapping it between both of hers, she waited until he looked up at her, and when he did, smiled softly and whispered, “You’d make an amazing teacher.”
Remus blushed, looked away towards their joined hands, smiled, whispered back, “Thank you.”
~~~~
On November 5th, 1981, Tonks opened the front door and found Remus Lupin standing there, looking as though he wasn’t quite sure what to do with himself.
“Hello, Nymphadora,” he’d said, his voice scratchy and quiet, and she wanted to correct him, but couldn’t do it, couldn’t bring herself to do anything except wrap her arms around his waist and rest her head against his stomach. His hands curled over her shoulder blades, and she could feel him breathing, long, deep breaths. “Are your parents home?” She nodded against his stomach, but tightened her arms, not wanting to let him go just yet, warm, quiet Remus.
“It’s going to be okay,” he said, one hand moving to the top of her head for a moment before he crouched down to eye level with her, smiling slightly. “Don’t forget that, all right? It’ll be okay.” He pulled her close again, and she smiled a little too, remembering how it felt, how the muscles moved to be happy. She could hear her parents coming into the hall behind her, could hear Remus greeting them quietly, but she didn’t let go. She wasn’t sure she could.
She tapped on his shoulder then, and when he pulled back to meet her eyes, she whispered, “My name is Tonks.” And he laughed then, long and loud, and the sunshine was no longer abrasive, but warm and welcoming. It was going to be okay.
~~~~
“Thought I might find you up here,” Tonks said, leaning against the doorframe and looking at Remus, sitting cross-legged on the bed in the small room he’d been using when Sirius was too drunk to leave alone for the night, staring down at a notebook, music playing softly in the background.
“Hello, Nymphadora. Sirius was pestering me to sneak him out, and I was getting tired of saying no. It’s not a good feeling, to have to say it over and over again to him when he’s been cooped up in this house for so long.”
“No, it can’t be. And don’t call me that,” she narrowed her eyes at his grin, but then cocked her head to listen to the record he was playing. “What are you listening to?”
Remus looked down and blushed just slightly, high in his cheeks, before flicking his wrist at the record player to turn up the volume, “It’s The Fiddler On The Roof. It’s my favorite musical.”
“I remember you playing that for me when I was little! Tradition!” she boomed out in a comically low voice, and Remus shook his head in disbelief, flicking his wrist to turn the music down almost below audible.
“I cannot believe you remember that,” he said as Tonks crossed the room and plopped down on the bed in front of him. She pulled herself into a sitting position using his knees for leverage, and was suddenly and acutely aware of their closeness, pulling her hands away quickly, covering it by throwing them behind her as if for balance. Remus seemed not to notice though, and scribbled something in his notebook before closing it.
“I remember a lot of things that you taught me then. I was at a very impressionable age, and,” she trailed off for a moment, again aware of their closeness before continuing, “you were an excellent teacher. With pretty good taste.”
He laughed, the familiar lines appearing around his eyes, and she wondered when she’d started noticing things like laugh lines or how close she was to him. “Well, I’m glad you do. I’m glad I was able to do something useful in the time after- after all of that.”
Their playful mood disappeared almost instantly, lonely sadness in his eyes replacing the laugh lines, and she reached across them to take his hand, bringing them closer until her feet touched his and he looked up at her quickly before returning his gaze to the plain red cover of his old notebook.
“You did a lot of useful things then, and before that day, and you continue to do plenty of useful things. For being a gigantic, stubborn, daft git, you’re honestly one of the most useful people I know, both personally to me and to the world in general,” she said, squeezing his hand once, twice, three times in emphasis, and getting a return squeeze each time, an old ritual of theirs from the past.
“Did I ever tell you why I came to your house that day, after James and Lily were killed?” he asked suddenly, looking up from his notebook. Tonks had been staring at the places where her stocking feet touched his bare toes, and snapped her gaze up to his, trying to hide her blush.
“November 5th?” she asked, and he nodded, never taking his amber eyes away from hers. “I always assumed it was because you felt comfortable at our house and because you knew that we felt almost the same as you did.”
“That is why I came to your house, but not why I left my flat in the first place. I was lying on my couch, staring at the ceiling just like I had been for the past four days. I’d maybe eaten twice in that time, and mostly I alternated between just staring at the ceiling and sleeping. I don’t think I planned on ever getting up again. Then that morning, I heard Let It Be playing outside, car radio down the street or something. And I was so angry, that someone could be enjoying something that I loved in the midst of this enormous tragedy, that there could still be things in the world that were as beautiful as that song is, when it seemed like everything had ended.
“I jumped off the couch and I ran outside to, I don’t know, to do something about it, and I burst out of the building into this blinding sunshine and warmth. That’s what stopped me, the fact that on a November morning, it was warm and bright and the world had kept on spinning despite the fact that it felt like someone had ripped a giant wound in my soul. Suddenly the four people who were the most important to me had been violently torn away in what seemed like one motion.
“But standing there, in the sunshine, listening to that song? It made the hole seem less ragged. It didn’t make it okay, didn’t magically heal or fill the gap in my life. But it made the idea that someday, things would exist that might help to bridge that gap, that there would be a time when the world would seem okay again, it made that idea seem possible. I stood there for a while, until the song ended, and then I went back up to my flat, made myself a sandwich, changed my clothes and came over to your house. I started living again.”
They were silent for a minute after that, Tonks staring at their feet again, at the one long, pale scar that ran along the top of his left foot, from just below the nail of his big toe until it disappeared under the cuff of his pants, trying to remember the line she wanted to say.
“And when the broken hearted people living in the world agree, there will be an answer, let it be,” she whispered, not trusting her singing voice in the moment, the fragile, quiet moment that she didn’t want to shatter with her clumsiness.
“And when the night is cloudy, there is still a light, that shines on me, shine until tomorrow, let it be,” Remus whispered back, fingers gripping the metal spirals of his notebook tightly.
“I Want To Hold Your Hand,” she said, moving her gaze from their feet to Remus’s hand, the long fingers interlocking with the spine of his tattered notebook, concentrating on making the blush high on her cheeks disappear.
“What?” he said, cocking his head to the side with puzzlement.
She laughed, “No, I mean, that’s my favorite Beatles song, I Want To Hold Your Hand from Meet The Beatles!. It was the first Beatles song I ever heard, and I’ve loved it ever since.” Tonks didn’t say that she had first heard it performed by The Marauders in her living room, and only after hearing their version of the song had she worn out the record her father got her for her fifth birthday that year after much begging on her part.
“One of their best,” he said, fingers relaxing around his notebook as the recollections of those four days of November drifted back into his memory. “Such a simple love song, and yet, it’s inspired just about every love song since.”
Tonks nodded, smiling, glad that someone else understood the message she took from the song, “Exactly! It’s a song that’s as much about connection with another person, any person, as it is about love.”
“Yes, connection” Remus said, quietly, and Tonks saw that he was looking down at their feet, his having shifted just slightly as he’d leaned forward, his big toe now just barely touching hers, skin to skin, though a hole in her sock. Blushing suddenly, she looked away, fumbling to move off of the bed and stand.
“I suppose we should go check on my cousin,” she mumbled, but her natural clumsiness mixed with her scrambling urge to get away from Remus and left her sprawled on the floor. She squeezed her eyes shut as Remus gracefully lifted his longer frame from the bed, reaching out to help her up as usual. As soon as she was on her feet again, she moved away towards the door, too aware of the unusual yellow colors of his eyes, the clean, cottony smell of the t-shirt he wore, the warmth of his hand wrapped around hers.
“Yes, I suppose we should. Wouldn’t want him getting into too much trouble without us, would we?” he said, and Tonks relaxed a little under his puzzled gaze as he released her hand.
“Of course not. Where would the fun be in that?” she said, and he laughed as he followed her down the stairs and into the kitchen. Sirius gave them a suspicious look when they came into the room, but Tonks was relieved that Remus didn’t seem to catch it, and her cousin was soon distracted by a game of Exploding Snap.
~~~~
After November 5th, 1981, Remus found himself spending more time than ever at the Tonks’, mourning with them, and than celebrating with them, birthdays and holidays and days that weren’t anything special but were, because they were spent together. It was Ted and Andromeda who finally convinced Remus to continue the legacy of The Marauders by creating a solo album and going out on his own tour.
And he became Tonks’ best friend, because he felt the need to fill in for the other three, that she should be protected from the loss because no one could protect him from it. So he told her stories, read her books, sang her songs when she was little, and as she grew and headed off to Hogwarts, became her constant correspondent, helping her with homework and friends and to some extent boys, because just when everything seemed about to come crashing down on her head, a thick letter full of his neat handwriting would arrive and the world and all her problems seemed as light as air.
During the summers, they learned to play the guitar together, Remus always much better, experience winning out over her hours of practice, and discussed whatever they wanted, at first filling in the gaps of the past year with things that couldn’t be expressed in letters and then moving on to anything that came to mind.
And then there were the presents. Every year, without fail, every time the last day before Christmas break rolled around, Tonks received an envelope containing five tickets to Remus’s next concert and specific instructions to give them to people that liked her for her, not because she had Marauders tickets. And indeed, for about six hours she was the most popular girl in the school, and by following Remus’s instructions, she spent some of the best times of her life at those concerts with people who were still some of her best friends years later.
For her birthday, he always showed up with the sun on that summer day because she demanded that he give her his present as early as possible, since he refused to give her any hints. He simply laughed every time she mentioned it and complied. And the things he gave her: volumes of poetry, small pieces of jewelry, a new guitar every few years, and every single one of them personalized in some way.
At first she didn’t understand it, why he gave her all these fabulous gifts that must have cost him quite a bit of money, although he often wore worn shoes and oxfords that were a size too big, pants with thin knees and tatty hems. They were always neat and clean, but they made him look older than he really was. So she asked him one day, staring at the stone at the end of the thin gold chain in her hand, slowly changing color to match her hair.
“How come you always get me such nice, expensive presents, and yet you wear those things all the time?” she asked him, pointing to his favorite shoes, worn brown leather with thin, thin soles, but new shoelaces.
“They’re comfortable,” he said, but he was barely audible and wouldn’t meet her eyes. She had known him for far too long to miss the obvious signs.
“Remus, you can tell me. I love the gifts, I just want to know why,” she asked, and was surprised how young he looked when his amber eyes finally did meet her brown ones, how for the first time since that first day he’d shown up on their doorstep after Let It Be had reminded him what was so good about life, he looked like the young man who’d lost what felt like everything to the war he’d been fighting for what must have felt like his whole life.
“When I was little, even after I was accepted at Hogwarts, I knew that I wouldn’t ever be able to hold a job down very long because of my condition. Even if they didn’t actually find out that I was a werewolf, I would be missing at best one day a month and at worst three or four, and I wouldn’t be able to give them any kind of good explanation. I resigned myself to the fact that I wouldn’t ever have really nice things, and I was fine with that eventually.
“But I also realized that I wouldn’t ever be able to afford the kinds of gifts I would want to get for my friends, that I’d never really be able to show them how much they meant to me. And that hurt more than I imagined anything ever would, hurt more than any transformation I’d ever experienced, because my friends had given me so much, and it seemed like I’d never be able to give them even a fraction of that back.
“So when we signed with Yates and we got so famous and made so much off of royalties, it was like getting a whole new look at life. I’m the only one still receiving royalties, except for the percentage that goes to Harry’s inheritance, so my income has increased greatly since the others died. But these clothes are comfortable, I promise, and I suppose I just never got out of the mindset that teenage me put itself into before we’d ever even conceived of The Marauders.”
Tonks didn’t say anything, just handed him the necklace so he could help her put it on, and when he softly and simply answered “Beautiful.” to her question of how she looked, she wrapped her arms around him in a warm, tight hug.
But the best present Remus Lupin ever gave her was her graduation present. Tonks had been unpacking her Hogwarts trunk for a final time, planning to live at home for a little while as she started Auror training. She’d stopped for a moment to flip through the pages of an old poetry book she’d always kept by her bed, at Hogwarts or at home, when he’d knocked on the doorframe with a smile, two small black books, one old and one new, tucked under his arm.
“May I come in?” he’d asked, and she hadn’t even bothered to answer, abandoning the book on her bed and crossing to him in three steps to hug him tightly.
“Brought you a present,” he said, handing her the two books, “One’s a volume of poems I thought you might like. It’s always been one of my favorites, and that’s actually the first copy of it that I ever bought. I hope you don’t mind, it’s a little worn. And as for the other one, well, I thought it was time you had one. I’ve got a show in a few hours that I’ve got to go set up for, but I’ll swing by tomorrow, we’ll go out to lunch, my treat, to celebrate your graduation.”
And then he was gone almost as suddenly as he had appeared, the soft sounds of his footsteps down the stairs and out the door as he called good-bye to her parents. Tonks moved a stack of clothes to the floor to make room on the bed to sit down and opened the first book.
She forced herself to read the titles only, wanting to get her unpacking done before dinner, but she also noticed a few faint underlines or stars that Remus must have unconsciously used to mark his favorites. One in particular caught her eye, Dirge Without Music by Edna St. Vincent Millay, because several lines were underlined multiple times, as though no matter how many times Remus read the poem, he was always struck by those lines.
And as she read the poem slowly, she understood why. It was beautiful, and said so much about who Remus was and everything that he’d gone through and believed in, heartbreaking and inspiring at the same time. Unable to continue simply glancing at the titles because she now wondered if all the poems were as good as Dirge Without Music, she opened the other book to reveal completely blank pages, with the exception of the back of the front cover, where an inscription was written in Remus’s familiar small handwriting.
For a few seconds, she continued to flip through the pages, confused as to why Remus would give her a blank journal with no explanation other than the inscription, before she realized what it was. He had given her the one thing she’d always wanted, her own version of his beloved poetry notebook, to fill with her own favorites. And only he would know how badly she wanted that, the blank pages to fill with the wonderful words of others that described her so well.
She carefully copied Dirge Without Music on to the first page, and then went hunting through her collection for old favorites and new, spending a few hours immersed in the poetry. Her unpacking was nowhere close to finished by the time dinner rolled around, but Tonks found she didn’t care very much. Remus had re-given her the love of poetry that he’d first given to her all those years ago, though she’d never lost it. He’d shown her glimpses of that world, and now he’d given it to her for her very own.
~~~~
She found Remus in the small library on the second floor, one of the first rooms that Sirius and he had cleaned out upon entering Grimmauld Place. The main library had not been dealt with yet, so Remus used the smaller one as both a study and a place to store the books he needed for Order business. And, apparently, a place to grab a quick nap, as the tall man had folded himself into what was probably a fairly uncomfortable position on the short couch within.
Moving quietly through the room, trying not to wake him, aware of the fact that the full moon was only two days past, Tonks settled carefully into the armchair near his head. There was a book open on the floor next to him, one of his large hands marking the place, and she picked it up, retrieving the piece of paper lying on the ground by it to mark the place before glancing at the front cover: Guards! Guards! By Terry Pratchett. The book still in one hand, she unconsciously reached out and pushed the curls of Remus’s fringe away from his closed eyes. When her fingers brushed his forehead, he stirred slightly, and she barely managed to pull her hand away from his face before his eyelids fluttered and opened to reveal his unusual amber eyes.
“Hello,” he said, quietly, voice still a bit scratchy and slow from sleep.
“Hello,” she said back, looking anywhere but at his face, trying to hide her blush at nearly being caught. For a moment, there was an awkward silence as he looked up at her through lidded eyes and she gazed down at him, unmoving, her hand still hovering between them.
“Have you gotten a birthday present for me yet?” she asked, flipping through the pages of his book for something to do with her hands, because a single curl had escaped from his fringe and hung between his eyes.
“Of course,” he answered, solving the problem by sitting up slightly and pushing his fringe back himself.
“Oooh,” Tonks said, sitting up a little straighter in her seat, distracted from her embarrassment and Remus’s hair by the prospect of a present, “What is it?”
Remus laughed, “Well, it wouldn’t be much of a surprise present if I told you what it was, would it?”
She frowned and made a displeased noise. “Ughhh, not even a hint?”
“I think it’s the best gift I’ve ever gotten you,” he said, smiling, rubbing sleep out of his eyes as he looked up at her from his slumped position.
“Better than the necklace you got me a few years ago that says good morning whenever you open it?” she asked, and he smiled more.
“When you were seven, you told me a secret; that your favorite part of the day was the morning, because everyone said good morning to each other, no matter what kind of rush they were in,” Remus answered, moving slowly and stiffly to sit up next to her.
“And you remembered that all this time, some little tidbit that I told you when I was a kid?” she asked, wide-eyed, as he stretched his arms above his head and grimaced at the pain in his shoulder.
“It was just something that I’d always remembered, I guess. And I was looking for your present and there was the locket, which was beautiful and perfect for you, but I wanted to add a personal touch. The charm wasn’t all that complicated. Does it still work?” Remus asked, and Tonks nodded slowly, mutely, thinking how just this morning she had opened the locket to hear the soft ‘Good Morning’ issue out. But then she shook herself slightly and frowned at him.
“That wasn’t a good hint at all, Remus,” she whined, but he just laughed and stood to leave, reaching to retrieve the book she still held in her hands.
“I know you’ve struggled with patience your entire life, Dora, but perhaps this is finally the time where you find the as yet untapped well of it that I’m sure you have. You’ll just have to wait a few days to find out,” he said over his shoulder as he left the room.
“Don’t call me-!” she shouted after him, until she realized that he hadn’t called her by he despised first name. He’d called her Dora.
~~~~
She tried to wrestle more hints out of Remus in the days leading up to her birthday, but all he would do was smile that infuriating smile of his and exit the room with his book, tossing a quiet “Patience, Dora,” over his shoulder. So on the morning of her birthday, she showed up at Grimmauld Place very early, intent on making Remus give her the present as soon as possible.
Tonks had expected to find Remus already here, making Sirius a greasy breakfast to get over the latest hangover, or at the very least, Sirius asleep at the kitchen table, about to greet his latest hangover. But the kitchen was empty, save for a small box sitting on the counter, card propped up against.Nymphadora Tonks was written on the front of the card in a familiar hand.
Puzzled but eager, she flipped over the card while she poked at the box, which gave a slight rattle but otherwise gave no hint as to what it contained. Written across the back of the card in Remus’s straight, slightly leaning script was a single line: Thank you for your patience, Dora. I hope you like your present. Happy Birthday. Love, Remus.
Pulling the lid off the box, Tonks revealed a small cassette player and an unmarked cassette tape, which only piqued her curiosity further. Quickly, she slotted the tape into the machine and pressed play, turning the volume knob all the way up. The kitchen was suddenly filled with a low crackling sound, and then a familiar voice cut through with “Ready, Dora?”
She didn’t hear herself answer Remus, but must have done so, because suddenly there was music she recognized, and then Remus’s voice filled the room, accompanied by a squeaky, small one she realized must be her own. “Where did we go, days when the rains came?”
Tonks stood there in the kitchen, listening in awe to the tape, full of music and memories. She remembered the day this tape had been made, a rainy day in August, less than a month after the concert that had made The Marauders into legends. She remembered how worried she had been, that her favorite friends would have no time for her now that they were so famous.
And then that day they had burst into her house with their normal energy, Sirius scooping her up to twirl her around over and over and over before sitting her on the ground and telling her that the band needed her help desperately. They turned the living room into a temporary recording studio and spent the whole day there, recording anything and everything that she had asked them to.
Most times, it was her small, childish voice joining Remus’s, but on some of the songs, she could tell that she must have been playing the bass or drums. Four songs after Brown Eyed Girl, the recording got clearer, and she realized it must be from a different session, songs she recognized from Rise Like Lions, but in between the songs, she could hear bits of talking, discussing the name for the album. These songs must have been from one of the early sessions on Lions because she knew they’d decided on the name early on in the process.
Then the tracks grew fuzzy again, even harder to hear than the first five songs on the tape, but she recognized what they must be immediately. Tonks remembered her mother trying to pay Sirius, but Sirius and the others insisting that she had more than paid for them with all her help, remembered being in the stadium that day, as Remus and his friends had changed the world, remembered how her father had handed her the ticket she’d used that day and told her never to lose it, because she would want to remember this June day forever.
As the last roar from the crowd cut off, a much clearer voice cut in, Remus’s, saying, “Happy Birthday, Dora, I hope you’ve liked your present so far. And I hope this makes it even better than the necklace I gave you.”
And then Remus’s clear, wonderful voice filled the room, “Oh yeah, I’ll tell you something, I think you’ll understand, when I say that something, I want to hold your hand.” Remus was singing her favorite Beatles’ song, possibly her favorite song ever, for her birthday, and she stood transfixed as it washed over her until it ended and the tape player clicked off. Carefully, she ejected the tape, staring at it in her hand for a long moment.
She took off running then, not caring about her clumsiness, or anything else, because she had to find Remus, and tell him, make him understand what this meant to her. But when she reached the second floor and saw him emerging out of the library, Tonks froze, unable to say or do anything but stare at him. He seemed to be in a somewhat similar state, but managed a quiet, “Morning, Nymphadora, and happy birthday,” in what seemed to be a fairly normal voice.
“You called me Dora,” she said, finding words finally, quietly, reverently, as if by saying the words she might make them untrue and shatter the fragile hold she had on herself now, “On the tape, you called me Dora.” Remus nodded. “And the other day, in the library, you called me Dora.” Another nod. “And,” she said, as the realization dawned on her, “every time I asked you about the present, you called me Dora.” He nodded once more before speaking.
“You said you wanted a hint,” he shrugged before continuing, “I think you were about six and a half when most of those songs were recorded. A few weeks after that was when you realized that you could go by Tonks, and by doing so, avoid being called by your first name while still being very attached to your identity, which was important to you even then.
“The others all took to it, and even your mother grudgingly accepted it, though I think she just hoped it was a phase that you would grow out of in a month or two, but I’ve always missed calling you Dora. I thought it suited you very well. I still think it suits you very well.”
“And is that why you’re always calling me Nymphadora?”
Remus shook his head. “No, I call you Nymphadora because I always enjoy annoying you slightly, and also because it’s a beautiful name for a beautiful girl. But I’ve always liked Dora more. It means gift, you know.”
For a minute that felt like hours and hours and hours, Tonks just stood and stared at Remus, the tape still held in the limp fingers of one hand. He studied the two feet of worn carpet between them, one hand jammed into the pocket of his jeans and the other alternating between pushing his fringe away from his eyes and fussing with the collar of his dark oxford.
Suddenly, without realizing what she was doing until her hand touched his, she reached out as his fingers left his fringe to travel towards his collar and intercepted it, her fingers twining around his. They stood, suddenly nearer each other than they had been moments before, fingers laced as the both of them looked down at their intertwined hands.
Tonks wanted to ask if he’d meant all of the things he’d sang on that tape, if that last song was a message as much as a gift, but his fingers were so warm around hers and he was so close, amber eyes now fixed on hers, closer, closer, closer. And as his nose brushed against hers softly, she realized it didn’t matter if he’d really meant those words, if he’d used the song to say things he didn’t think he could have otherwise, because nothing could matter as much as this moment.
Remus smelled like paper, ink, soap, something distinctly him underneath it all, something familiar that she could not identify. His breath was warm over her lips and she lost the battle to keep her eyes open as she realized what it was. Remus was warm and solid through his shirt; his hair soft at the back where her free hand had come to rest, and he smelled like, felt like, was home. He was memory and song and warmth and love, love, love for Tonks, whether he said out loud or not. Her hand tightened around Remus’s as their lips met.
She tried to remember who had initiated the kiss, whether she had pushed up on her toes or he’d leaned down towards her, but his lips were soft and warm over hers, fingers still warm and tight around hers, and who started the kiss seemed very, very unimportant in comparison to the actual kiss. His free hand left his pocket to skirt over her hip and shoulder lightly, before settling it against her cheek, tilting her head back slightly for better access, fingers threading through the short hair by her ear.
~~~~
Singing when Tonks was in the audience, he decided, was like the feeling in the air during that note, that all encompassing feeling of energy and insanity, the heaviness of wet, hot air and knowing that things were right and good in the world and nothing bad could ever happen.
But kissing Tonks was different. Kissing Tonks was the moments after, cool darkness and quiet, the wood of the stage against his back and learning to breath again. That was what it felt like: new, burning oxygen and coming home.
He pulled away, hands still framing her face, his forehead resting against hers for a moment, trying to catch his breath, before he whispered, “My brown eyed girl.”
She smiled, laughed, and his lungs burned with sudden happiness and the need to move, so he wrapped his arms around her waist and picked her up, twirled around and around and sang, nonsense words and sha-la-la-las in between kisses. There were things that would need to be worried about, he knew, as the light caught the pale scars on his forearms, as he felt the post-transformation ache in his shoulders and knees, but none of those things were important in that moment, had no place in that bubble of breath and joy.
He voiced them a little though, giving into his lifelong role as the responsible one, nothing specific, just a whisper against her lips, “This might be hard.”
“I know,” she whispered back.
“People are going to look at you differently once they know.”
“Because I’ve snagged myself a dashing older rock star?”
Remus laughed softly, “Thank you for that, but no. The entire world knows I’m a werewolf, Dora. There will be people who are not all right with us being together, people who you never would have guessed would object until you see the look on their faces when we walk in holding hands,” he sighed, closed his eyes as he pressed his forehead to hers, didn’t want to worry about this right now. He opened his eyes to see her still smiling. “This might be hard.”
“I know. I’ll just have to learn to turn the other cheek as well as you do. Or some really imaginative curses,” she said, and for a moment, Remus had no idea what to do with her, this wonderful, crazy woman with her pink hair and her laugh and her ability to make him forget everything in the world except for her. So he just wrapped his arms around her waist again, pulled her close to him, breathed in the smell of her hair. Her fingers traced over the pale skin of his arms, lingered for a minute at the bends of his elbows before continuing up his arms.
“Coming to my show tonight?” he asked, as her hands reached the collar of his shirt and slid under softly, warm through the thin fabric.
“I don’t know. Can I request a song for my birthday?”
“Mmmm,” he said, humming into her hair.
“Moondance,” she whispered, and for a moment, she wondered if he had heard her, until his arms loosened around her and he leaned back to look into her eyes.
“I’ll have to talk to your cousin,” he said softly, and she nodded. Taking a deep breath, he reluctantly removed his arms from her waist and moved past her to head down to the kitchen, where he hoped Sirius was already up and started on his breakfast.
Pausing outside the kitchen door, Remus took another deep breath and walked in, hands shoved into his pockets and shoulders slumped. Sirius was at the stove, three whole eggs next to him on the counter along with the shells of two more.
“Morning, Moony, you’re here early. That part of your present to Tonksy?” he asked, pointing the spatula he’d been using to flip the eggs already cooking at the tape recorder left on the table, and Remus nodded before speaking.
“Yes. I took some of our old recording sessions- the one at Andi and Ted’s house with her, the first one we did for Rise Like Lions- and the recordings we have of the June concert, and put them on a mix tape.”
“Bet she loved that. She’s already here, right? Never could wait for her presents that one,” he said affectionately as he cracked another egg.
“That’s actually why I wanted to talk to you. She requested a song for my concert tonight. Moondance. I wanted to- I wanted to make sure we were okay with each other about that whole thing. I know we didn’t really talk about it, just sort of let it pass, but I don’t- I don’t want to hurt you again. I know how important that song is to you.”
Sirius stood completely still for a moment, the only sound in the kitchen the sizzling of the eggs, before he spoke, “Of course it’s fine, Moony. I was stupid, about that song. I understand. It’s just hard, you know, hearing how all those people who used to be fans of mine could turn against me for something I didn’t actually do. But of course, Remus, go ahead and play it. You don’t have to tell the story if you don’t want to, if you think that would help.”
“Of course I’m going to tell the story, Padfoot. What else could I do?” Remus answered after a few moments, and Sirius smiled and laughed as the last two eggs were added to the pan before he crossed the room to hug his friend quickly.
“When did you start taking song requests from Tonks anyway? In the past, you’ve never taken song requests from anyone before the show, only during it,” he said, glancing over his shoulder after he’d returned to the stove.
“Well, er,” said Remus, caught off guard by the question and scrambling for any answer that wasn’t the actually answer, “It’s her birthday, and this will be like the thousandth The Marauders concert she’s been to and-“
But Sirius had known him too long and whirled around at the stove to study him suspiciously. Remus could feel himself blushing, just slightly, but enough to give his friend the last bit of evidence he needed to figure out the truth and dash out of the kitchen, calling over his shoulder “Watch my eggs!”
Remus heard a small shriek from upstairs as he moved the spatula around the pan, and Sirius entered the kitchen a minute later, arms wrapped around Tonks’s waist. Once fully inside the room, he spun around, laughing, and she was caught up in it as well, until they were both dizzy and out of breathe.
When he’d finally put her down, he said, “Well, go on, go over there and stand by him.” Giving her cousin a quizzical look, she nonetheless followed his instructions and moved over to where Remus still stood by the stove.
“Just let me be the first to offer my congratulations to the two of you,” he said, and Tonks laughed as she remembered his words from the other day, crossing the room to hug him tightly again. Remus followed her, trying to hand Sirius his spatula back, but the two cousins pulled him into the hug anyway and he came more willingly than he was willing to admit. After a few seconds, Sirius pulled away, seizing the spatula from Remus and moving back to his eggs with an energy that Remus remembered from the days before Azkaban, but hadn’t seen nearly as often since.
“Well, you two sit down, and I’ll fix you breakfast, Tonks in honor of her birthday, and Moony on obviously being very charming, since he is simply not attractive enough to have gotten my lovely cousin on looks alone.”
“Thank you, Padfoot,” said Remus, rolling his eyes as he wound his fingers with Tonks’s under the table, while she filled in with, “I happen to think he’s very handsome.”
“Shows what you know, Tonksy,” he said, reaching for the kettle, and the other two just shook their heads and settled down to wait for their breakfast. The three of them talked while Sirius cooked, and Remus couldn’t remember a time when he’d felt quite like this, Sirius happy and Tonks’s warm hand wrapped inside his.
~~~~
Remus had always loved being on stage, with his friends or by himself, as long as he was singing, but he’d never known how much more he’d love being up on stage when he was only twelve hours removed from kissing Nymphadora Tonks for the first time. This bar was one of his favorites, and he’d played here about a dozen times on this current round of concerts. The place was packed, some people settling down to dinner at the many tables, while others sat more towards the front, drinks in hand as they cheered his walk onto the stage.
He found Tonks sitting at one of the front tables as he slung his guitar strap over his shoulder, and she smiled at him as he bent over the microphone slightly, trying to hide his own huge smile as he sang, “I can’t get no satisfaction.”
He finished Satisfaction and waited a moment for the applause for the familiar song to die down before he spoke, “This song goes out to someone very special, who loves this song just as much as I do. Hey, where did we go, days when the rains came? Down in the hollow, playin’ a new game.” Tonks smiled at him again as he continued, and he was glad he hadn’t sat down again as he hit the bridge, because he wanted her to understand how much this song meant to him, to them.
“With you, my brown eyed girl, you my brown eyed girl.”
The crowd applauded again when he finished the last set of sha-la-las, and he sat down to catch his breath a moment, and to tell the story that needed to be told. He began when the bar had fallen almost completely silent in anticipation of the next song.
“I don’t know how many of you were around when The Marauders were all together as one band, still fairly new to the whole concert thing,” he paused for a few seconds to allow the cheers of those who hadbeen there to die down again, “Still trying to hash out a good set list that we could all agree on. And I really, really wanted to play my favorite Van Morrison song, Brown Eyed Girl, but,” and he paused for another moment, taking one, two, three long breathes, eyes focusing on the guitar balanced carefully on his lap before he looked back out over the crowded bar, “Well, Sirius thought that it was far too sappy and far too sad, but he eventually agreed to play the song, but he made me promise that any time we played Brown Eyed Girl, we would play Moondance, which Sirius sincerely believed to be the sexiest song ever written that wasn’t a Rolling Stones song. Also, I think he was a big fan of the use of the word fantabulous.”
She could see the relief that washed over his face as the crowd laughed at the small joke, fingers adjusting into the first chord as he continued, “And so, because I played my Van Morrison song, here’s Sirius’s. Well it’s a marvelous night for a moondance, with the stars above in your eyes. A fantabulous night to make romance, ‘neath the cover of October skies.”
~~~~
He’d stood halfway through the first line, sliding the stool back a little with his foot, and leaned into the microphone, his voice soft and intimate, sending a shiver down Tonks’s spine as she watched, idly trailing her finger around the lip of her beer. She could feel the crowd getting sucked in as well, with every chord from the old guitar and every word quietly sung, people moving closer to the stage, and she realized something: of course they were going up there for Remus, sucked in by his easy command of the stage, but they were also crowding around the stage to hear Sirius’s song, to be reminded of that time and that boy, that rock star, that they had missed so much for so long.
Remus sat again when he was finished, and seemed to just think for a moment, a blank look on his face before pulled the guitar off over his head and moved the microphone and stool over to the piano before speaking again.
“I play this song more than I play Moondance, but I think it’s been a while since I told the story about it properly. This is a song that Peter and I wrote together, which is not unusual in and of itself, because Peter and I wrote a lot of songs together. He had a knack for choruses and I had a talent for verses, but this song is different, because Peter wrote the verses, about a friend of his who struggled with depression, and I wrote the chorus for him, because he told me he couldn’t figure out a way to simplify it enough to make people understand what he was trying to say. And this song has always been one of my favorites that we ever played.”
The bar was quiet again as the lonely opening notes fell from the piano, but people moved toward the stage again, for Peter’s song as they had Sirius’s, the music transcending anything that they’d done all those years ago, whether the people in the crowd accepted the truth or not.
“She can tell by the storm clouds in sight, weatherman says five inches by tonight, oh and in the rain, the world doesn’t look the same, and the skies open up and the heavens cry, and I swear the saddest girl in the world’s never known a tear in her life.”
Tonks saw it suddenly, who Remus was singing to. Not Peter now, who betrayed Remus as much as he betrayed any of the others and left him alone untouched by death or prison to live out the story, but the Peter of his memories. The round little boy who wrote those simple choruses for all the songs Remus couldn’t condense himself, who kept a steady beat as James and Sirius went off on their own tangents, both on stage and in life. Remus was remembering and honoring his long lost friend the only way he knew how.
“When it rains she dances, when it rains she dances, when it rains she dances, afraid she’ll lose her mind. When it rains she dances, when it rains she dances, when it rains she dances, keeps no track of time. When it rains she dances, when it rains she dances, when it rains she dances, ooooh, how she dances. When it rains she dances, and I wish the saddest girl in the world was mine.”
When he finished, he met her eyes for just a moment, and she could see the tears, just at the edges of his amber eyes, a certain glassiness evident before he turned back to the piano and the next song.
~~~~
Tonks waited by the side of the stage for Remus to appear, watching the next band set up and tune. There was still no sign of him as the lead singer for Three AM stepped up to the microphone, guitar hanging loosely in front of him.
“ I’m Sebastian, we’re Three AM, and all we can really say is that we’re very honored that Remus Lupin himself would play before us on this stage, and he actually requested that we do a song, and you know, who are we to deny a request from Remus Lupin?” This drew a laugh from the crowd, Tonks included, before he continued, “So this is for his brown eyed girl.”
And just as the singer on stage spoke the words, she heard them behind her as well, my replacing his, and she turned around to find him there, leaning against the wall, hands in his pockets as the opening chords of I Want To Hold Your Hand reached her ears.
“I wondered why you didn’t play this song,” she said, and he pushed away from the wall, moving towards her as Sebastian started, “ Oh, yeah, I’ll tell you something, I’ll think you’ll understand, when I say that something, I want to hold your hand.”
“Well, if I’d sang it, I wouldn’t have gotten the chance to dance with you during it, would I?” he asked, wrapping one hand around hers and the other arm around her waist, pulling her close.
After a few seconds she rested her head against his chest, and they swayed in silence for a minute, until Tonks broke it. “This kid’s pretty good.” Remus nodded, his chin moving gently against the top of her head where he’d been resting it.
“Yes, nice fellow, too. Plays seven different instruments, though his vocal range could expand a little. Told me he’s working on it, loves doing covers of our songs, but always has to take When It Rains She Dances down a little in the chorus because he can’t reach a few of the notes very well.”
She sighed, shaking her head, “Only you would notice something like that,” she said, and Remus joined in with the song quietly, taking each line up a step or two until it finally broke, partly from the note and partly because he was laughing so hard. As the song ended, he leaned down and kissed her suddenly, and though it was still new, it felt like she’d been doing it for a long time, the way their lips moved together.
When they finally broke apart, the next song had already started, and Tonks pulled Remus out of the shadow of the side of the stage, on to the main dance floor out among all the other people. They danced together for the three faster songs Three AM played next, holding hands as Remus twirled her and they laughed and sang along with the rest of the crowd.
“Glad you’re all enjoying yourselves tonight, and as a thank you to you all for sticking around after Remus’s set, were going to play our favorite song by The Marauders. It’s a little slower than they play it, but we really like it this way, and we hope you do too.” Clearing his throat, Sebastian leaned close to the microphone, fingers going slightly white as he wrapped them tightly around the neck of the guitar. “I was trying to write a song for you, just so I could sing it for you, to tell you how I love you, couldn’t get it started, not a single part of it, not a single line of it at all, so let’s just dance instead.”
Tonks and Remus moved closer almost immediately, his arms wrapping around her waist once again as hers draped over his shoulders and around his neck. He smelled warm and safe, and a bit like the beer he’d been drinking a few minutes before. Three AM continued, much slower than the original, and Tonks spoke up after a few minutes, “I like this version.”
Remus laughed softly and nodded, “I do too. It’s almost like an entirely different song.” They fell silent after that, the song soft, slow and lovely in the background. Every once and a while, one of Remus’s hands would travel up her side and over her shoulder to cup her cheek and bring her lips to his in a soft kiss for a moment before it returned to its original position.
“I’m scared, I think, maybe,” he whispered, suddenly, surprising her though he was barely audible over the music. He moved their joined hands to rest over his heart, and Tonks could feel his heartbeat against the back of her hand, strong and slightly fast, the adrenaline from the show not having worn off yet.
“Scared of what?” she asked, mesmerized by the differences in their hands for a moment. His were darker, calloused along the top of his palm, much larger with much longer fingers than hers, pale and tiny with his wrapped around it.
“Of messing this up. Of what’s going to happen next in this war. Of tomorrow, and the next day, and the next full moon.”
Tonks stared up at him, long bangs falling into amber eyes, and she remembered him younger, book tucked under one arm in the doorway of her father’s study, reading poetry over her shoulder with a smile. She pushed up on to her toes to whisper into his ear.
“I am not resigned to the shutting away of loving hearts in the hard ground,” she said, and she could almost feel the worn edges of the slim volume where she’d first read that poem, the faint black line where his hand had unconsciously underlined those words again and again, the inscription in the front in his straight, small handwriting: Poetry is important. Share it with the people you love. –RL
“More precious was the light in your eyes than all the roses in the world,” he said back, staring at her for a moment, eyes locked on hers with an intensity she had always associated with Remus and his music, but now was only for her. And then he was suddenly tugging on her hand, pulling her through the crowded bar and out into the empty street under the warm summer rain.
Once they’d gotten away from the crowd and out the door, he whipped off his jacket and wrapped it around her, using it to pull her close again.
“Such a gentleman,” Tonks joked as she wound her arms around his neck while his large hands spanned her waist. For a while, they simply swayed, the music from the club barely audible. But then the tempo and volume of the song inside the club increased and suddenly Remus grabbed her hand and pulled away.
“We’ll catch our death out here,” she said, trying and failing to look serious as he spun her again and again.
“Then we’ll die dancing!” he shouted, pulling her tight to his chest, and she giggled at the water dripping off his curls, at the spark in his eyes, at his sudden loud enthusiasm. He kissed her suddenly, hard, and she could taste beer and Remus for a moment before he pulled away again to shout, “We’ll die happy and free, and what more could any man ask but to dance with a pretty girl in the summer rain, anyway?” She giggled some more, wondering if he spoke in volumes of poetry when he was young, making a note to ask Sirius when she saw him next.
She thought of her own memories of a younger Remus, how he’d taught her all the best things about poetry and music, how he’d brightened almost every day he’d been in, even the most horrible ones. And now she thought of how safe she felt in this moment, this tiny little globe of her and Remus and love.
She loved him for a lot of reasons. But she loved him the most because he felt safe and warm, like home, no matter what was happening.
~~~~
Remus knew that it wouldn’t always be this perfect, wouldn’t always be just the two of them trapped in a world all their own made up of summer rain and soft music just at the edge of hearing. When they arrived home, it was just as likely that a brooding, drunk Sirius awaited them as it was that his happy mood from this morning had lasted through the day, and tomorrow they would still wake up in the middle of a war that it seemed everyone wanted to ignore. In a week and a half, they would have to go retrieve Harry from his terrible relatives; Harry Potter, with Lily’s eyes and James’s face, the last, best hope for the Order, for the wizarding world, the last great hope for the existence of the world his parents had fought for.
And who knew when this war would end, and how, and who would be there at the end of it to pick up the pieces and strive to create the world that Remus’s friends had died for, that Remus, like Harry, had lost and sacrificed so much for.
But Remus didn’t want perfection all the time. He knew that perfection came in small, wonderful bursts: in a new song he liked or an old favorite, in the well worn pages of his beloved poetry books, in the moments when Sirius wasn’t drunk or stuck in the past, but was bright and passionate and happy. And in these moments with Dora, her small, warm body close to his in a quiet world that was full of rain and music and love and nothing else.
Remus didn’t want perfect. He just wanted those small bursts. He just wanted Dora.
Please leave feedback for this author HERE
Author(s): mzmtiger
Fandom(s): Harry Potter
Pairing(s): Remus Lupin/Nymphadora Tonks
Word Count: 25,077
Rating/Warnings: K+ (just a tiny bit of language)
Beta: My friend Hailey
Summary: "Music is love in search of a word." --Sidonie Gabrielle. Band!AU During the first war with Voldemort, soon after leaving Hogwarts, Remus Lupin and his fellow Marauders became one of the best known wizarding bands of all time. Now, with the second war looming, a moody Sirius on his hands, and growing feelings for Nymphadora Tonks, Remus must learn how to balance his life as a rock star and his role in the Order once again, all while trying to keep his sanity and friendships in tact. And how will Tonks react when she finds herself falling for her cousin's best friend, the quiet musician she's known almost her whole life?
Author's notes: FINISHED AND IT FEELS SO GOOD.
~~~~~
Sirius was strumming the opening of Wild Horses against his chest, chair pushed back on to two legs, long hair hanging down in front of his face, and Remus found himself humming along, the words fuzzy but the rhythm sure as Sirius plucked the soft bass line out with his fingers and voice. Remus cringed at how off-key even that was, and turned back to his book. Sirius rolled his eyes and leaned forward, snatching the book from between Remus’s fingers with a click of the chair legs.
“What are you reading now? ‘Play The Piano Drunk Like A Percussion Instrument Until The Fingers Begin To Bleed A Bit’? Bloody hell, Moony, what type of title is that?” he asked, scooting back from the table to keep out of Remus’s longer reach.
“It’s Bukowski,” he said, sighing and continuing at Sirius’s blank stare, “Charles Bukowski. American Poet.”
“Agh!” said Sirius, dropping the book on the table as though burned and pushing back his chair even further. Remus rolled his eyes and reached across for it, flicking through to find his place before settling back in his chair again. Sirius had never been a fan of poetry, unless it was about beautiful women and very short, and was consistently puzzled by Remus’s interest in it.
“Before this moment, I was unaware that humans could actually produce that sound, Padfoot. Thank you for enlightening me.”
“Come on, Moony! I’m bored and all you’re doing about it is reading depressing poetry.”
“And how do you know it’s depressing? Read a lot of Bukowski, do you?”
“It mentions blood in the title! Anything that mentions blood in the title is by law required to be depressing! And you never denied that it was depressing,” said Sirius, talking in exclamation points as usual when he was bored, attempting to lean back in his chair with a smug grin of victory, but being stopped by the counter.
Remus laughed as Sirius tried to scoot the chair forward while still tilted backwards with minimal success, “It’s not all depressing. Some of it is quite inspiring. we should build a great bonfire, we should congratulate ourselves on our endurance. And later, the generals and doctors may kill us but we have won. That’s just brilliant, Padfoot.”
“Moony,” said Sirius, as he attempted to untangle himself from his chair, which had gone over backwards, “you’re concentrating on the wrong part of that sentence. See, you heard ‘depressing poetry’ and leapt to defend it. The important part of that sentence was ‘I’m bored’.
“And what am I supposed to do about it? The others will be here in,” Remus paused to glance at the watch face at the inside of his wrist, “less than a half hour, and, I would like to place special emphasis on this point, you are a grown man.” He spoke the last five words as though to a small child who’d just been Confunded. “Why don’t you go play your bass for a while? I know you’ve still got some Stones stuff memorized, and you’ve been complaining so much lately about how you feel out of practice.” But Sirius seemed to be placing special emphasis on the ‘important’ part of the sentence again, and had hopped up to stare out the one tiny, dirty window in the basement kitchen, which really looked out on nothing but a patch of dead grass and the flat back tire of a rusty car, but to Sirius contained most of what he currently saw of the outside world.
“They’re bringing Tonksy along today, aren’t they? Merlin, it’s been…” Sirius trailed off as he tried to calculate how long it had been since he’d last seen his little cousin, and Remus filled in the gap for him.
“Thirteen years, two months.”
Silence reigned in the kitchen as they remembered, a bright sunny day in March, a few days after Remus’s birthday, the first day without rain in what felt like months, Andromeda’s new garden full of bright, bright colors and Ted’s poetry collection full of all the words that Remus wished he could write and Sirius could never understand. And in the middle of it all, a nine-year-old girl with a shock of pinkish spikes, who seemed to be sucking up energy from the sun, bouncing around the four of them in anticipation of their music and fun.
Remus remembered Sirius, sitting in a corner with her, fitting her fingers over the strings of his huge black bass, making up silly little rhymes to help her remember the notes. Sometimes, when he hummed old Stones songs and let his hair fall in front of hollow eyes, Remus could almost imagine him as the carefree boy Sirius had still been at 22.
“I remember. It was just before that show where James blew a string in the second song, ‘cause the idiot had tuned it to within an inch of its life with that spell he liked to use, and he just kept playing. His solos were full of these bloody holes, and he just had that stupid grin on his face the whole time. Nothing stopped him from enjoying himself on stage.” Sirius paused for a moment, shaking his head. “He always used that damn spell.”
It was the only thing Remus knew of that Sirius and James hadn’t eventually come to agree on. They would sit next to each other, messy, dark hair hiding their faces, James patiently tapping each string with his wand, Sirius adjusting tuners minutely by hand over and over again. Shoulders touching, voices low, they’d never looked more like brothers.
Remus thought for a moment, about how he’d never felt so close to the others as in that time before they took the stage, in the cool and quiet before the heat and noise of the moment overtook them. In those moments where they were still just boys, and not yet rock stars.
~~~~
Really, it had started because of a dare, if you thought about it. It was as though the universe was daring the four of them to come together and do this thing, and if there was one thing the Marauders had never able to say no to, it was a dare.
So at fifteen, upon returning from Christmas break, with Remus’s tattered notebook of half-finished songs and two old guitars, constructing Peter’s drum set out of textbooks with broken spines and rusty pots nicked from the kitchens, the four friends had capitalized the T in front of their nickname and set off to rule the world.
It had been a slow, gradual conquering, because they were young and hopeful with talent and drive, but they had nothing to play and nothing to play it on. But in March of that year, Remus’s father sent him a worn book of Shakespeare’s sonnets and a tape, half Beatles and half Stones, with a note that said Poetry is important. Share it with the people you love. -JL Remus Spello-taped the note and Sonnet 18 above his bed, Sirius learned to play Satisfaction within a week while James bummed a pack of magic candy cigarettes from a seventh year and Peter found a huge pot with a mysterious green crust around the edge which probably wasn’t toxic that worked perfectly as a bass drum.
Remus spent much of a very hot March in the dark dormitory sitting on his bed, surrounded by papers in his small handwriting, some of the words his own, some from his father’s tape or book. The other three sat with him sometimes: Sirius with his bass hugged near him, James drawing rhymes in the air with his wand lazily, Peter with his knack for writing simple choruses to fill the spaces between Remus’s more complicated verses.
Sirius and James had all the Stones songs from the tape memorized by the time April came around, and Peter seemed to agree with their taste, though he did enjoy Sgt. Pepper’s because Ringo sang. The other two were quick to forbid him from following that example, instead choosing to fill the dorm with their own off key renditions of Satisfaction and Ruby Tuesday. The Rolling Stones were new to the two purebloods, and they embraced them happily and fiercely as kindred spirits.
The early days had been made of little triumphs, of new guitar strings and bridges that fit the sound of a song, days and nights spent in sweat and laughter inside a tiny, unused classroom down a dusty corridor. They’d spread their books out between them and study between songs, collapsed on the floor in a circle, Remus’s worn tape playing in the background.
They had four covers and three original songs by the last Hogsmeade weekend of the year, and while James and Sirius dragged Peter to a used clothing shop at the edge of the village, Remus wandered, singing Let It Be and When It Rains She Dances under his breath. Lily walked with him a little, and he sang her parts of their originals, let her smile at him during I Am Unable without feeling guilty.
Finally, a week before finals, when rehearsals had been replaced with more studying time, Sirius strode into the room, their room, wearing a baggy red plaid shirt and dark jeans, and announced that they were ready. Remus just rolled his eyes while Peter and James jumped to their feet. And so the plan was set in motion, quietly, secretly, in between study sessions and classes and very little sleep.
They moved breathlessly through the castle and over the grounds in dusk and dawn, setting up, making sure everything they needed was in place. Peter took to wearing his leather jacket under his robes and James spent hours trying to perfect his hair, as Remus hunched over books and Sirius hunched over his bass.
When the last day of tests came, the four of them raced out into the hot sun, laughing, insane and happy and ready, Sirius pulling off his robe to reveal red plaid, Peter his leather jacket from the shop in Hogsmeade and James plain blue jeans and a plain white shirt, candy cigarette clamped between his lips giving off its pale, sugary smoke. Remus had still worn his uniform, had purchased no special clothes for the event, but pulled off his tie and pushed the sleeves of his shirt to his elbows, grabbed the charmed microphone from the stage as a group formed around them. By this time, most of the school knew that running Marauders meant something exciting was happening.
They opened with Satisfaction and ended with Let It Be, mixing Beatles and Stones with their own songs, and the crowd steadily grew, drawn in by the music and the excitement of something new and strange. And the four boys on the stage had never felt quite like this, as though they were made of pure energy and sound, the world at their feet as it never had been before. When it was over, Remus pushed his long hair back from his face and smiled out over the crowd of students while Sirius and James jumped off the stage to mingle and Peter stared out at all of it in amazement.
Remus woke up in the hospital wing after the last full moon of the school year with Lily sitting next to his bed, humming I Am Unable, and he was sure he’d never been this happy in his entire life.
He spent the summer writing and teaching himself to play the piano, swimming in the lake behind his house and reading poetry along the shore when the heat of his room grew stifling. Once a week, his father drove him into town and Remus wandered the cramped aisles of the small music store there, fingers running over the thin sleeves of the records and the plastic cases of the cassettes. Most of his savings that summer were spent on music, new and old, popular and unknown, anything that caught his eye in the dim lights of the tiny shop.
Sirius left home in late June, walked out of his parents’ house while his mother screamed and his father scowled, bass under his arm, humming Wild Horses under his breath. He moved into the Potter’s and Remus found that he and Peter were drawn there as well, some inexplicable force pulling them all to the huge house. They practiced in a basement room of the huge house, with a real drum set and fair acoustics, and when Remus’s voice began to scratch and Sirius and James’s fingers grew sore from the metal strings, they just sat around, writing, listening to music, talking.
And that’s all Remus had ever expected it to be, the four of them crowded together in small rooms, laughing and playing, losing themselves in the music as the world swirled hectically around them. How wrong he had been.
~~~~
He hadn’t changed a bit.
Well, that wasn’t true. There was a darkness around his eyes that hadn’t been there before, and his skin had the slight yellowish quality of malnutrition and sadness, but the crooked, manic smile was the same, and he wore the dark jeans and red plaid she could remember her mother teasing him about.
She realized now that he was only a little taller than her, no longer looked down at her through his long dark bangs, had lost that advantage in the time since she’d last seen him, his nose touching her forehead as they hugged. They stayed that way for a long time, as though maybe lost time could be made up if they embraced for long enough. Eventually though, Sirius pressed a quick kiss to her forehead and moved her out to arm’s length.
“You grew up. Who told you that you were allowed to do that, little cousin?” he said, and Tonks smiled, reached to push him away playfully, remembered how much she’d missed him. “Kept the hair though, I see. It suits you.” He reached up to touch the pink spikes gently, moved more carefully than she ever remembered him moving when she was small. There was a sort of reverence now, as though each moment was breakable.
“Hello, Nymphadora,” said Remus, from behind Sirius, and she looked up at the more familiar voice, dark button-up, faded jeans, long sandy hair curling at the ends. He had always seemed toweringly tall to her, impossibly angular and skinny, but his embrace was full of easy warmth and old affection.
“I’ve spent my entire life telling you not to call me that, and yet every time I see you, I have to explain it all over again. My name is Tonks,” she said, swatting him on the shoulder, and Sirius laughed.
“He still hasn’t caught on yet? Moony, mate, I knew you were slow, but she’s been Tonks for about two and a half decades now,” he said, looking over his shoulder at his taller friend.
“Of course, my apologies, Nymphadora,” Remus said, and Sirius laughed again as Tonks glowered at him. Before she could speak though, he cut in, moving back around the table and flopping down into his chair once again.
“So, little cousin, welcome to my humble home, the Ancient and Noble House of Black, headquarters of The Order of the Phoenix. Lovely, isn’t?” he said, spreading his arms wide as though to encompass the whole of the filth and general stuffy atmosphere of the house.
Tonks looked around the kitchen, glancing toward Remus before answering, “It’s about what I was expecting, honestly. Though I haven’t seen much of it,” she answered, as the heavy clump of Moody and his wooden leg came down the stairs. Remus and Moody had both worked to recruit Tonks, bringing her slowly into the fold of the Order over lunches and training sessions, both of them wanting her to know what she was getting into before they showed her headquarters. She’d rolled their eyes at their protective instincts, but appreciated the warning she’d been given about the state of the house, and the state of her cousin.
“Well, lass, you got your fill yet? Your lunch break won’t last forever, and it won’t do to be barely in the Order and already bringing Scrimgeour’s suspicion down on your head,” said Moody, nodding hello to Sirius and Remus as he dropped heavily into Remus’s vacated chair.
“Oh, calm down, Mad-Eye, I’ve still got a half hour, and I’ve already eaten. Plus, I’ve got more to worry about from Kingsley than I do from Scrimgeour. I’ve already been late twice this month, and he’s threatened to hex me if I do it again. Tempted to do it just to see his face turn the funny color it does when he’s trying to keep up his I’m-all-calm-and-composed-all-the-time act even when he’s annoyed.”
Remus laughed, “But Kingsley knows you’re here today, so Moody is right about needing to avoid getting on Scrimgeour’s radar. Are you going back with her, Alastor?” he asked, and Moody shook his head.
“No. Old Rufus knows I’m up to my neck in this,” he said, sinking further into his chair, “Figured I’d rest here for a while, let her find her own way back.” Leaning on the table next to Remus, Tonks rolled her eyes and mouthed Constant vigilance just as Moody ground out the same phrase in his gravelly voice.
“I saw that, Tonks,” he said, and Tonks pouted for a moment, muttering “Unfair,” under her breath, but Moody just huffed out a laugh, “When you’ve gone through everything I’ve gone through, lass, maybe they’ll give you one.” She looked at Remus and pulled a disgusted face, which he laughed at and stood from his leaning position at the table.
“Come on, Tonks, I’ll walk you out, leave Moody to entertain Sirius for a few minutes,” he said, and Sirius rose quickly from his seat before Tonks could do more than stand from her own leaning position, sweeping her into a tight hug which she quickly returned on instinct.
“Sorry,” he said, his voice scratchy, “Just wanted one more.” Tonks just nodded and hugged him again, Remus and Moody watching silently. When the two cousins finally broke apart, the kitchen was silent for a few moments until Tonks spoke.
“I’ll come back soon, I promise, tomorrow maybe, and we’ll catch up, okay?” Sirius nodded, and she turned to Remus, smiling widely, but he’d known her long enough to see the glassy quality of her eyes and the tears she was holding back. They walked quietly up the stairs; the only sound the squeaking and groaning of the wood underneath their feet.
When they reached the door, the two of them stood, Remus leaning against the door, hands in his pockets, as Tonks fidgeted with the sleeve of her Auror’s robe before he spoke, “So, honest answer, what do you think?” And she knew he wasn’t talking about the house or the Order.
“A little older, a little more cautious. But just like I remember,” she said, and he laughed, pushing away from the door and pulling something from his pocket.
“Good to hear. Got a present for you, by the way,” Remus said, but Tonks looked suspiciously at the items in his hand and did not reach out to take them.
“Is this some type of hazing? Are they going to blow up or turn my hands a funny color? Aren’t you a little old for that?”
He laughed again, a pleasant, familiar sound in the dark, strange surroundings, and she relaxed a little. “Well first, you’re never too old for a good prank. Ask your cousin sometime. Secondly, of course it isn’t some type of hazing, it’s a present. Two tickets to my show tonight. Thought you might like to come and bring a friend or something, or I don’t know, scalp the tickets at the door, make yourself a few Knuts. And afterwards, I thought maybe you could convince your friend to go home and you could come back here and keep your cousin company.”
“Really?” said Tonks, snatching the tickets from his hand to examine them, “That’s excellent, Remus! I’d love to! Kingsley will be so jealous, he loves you guys!”
He smiled at her enthusiasm, moving away from the door to get out of her way, “I’m glad you like them. Show starts at 7 tonight. Stick around afterwards and I’ll buy you a beer. But speaking of Kingsley, you’d better head back now, before you become the target of his wrath and end up working until ten tonight.”
Tonks rolled her eyes as she shook her head, “I swear, it’s like you’re all conspiring to make me into a good, old, responsible adult.”
“I think you’re plenty responsible,” Remus said automatically, thinking of the commitment she had just made in learning about this place, “But I think you could use a little less work stress in your life, and being on time might, surprisingly, make that possible. See you tonight, Nymphadora,” he said as she slung her bag over her shoulder, turning to glare at him.
“My name is Tonks,” she said, narrowing her eyes at him, and he laughed again, closing the door as he answered, “My apologies. See you tonight, Nymphadora Tonks.”
She spun around fully at the bottom of the steps to glare at him properly, but met with the closed door and the sound of his laugh ringing in her ears, she shook her head and went searching for a good place from which to apparate.
~~~~
The bar where the show was taking place was located a little way down a side alley of Diagon, and the cobbled street was already crowded with people standing around, anxiously awaiting entry. Tonks handed her extra ticket to a young girl with a sign stating her need for one with a hand-drawn picture of Remus below the words, figuring the extra work deserved the reward. The girl had been speechless, and Tonks had walked through the door smiling, flashing the VIP ticket Remus had given her to bypass the crowd.
It was dark, warm, and crowded inside, but Tonks was able to weave through the mass of people and found a small, open table in the middle of the room a few back from the stage and ordered a Butterbeer. She could see Remus out on the stage already, but it was darkened still and his back was to the crowd as he tuned his guitar and checked the microphone. Sipping on her drink, she could already feel the familiar, unique energy that she always associated with The Marauders and their shows, and especially with Remus.
Five minutes after she’d sat down, the bar was packed with people crowded around tables and the stage lights had been lit up, revealing Remus, wearing dark jeans and a wrinkled blue oxford, smiling out over the crowd as he pushed his fringe away from his eyes. Adjusting the strap of his guitar over his shoulder, he leaned close to the microphone.
“I can’t get no satisfaction,” he sang, strumming the soft first chord as the crowd came to life, “I can’t get no satisfaction, ‘cause I try and I try and I try and I try.”
He finished the Stones song, the one that had started off every show he’d ever done, and the crowd applauded again. Tonks smiled at the familiarity of it, at Remus’s easy grace as he pushed the stool away with one foot as he stood to speak. “I’m Remus Lupin, from The Marauders, and I’m hoping you all enjoy the show tonight. If you’ve been to a show before, I hope it was great and that this one lives up to your memory, and if this is your first show, I hope it lives up to your expectations.” The crowd cheered, and he began again.
“She likes books with happy endings, and songs with no rhymes, and making up stories ‘bout the people outside,” he started, and the crowd erupted in cheers at the first word, Remus pausing with a smile for a second to let them finish. “She dreams of learning to play the piano,” here he reached one long arm back and dropped three stark, pretty notes from the piano, “And spending time by the sea, but I’m just wondering now, if she likes spending time with me.”
Tonks had heard every song that Remus knew, had been to many, many of his concerts and those of The Marauders, and yet she was swept up into the music just as much as anyone else. Though she remained at her table, quietly sipping on her second Butterbeer and applauding at the ends of songs or the short stories that Remus told, she almost wanted the join the growing crowd around the front of the stage, grouped together tightly and mesmerized by the quiet musician on the stage. Remus had his own sort of magic up on stage, something that captured and held your attention every time he played, sang or simply talked, something that lent the already meaningful words even more power.
Remus played for an hour and a half with three encores, and still left the stage to calls for more. Tonks smiled as she watched a small man who must have been the bar’s owner shaking Remus’s hand enthusiastically after he had replaced his guitar in its case. The taller man nodded and thanked him for the opportunity, picking up the case in one hand and making his way over to Tonks’s table as the owner rushed off, probably hoping to continue to build on possibly the best night the bar had ever had.
“Hello, Tonks,” said Remus, setting the case down under the table and waving a waitress over as he took his seat. He ordered a Butterbeer and a plate of fish and chips before to turning to Tonks. “So, good show?”
“Brilliant, Remus. As usual.” He smiled shyly, a blush staining his cheekbones, and he looked away. Tonks sighed. “Honestly, you get up on a stage and regularly perform in front of at least a couple hundred people, songs you wrote from some very personal memories and feelings, and yet you are the most easily embarrassed man I have ever met.”
“It was good?” he asked again, and Tonks threw up her hands in defeat.
“Brilliant,” she said, enunciating each syllable, and he laughed as the waitress approached the table with his drink and another for Tonks. Remus thanked her after she’d set the dark bottles down and told him his food would be out in a few minutes, and then turned back to Tonks.
“So, you’re so hideously unpopular that you could not find a single person to come with you to my show?”
She swatted his shoulder. “Did you consider the possibility that no one wanted to come with me because no one wanted to see your show, because you are boring and dreadful?”
“In addition to being brilliant?” he asked with a smirk, and she swatted his shoulder again before taking a short drink and answering.
“I honestly didn’t look that hard for anyone else. I was right though, Kingsley was insanely jealous. If he hadn’t had plans with his girlfriend for tonight, he would have come with me.”
“Well, let Kingsley know that if he ever wants tickets, I’d be –Thank you- happy to get him a couple,” said Remus as their waitress placed his food in front of him, unfailingly polite.
Tonks smiled cheekily and wiggled her eyebrows, “I don’t think leaving their new apartment factored much into their plans tonight. Or at least, that seemed to be his indication.” Remus shook his head as Tonks continued to wiggle her eyebrows, snatching a chip from his plate.
“Well, your dirty mind aside, let him know that I’ve always got some tickets in reserve that I’d be happy to send along to him.”
“Won’t the Ministry be a little suspicious if you’re suddenly handing out tickets to random Aurors?”
“Possibly, but Kingsley and I did attend school at around the same time, and he was a third year at the first concert The Marauders ever did, so he has a bit of an excuse.”
“Oh, so he went to one concert and happened to attend school with you, and he has an excuse, but little old me, who grew up around you and your friends, and has been to more concerts than I can count, doesn’t have an excuse to interact with the lead singer of my favorite band and a longtime friend?”
“Maybe I’m just a little more protective of you than I am of Kingsley, huh?” he said, lowering his voice slightly and Tonks was struck speechless for a little bit as Remus ate, half listening to the guitarist that had taken the stage after Remus. He was fairly good, clearly talented but a little nervous, possibly about performing in front of such a large crowd and possibly about performing in front of a large crowd that had come to see Remus Lupin of The Marauders and were sticking around to soak up the atmosphere in the aftermath of the show.
“Well, thank you, I suppose,” she said finally, trying to project an annoyed front, but by Remus’s smile she could tell that he wasn’t buying it at all.
“My pleasure,” he said, taking the last bite of his food as Tonks let out a huff and turned back towards the stage. Almost instantly, their waitress appeared and whisked the plate and their empty bottles away, and they settled into quiet companionship again, watching the young performer on the stage.
“Mr. Lupin?” said a small voice, and Remus and Tonks both looked at the waitress, who had returned holding what appeared to be his plate, though the remains of his meal had been washed off. “Would you mind signing this for us? We’d love to put it on the wall.”
Remus smiled, reaching for the plate as he asked, “Do you have a quill?” The nervous waitress pulled one out of her apron and handed it to him, and he carefully signed and dated the plate before tapping it with his finger to seal the small, neat signature.
“Thank you very much,” she said as Remus reached into the pocket of his jeans and pulled out several Galleons, handing them to the waitress, who blushed even deeper than before and tried to hand them back.
“Oh, no, Mr. Lupin, acts don’t have to pay for drinks or food,” she stuttered, but Remus just laughed and closed her hand over the coins.
“Make sure my friend’s drinks are taken care of, keep the change for yourself,” he said with a wink, and the waitress could only stutter out a thank you and say she’d be back with more drinks before taking off toward the kitchen.
“It’s always interesting, how they react,” he said, and when Tonks raised her eyebrows and gave him a confused look, he continued, “How they react to my lycanthropy. When people first found out a little after that first album came out, I thought my career, and probably The Marauders, were done for good. But sales for our music and concert tickets soared. Apparently being a werewolf, or even being in a band with one, makes you infinitely more interesting to people. But there are bars and other venues that are all for me playing a few sets, but throw away everything I touch while I’m there- cutlery, plates, even microphones and other stage equipment. And then there are the bars like this, that are proud to say I played here, want to hang my signature up on the walls.”
“Must be uplifting and depressing all at the same time,” she said, and he laughed, nodding.
“Well, since I’ve signed my plate and settled your tab, that means there’s just one more thing I’ve got to do, and then we can head over to Grimmauld. Hopefully, we’ll catch your cousin early enough in the night,” he said, his good humor fading a little as he glanced at the inside of his wrist.
Quickly, he made his way over to the side of the stage, where the young musician was standing, replacing his guitar in the case reverently, and for a moment Tonks was reminded of James Potter, treating his guitar as though it was made of crystal and air as soon as he’d gotten done going all out on stage. The boy was even similar to James in appearance, dark hair, thin build, and his hazel eyes grew huge when he noticed Remus approaching, hand outstretched. He shook the older man’s hand enthusiastically, and Tonks could hear Remus complimenting his performance over the record now playing softly through the speakers since that the live acts were done for the night. After a few minutes, Remus said good-bye and came back towards her, while over his shoulder she could see the young man staring at his hand in amazement and was unable to hold back a wide smile as she reached toward Remus.
~~~~
“Let’s go then,” she said, grabbing his hand to pull him through the crowd, obviously not sharing his worries, excited about seeing her cousin again, and Remus, though the back of his mind was concerned that Sirius would only be a disappointment to her, couldn’t help but be caught up in her excitement, and followed her out of the bar, weaving and dancing his way through the crowd to keep hold of her warm hand.
They arrived at 12 Grimmauld Place in a matter of minutes; Sirius ecstatic, sober, welcoming, and Remus found himself fading into the background of the cousins’ reunion and their joyful chatter back and forth. He was exhausted from the show and still trying to shake off the last bits of achiness and fatigue from the most recent full moon, just a week past, so he was content to drift off into the background as Tonks filled Sirius in on the past 13 years of her life and he asked questions in all the right places and told stories with the skill of someone who had clung to those memories as a last lifeline.
Remus only spoke when asked a direct question to clarify a fact or settle an argument, and spent most of the evening and into the early morning with his cheek resting against his right hand, watching Tonks and Sirius banter back and forth, reciting Bukowski in his head and trying to remember the second verse of Wild Horses.
~~~~
Summer passed into fall and they returned to Hogwarts and their classroom, hauling pieces of Peter’s new drum set, a belated birthday gift from his parents, down from their tower under James’s cloak, although their secret was clearly out after the concert of the previous year. People stopped them in the corridors almost every day, asking when they were planning on having another show. When, not if, and that was what struck Remus the most about all of it.
He didn’t have access to a piano, but he spent rehearsals imagining and writing the parts for all their songs, when Sirius and James would sit on the floor, knees touching, guitars on their laps, weaving together their sounds as Peter filled in with his own rhythms. Remus sat at a desk and wrote on scraps of parchment, snippets of lyrics and pieces of piano music.
And then James and Sirius would come together at the start of a song, Peter falling into the groove that came so naturally to him in a way that nothing else seemed to, and the words sprang to mind for Remus, who traded his quill for the rusty old microphone they’d ‘acquired’ from the Muggle Studies room.
Of course, James and Sirius weren’t content with a single concert held outside on the grounds at the end of the year. They believed that anyone could pull something off then, when teachers were looking forward to the summer just as much as the students, meaning discipline was pretty much non-existent. And what could you judge something by if not the number of rules broken or property damaged?
So they all planned, spending hours locked in their room, sneaking back to the dorms late under James’s cloak. They spent dinners looking for hiding places in The Great Hall and came down for breakfast early every morning to stash their minimal equipment. On October 30, Sirius, looking thoroughly sleep deprived and manic, James shoulder to shoulder with him, rubbing his hands together as a physical representation of his anxiousness, announced that they were ready.
And on Halloween, just as the feast was coming to an end, Dumbledore ready to make his remarks and almost everyone quiet and tired from good food, James’s guitar sang out the opening chords ofSatisfaction under his skilled fingers. The crowd seemed unsure of how to react until the twang of Sirius’s bass and the thump of Peter’s drum joined in, and then they roared to life as one, surging toward the corner of the huge hall where The Marauders had turned a large, sturdy table into a small stage.
“I can’t get no satisfaction,” Remus sang, looking over the heads of the excited crowd at the group of teachers still seated behind the Head Table. Most of them looked simply dumbstruck, though Slughorn looked like he’d just struck gold and McGonagall had a smile on her thin lips that could only be described as proud. And Professor Dumbledore just sat in his high backed chair, fingers steepled in front of his lips, bobbing his head back and forth to the beat, blissful smile in place.
The teachers eventually all resumed their seats for a few songs before they began to filter out. Dumbledore was the last to leave, waiting for a break between songs to bid them all a good night and remind them not to stay out too late with a wink. And then the concert really began.
They played through every song they knew once, twice, three times, and the other students danced and sang along and generally just had fun, forgot about anything terrible or tragic that was going on outside of the walls of their school as the war, by now having lasted over five years, continued. And even when Remus’s voice started to scratch, when Peter’s beats started to drag and James and Sirius abandoned their intricate playing for simpler chords, the crowd still joined in on the choruses, the exhaustion not managing to sap any of the energy from the room.
It was electric and filled the Great Hall to every corner, lifting every person there above the late hour, and Remus wondered how anyone could ever get enough of this feeling of flying, fizzing, magic, better than any magic that had ever come from his wand. One last time, he sang I Am Unable; his eyes finding Lily in among the giant mass of other students, drawn to her bright hair and brighter smile easily.
“So red haired girl from the coffee shop,” he met her eyes as they reached the bridge, and suddenly all the energy in the room seemed to connect the two of them alone, everyone else fading into background importance. “If you can hear me now, just know that I loved you for such a long time, and I think I still love you right now.”
They played Let It Be and Golden Slumbers/Carry That Weight/The End one last time, because James and Sirius had agreed to Beatles’ songs at the end because they played a Stones song to start the concert. And then it was almost like the whole school snuck back to their common rooms together, laughing and whispering. Even from the Great Hall where they were packing up their equipment, exhausted but unbelievably, impossibly happy and excited, they could hear the random bursts of giggles and singing that echoed around the old castle.
Remus noticed Lily standing in the huge doorway, smiling over at them, and he made his way over as the others packed up their instruments, Peter shrinking his drums carefully and stowing them in the special box James had given him for his birthday. When he reached her, she said nothing, but she smiled her million watt smile and pushed up on her toes to kiss him on the cheek, before Lily walked away, smile still in place as she mounted the steps and glanced over her shoulder at him.
He smiled goofily back and stared after her for a few moments before returning to help the others lug things back to their hideaway practice room. They didn’t make it to bed until nearly three in the morning, but when Remus woke up early for breakfast the next morning, the goofy smile was still in place.
~~~~
In October of seventh year, Lily kissed him. One hard, quick press of her lips on his under a stormy gray sky, and he backed away from her as though burned, mumbling excuses with wide eyes. She laughed and moved after him, told him he was being ridiculous.
“Of course we’d work, Remus,” she had said, red hair whipping around in the wind and green eyes bright with laughter, “Stop being silly. I know you fancy me,” here she’d captured his hand, holding him in place, “You wrote that song about me. For me.” And it was then that he had done both one of the best and one of the hardest things he had ever done.
“James wrote the song,” he said in a whisper that had frozen Lily and broken his heart in one go.
“What?” she said, dropping his hand but remaining close to him, close enough that the clouds of her breath in the cold air mingled with his. He could still feel the heat of her hand wrapped around his.
“James wrote that song. He wrote I Am Unable, about you. For you. We all worked on it, but he was the one who really wrote it.” Lily looked shocked and a little lost, as though he’d told her the sky had actually been orange this whole time, she just hadn’t been paying attention.
“James Potter? The same James Potter who hangs people upside down for fun, the one who jinxes who ever he feels like jinxing just because he’s bored? That James Potter wrote that song?” she asked, and she almost seemed to be pleading with him, wanted him to smile and tell her that he was joking.
“He really loves you, Lily.”
“And you? Don’t you love me?”
“He really loves you,” was all he responded, not able to meet her eyes, and he walked away quickly, hands thrust into his pockets. He had band practice in twenty minutes.
She asked him once more, a small, folded piece of parchment pushed onto his desk in Transfiguration,Really? written in her curly handwriting, and he’d pushed it back with a simple Yes, and that had been the end of it.
And it was almost true, in a way. James had been there, in the room, had agreed with Remus about it being a red haired girl in the song, arguing against Sirius’s preference for blonde, talked about playing the song for Lily. But it had been Remus’s song, from the beginning, for years, before they’d ever thought of starting the band. It hadn’t even been a song at first, really just a list of the things he liked about Lily. But he could never tell James that, let his friend tell Lily the story of the week of grossly hot days that the four of them had spent locked in their dorm room, much to the annoyance of Frank and Tim, only emerging occasionally for meals or to shower. When It Rains She Dances and I Am Unable had both come together in that week, and Let’s Just Dance Instead had gotten its start there as well, in the small, sweaty dormitory they called home.
Two months later, she accepted James’s invitation to Hogsmeade, and it didn’t hurt as much as Remus expected it to. He was surprised by this, but didn’t fight it, spent that visit in The Three Broomsticks, writing and drinking Butterbeer while he listened to Sirius alternate between complaining about James’s absence and flirting with Rosmerta.
And one day, Remus sat down and wrote a love song that wasn’t for Lily, was just a love song written to try and impress a pretty Hufflepuff girl he liked named Sarah. It wasn’t any good really, but it made her laugh and she said yes when he asked if she’d like to possibly sit next to him at the next Quidditch match, or go for a walk over the snow covered grounds.
James had Lily, Lily had James, and Remus had his music, got to see his friends happy, got to do something that he loved with the three people who were most important to him in the entire world. And then Sirius returned from Christmas break with a crumpled letter clutched in his hand and a smile that could have lit up entire cities.
His name was Raymond Tilling Yates, which is what he went by as a talent scout for his family’s record company, Yates Records. But The Marauders knew him as R. T. Yates, a Hufflepuff Quidditch captain and prefect who had graduated when they were fifth years. He had seen their concert on the last day of exams that year, had been impressed by the raw talent of the band, had kept an eye on them through friends of his still at Hogwarts.
And with graduation approaching for The Marauders, he’d sent a letter to Sirius, inviting them to a short studio audition in late May, a few days after their return from Hogwarts for the final time. It was dream come true for James, Sirius and Peter, and a complete surprise for Remus. A pleasant one, but a surprise nonetheless. But he of course agreed to go with his friends, could never say no to the three boys who had seen him through every hardship of adolescence, not to mention lycanthropy. So, while Remus poured over notes about Transfiguration, Charms, Defense Against the Dark Arts, Sirius and James poured over musical notes, making the slightest little adjustments until every song sounded perfect to them, Peter bouncing between them, desperately studying over Remus’s shoulder before moving to the other two, tapping out beats with the pencil he had been furiously scribbling with moments before.
They all passed their NEWTs, Peter sweating his way through every test while Sirius and James breezed through them with the self-assurance that had been their trademark for the entirety of the time that Remus had known the two of them. And as the other three had dashed out to the grounds to set up for what had become the annual last day of tests concert, the concert that would be their final planned concert as Hogwarts students, Remus had sat on the steps in front of the huge, open oak doors, staring down at the piece of parchment Dumbledore had handed him a week before.
An offer to assistant teach the Defense Against the Dark Arts class next year, and a plan already outlined for how to deal with his ‘furry little problem.’ But he was the only one of the four of them with any sort of certain plan after graduation, he knew, what with Sirius disowned by the most ancient and noble house of Black and the health of James’s parents fading in their old age. Peter didn’t seem to have any plans at all.
But now there was this offer from Yates Records, for a record and a tour and it seemed like all those dreams, born in their cramped dormitory where they couldn’t have seemed farther away, suddenly were immediate and possible. He knew how ready the others were to accept the offer, how much each of them wanted this dream, and he knew that if he said no, if he took Dumbledore’s offer instead, that the Marauders would come to an end.
The four of them together were The Marauders, and replacing Remus as a singer was possible, but replacing him as a Marauder was impossible, and so for this dream to come true for any of them, it had to come true for all of them. Peter was running towards him across the lawn now, and Remus slipped the parchment into his pocket as his friend slid to a stop in front of him.
“Ready to go, Moony?” he said, giant grin in place even as he gasped for breath, and Remus stood, stretched out his back for a moment and then took off running, Peter close behind, laughing despite how tired he had seemed just moments before. He took the stage at a run, one giant leap using his long legs to his advantage to land on the slightly shaky wood, skidding to a stop by the microphone before pulling his tie off and reaching out for the microphone, letting it become almost a part of his hand as the opening of Satisfaction thumped from the bass and guitar, the drums coming in slightly late as Peter scrambled for his seat.
And in that moment, his decision was made for him as much as anything else would make it, as the first cymbal sounds came from the drums and the first roar came from the crowd. In a few days, Dumbledore would make him another offer, to join a secret organization that was fighting against Voldemort, and when he told him that his friends were being invited too, well, what choice did Remus have? All he could give back to his friends was his loyalty, so he signed the deal and asked when the next meeting was. On the same day, Remus Lupin officially became a member of Yates Records newest signees, The Marauders, and the Order of the Phoenix.
~~~~
Sirius gravitated toward his cousin Andromeda as a fellow black sheep of the Black family, and often dragged the other three along when he went to see her. She and her husband Ted became unofficial sounding boards for the band, and their daughter Nymphadora became somewhat of a mascot for the band.
And in that way, Tonks had gained four of the best friends she’d ever had, from her boisterous cousin Sirius and his loud friend James, to shy Peter with the round face and quiet Remus, who was very tall and very skinny and very, very good at reading stories and singing songs. They took her to the big lake by her house, played games with her, sang her songs and told the best stories that she’d ever heard.
They came over every week or so when it was possible, and spent the entire day with Tonks and her parents, playing short acoustic sets in their living room before whisking her off for another adventure, whether adventure was getting ice cream at Fortescue’s in Diagon Alley or playing a modified game of Quidditch in the backyard. She loved listening to them play, first really heard music from those four boys, seeking out the original versions of songs only after hearing The Marauders cover them.
Remus would often stay inside after the others had filtered out to the back porch to drink Butterbeers and talk with Andromeda and Ted, about the war or about their tour schedule or the new songs they’d rehearsed that day, Tonks watching him as he perused her father’s huge poetry collection or played the huge black piano they had in their living room. He’d never had a piano of his own, had used a neighbor’s when he was learning at sixteen, and he was fascinated by the Tonks’. She would watch him copy things into a little black journal he always carried.
“What’s that?” she’d asked him one time, as he copied from a worn edition of Leaves of Grass.
“For we cannot tarry here,/ We must march my darlings, we must bear the brunt of/ danger,/ We the youthful sinewy races, all the rest on us depend,/ Pioneers! O pioneers!” he recited, and then smiled, “It’s a collection of my favorite pieces of poetry. See?”
He held the book down towards her, and she moved over to look at pages upon pages of small, neat black handwriting, sometimes whole poems and other times just one or two lines, but all carefully copied on to the parchment.
“I’ve been keeping this journal since I was seventeen, just before I graduated. It was a gift from the others. I copied Shakespeare’s Sonnet 18 later that day,” he said, flipping back to the front page to show her, “And I’ve just never stopped.” She stared in amazement, taking the book from Remus’s hand to flip through the pages with her small fingers.
“Would you read me some?” she asked, and he reached for the Whitman book on the desk, but Tonks shook her head and held the black journal out to him. Remus smiled and took his notebook back as she settled down against the side of the chair he was sitting in.
“Shall I compare thee to a summer day?” he read, smiling as he read poem after poem from the little book, skipping ahead to share some of the best he knew, re-reading old favorites he hadn’t seen in a long time, but mostly reading sequentially, page after page, until the others came in and Tonks fell asleep, head resting against his leg.
After that, it became part of their routine, Tonks sometimes falling asleep in time for him to slip outside to talk with the others, but more often than not, they’d filter in, talking quietly so as not to wake her up, finding Remus still reading silently or copying more poems for future readings.
Eventually, Tonks began to read the poems on her own, even though she struggled with a lot of the words. But she never looked in the dictionary for the definitions, because she loved the poems for their existence, for the way they sounded, more than anything they actually meant. Someday, she would appreciate that meaning; another gift from Remus when she was older, a student at Hogwarts then, but his first gift to her was the love of the words themselves, the sounds and feel of them, with his songs and his poems.
~~~~
She’d spent almost all of her free time at 12 Grimmauld Place with Remus and her cousin, and she’d grown used the generally undisturbed quiet that filled the house whenever the three of them fell silent for a few moments before Sirius launched loudly and enthusiastically into a new story. Remus had yet to arrive back from a meeting with his scheduler and Sirius had just dashed upstairs, yelling over his shoulder that there was a record he’d just rediscovered that she must listen to. The now comfortable silence descended as the clunk of Sirius’s heavy footsteps faded and Tonks set about making tea.
She heard feet pounding down the stairs behind her much too quickly to be Sirius already back, and Tonks whirled around, wand at the ready, knocking the kettle of hot water to the ground with her elbow. Remus burst through the door, hair messy, eyes sparkling, thousand-watt smile in place, and she eyed him wearily as he looked around the kitchen.
“Is your cousin here?” he asked, striding back to the door and peering up the staircase. He looked around for a moment, then at the puddle of water that had just reached the toes of his worn shoes, before glancing up at her, asking, “Nymphadora, why is there water everywhere?”
“No, he ran upstairs to grab something quick. A record he wants to show me, I think,” she answered, still looking at Remus suspiciously. “Remus, what in Merlin’s name has gotten into you? You scared me and I knocked the teakettle over. I thought you were an invading force of some kind!” she stopped for a moment, and then glared at him properly, “And don’t call me Nymphadora.”
Remus just smiled and laughed quickly before continuing, “I have a plan, but it all centers on you being willing to help me out,” he said, excitement clear in his voice. “Have you ever had to pretend to be blind for work?”
“If you had given me a million and one guesses, I would never have guessed that that was what you were going to ask me. Why do you need to know?” she asked, all weariness quickly giving away to curiosity, as it so often did when one of Remus’s plans was involved.
“I think I have an idea of how we might be able to get Sirius away from here, even if just for a few hours or so, but again, it hinges heavily on your cooperation.”
“Yes, I have, a few times for undercover assignments. I like to think I’m fairly good at it. It’s one skill where my clumsiness is actually useful, since I just naturally walk as though I can’t see the world around me anyway.”
Remus grinned, “Perfect. I’m playing a gig at a new bar tonight, All Play and No Work, and I think you could use Sirius as your guide dog. He would get a chance to be away from this dreadful house for a while, and he’d get to see me performing our songs in front of a real, live audience.” His expression sobered suddenly, and he seemed to be staring at something Tonks couldn’t see. “I think it’s the best gift I can give him,” he looked up at her, snapping back to his excitement, though the sadness didn’t leave his eyes completely, “So, will you do it?”
She smiled and said, “Of course I will, Remus. It sounds like a great idea.”
“What does?” asked Sirius from the doorway, leaning against the frame with arms crossed and eyebrows raised at the two of them. Remus pulled something from his pocket and held it out to his friend, winking at Tonks as Sirius moved towards him warily.
“It’s not going to explode or turn my hand a funny color is it, Moony?” he asked, and Remus laughed, looking at Tonks.
“You two have obviously spent too much time together. You’re starting to suspect me in exactly the same ways,” he said to her, but Sirius just glared at him.
“I’ve known you too long, mate. James and I were always the ones that got in the worst trouble or got the most blame for the pranks, but this one here,” he said, jabbing a finger at Remus while turning to Tonks, “was the creator of more than a few, the mastermind that made almost every single one of them work efficiently and realistically, and the main executioner behind his fair share.”
“You’ve told me before, Sirius,” said Tonks, laughing as Remus rolled his eyes.
“And I’ve told you before that he and James didn’t seem to mind taking the ‘blame’ when it came from pretty girls. Of course it is not going to explode or turn your hand a funny color or anything else of the sort. It’s a gift, Padfoot.” Still looking suspicious, Sirius took the offered ticket and his eyes widened as he took in what it was.
“For me?” he asked, looking up at his friend and his cousin in astonishment, and Remus smiled.
“Technically it’s for Tonks, as you’ll have to go as a dog, but yes, it’s for you to come to my show tonight, spend a little time out of this house, get to judge if I’ve kept up the Marauder legacy well,” Remus said, and Sirius just stared from his friend to the ticket and back again before throwing his arms around Remus’s shoulders in a tight hug.
“Well,” Tonks said, wanting to give a little privacy to the two old friends, “I’d better get going if I want to get ready for tonight. Meet here at six?” she asked, and Remus nodded as she headed out the door, tossing a “See you then!” over her shoulder as she left.
~~~~
Tonks arrived at Grimmauld Place at 6:00, Remus standing at the end of the block with Sirius already in dog form and wearing an official seeing-eye dog harness and leash. She’d left her hair normal and brown tonight, hoping it would help Sirius if she looked inconspicuous as possible with a giant dog. Remus smiled at her quickly in thanks before ducking into a small alley to apparate, still needing to set up for the show. Tonks followed shortly after, crouching down and hugging Sirius tightly to her chest. As soon as they’d arrived, Sirius bathed her face with licks, she supposed as a sign of gratitude that she really could have done without.
Once she was inside, she found good seats, moving cautiously behind Sirius’s guide, and then transformed a plate into a dog dish for Sirius. Initially she poured a glass of water into it, but at his mournful look she poured the remains of her beer into the bowl and turned to listen to Remus.
The concert was excellent as usual, from Satisfaction to I Am Unable to Brown Eyed Girl to Let’s Just Dance Instead to The End. Sirius seemed to enjoy himself, or as much as she could tell from his dog form, although after Brown Eyed Girl, he’d seemed to withdraw a little, lying under the table rather than sitting next to Tonks’s chair and swaying a little to the music. She thought nothing more of it after noticing it initially, turning back to watch Remus’s performance.
~~~~
Remus made his way over the table after he’d introduced the next act, a young band called Colorblind, sitting down next to her and ordering a beer of his own. He was glad she’d agreed to bring Sirius, and smiled at her as he reached down to scratch behind the dog’s ear for a moment.
“Thank you for coming tonight, Tonks,” he said, reaching out to touch her hand, “And for everything else.”
“Of course, Remus,” she answered back, staring a little over his left ear to keep up the charade, “I’m glad you played Brown Eyed Girl. It’s my favorite Van Morrison song.”
He laughed, “I know. You made me sing it to you all the time when you were little. I called you ‘my brown eyed girl’ sometimes.” From under the table, Sirius gave a low growl and Remus looked at him strangely for a moment, but when the large dog didn’t return his gaze, he looked back to Tonks again, really noticing her hair for the first time that night.
“Ah, your natural hair. I forget how much I like it,” he said, and Tonks snorted.
“You are the only person I’ve ever met that likes this hair at all. Even my mother admits it’s a bit bland, and she hates the daft things I usually do with my hair. But I figured I’d better stay as unnoticeable as possible tonight. Why did we have to do it on a night where you were playing in a new bar anyway?” she asked, and Remus looked away, suddenly awkward just for a moment, wondering if he should tell her the truth.
“Well, uh, apparently, we’re quite recognizable. No matter what you look like, a lot of the owners of places I play a lot tell me they can always tell it’s you, because they say I act differently around you than I do anyone else they see me with. I act special. Even at bars that I’ve only played at once or twice before, we’re very noticeable, I’ve been told,” he said, and that’s when he realized something had changed between them, that they were more than the friends they’d been for years now, and they had been for a while.
Suddenly his hand felt too warm over hers and he pulled it back, not meeting her eyes as he wrapped it around his cold beer and took a long draw. He acted differently around her than he did around anyone else because he felt differently about her than he did anyone else. He fancied Nymphadora Tonks very much, and it had taken him a while to realize it, but now that he had, it seemed all too apparent. And he had no idea what to do about it.
Just as he was about to do something stupid, like tell Tonks what he had just realized, Sirius let out a loud growl from under the table, and they both looked at him strangely for a moment.
“I think Sirius is ready to go,” Tonks said, and Remus nodded, still looking at his friend with concern.
“I’ll walk you out, and be back at Grimmauld in a few minutes. I’ve just got to collect my check and grab my guitar,” he said, wrapping a hand around Tonks’s arm and guiding her to the door before wishing her good-bye and letting Sirius take over.
The owner was very grateful when Remus approached him, and invited him back anytime. Smiling, Remus retrieved his guitar from behind the stage, signed a few autographs and stepped outside into an alley to apparate.
When he knocked on the door of Grimmauld Place softly, Tonks answered, looking concerned. “He’s acting all funny,” she said, and Remus left his guitar in the front hall to hurry down to the kitchen. Sirius, back in human form, sat at the table, looking sullen as he poured himself a glass of Firewhiskey. It didn’t look like it was his first.
“Padfoot, what’s wrong? Did you like the concert?” he asked, and Sirius scoffed before draining the glass in a swallow.
“Everything’s fine, Moony, you were great, holding up the legacy very well. Except that you broke your promise,” he said darkly, and Remus could see Tonks’s look of confusion, even as he himself paled.
“Padfoot, it’s nothing personal, I swear, but-,” he started, but Sirius cut him off.
“But what, Remus? Afraid your precious fans will turn against you if you mention your prison escapee former band mate? You promised me that any time you played Brown Eyed Girl, you’d playMoondance. But I suppose your loyalty only extends to James and Peter, huh? You told plenty of stories about them, I noticed, but you couldn’t even play my song.”
“Padfoot, I swear, there’s a reason, but I can’t explain it to you. I am sorry though, I promise,” he said, because he couldn’t explain to Sirius why he never told that story or sang that song anymore. He could barely explain it to himself.
“You know what, Remus, don’t even worry about it,” Sirius said, and Remus didn’t know what to say or do when Sirius stopped calling him Moony, so he just turned around and left, leaving the two cousins glaring.
~~~~
“That’s how you treat him? After everything he did for you tonight? He put his neck on the line for you, and you know that Snape is going to give him trouble about this, and Dumbledore probably isn’t going to be exactly thrilled about it,” Tonks said, staring in disbelief at her cousin. Sirius just poured himself another drink and shook his head.
“You wouldn’t understand, Tonks. He made me a promise.”
“Yeah, and he’s your friend. That’s not worth your forgiveness?”
Sirius scoffed, “Just because he’s some sort of idol in your eyes and you’ve got more than friendly feelings toward him doesn’t mean the rest of us just forgive him everything. You don’t understand what that promise meant at all.”
Tonks wanted to respond, but just gaped as Sirius drained his glass once again before stuttering, “W-what?”
Sirius laughed and shook his head, “Oh, come on, Tonksy, it’s fairly obvious you fancy the man. Honestly, you two are the most oblivious people I’ve ever met. You’ve fallen in love and don’t even realize it.”
“I’m not in love with Remus, and he’s most certainly not in love with me,” she said, but Sirius just shook his head again.
“You can deny it all you want, cousin, but I’ve known you both a long time. You might be able to fool yourselves, but you can’t fool me,” he said, and she could see him drawing back into his shell, out of the argument and into the Firewhiskey.
Shaken by how easily Sirius had spotted something she’d been unwilling to admit to herself, Tonks went off in search of Remus. She’d known him for a long time, but she didn’t think she’d ever seen him look as hurt as he had when he’d left the kitchen.
~~~~
He’d retreated to the library, settling into the old chair he’d brought over from his flat after they’d finished cleaning out the room. Remus had brought over some of his own books as well, mostly thick research books of spells and history, which he’d left stacked in high piles on the floor, worried that the shelves of the Black family might not react so well to his ‘tainted’ books.
But kept two stacks of his favorite poetry volumes and novels on the small table, mostly books that he had two or more copies of, and he blindly reached for one now, Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman coming easily from the middle of the stack. He’d flipped open to a random page, starting with I Sing The Body Electric and continuing on, and tried to escape from Sirius and Tonks, broken promises and new emotions that were perhaps not so new after all.
He had just finished the first part of Song of the Open Road when he heard the cautious knock on the doorframe, and looked up to find Tonks standing there, smiling faintly.
“Can I come in?” he nodded, and she joined him on the couch, glancing over at his book. “Whitman?” she asked, and he nodded again.
“I suppose I fall back on old favorites most of the time.”
They were silent for almost two minutes before Tonks spoke, “You don’t have to let him treat you like that.”
Remus shrugged, “He was drunk and upset. And he was right to be upset, I did break my promise to him.”
“He still shouldn’t get to treat you like that. Friends forgive each other,” she paused for a second, “Why don’t you play the song?”
Silently, he stared at the page, and he could see that Tonks wondered if she was ever going to get an answer before he spoke. “I’m afraid. That if I tell that story, if I play Moondance, they’ll react badly, will boo or leave. And it’s not about me losing fans, or at least that’s not what most of it is about. But to see his memory treated like that? I think it’d kill me.”
“And you couldn’t tell him that?” she asked, and he wondered how to really make her understand how Sirius thought.
“Sirius had just turned 22 when he was sent to Azkaban. He spent 13 years stuck in that place, and while he was there, the world moved on. I moved on, and when he came back, I wasn’t the friend he’d left. And I think that still bothers him. Still bothers him that I’m not the person he left. That’s part of the reason Harry is so important to him; it’s mostly because he’s James’s son, but there’s a small part of him that sees Harry as the James that Sirius lost.”
Without warning, Tonks suddenly wrapped her arms around his shoulders and pulled him into a tight hug. Remus returned it gladly, closing his eyes as she spoke.
“He’ll come around, I promise. He loves you so much, but he’s so sad right now. But I know he loved the concert.”
Remus just nodded against her shoulder, thinking about all these new feelings, but how no matter how much some things changed, a lot of things stayed the same.
~~~~
Tonks had stayed away from Grimmauld for a few days; letting the two men work out their problems without her interference. She also wanted to give herself a chance to work through her own feelings for Remus. Eventually, she decided to just act as normal as possible around him. She had no evidence other than Sirius’s word about Remus’s feelings, and who knew if his word was worth anything.
But on Thursday, she got off work early, grabbed take-away from a little restaurant down the street from the Ministry, and apparated to Grimmauld. When she walked into the kitchen, Sirius was sitting at the table alone, jumping up as she entered.
“Food, thank Merlin!” he said, taking one of the heavy bags from Tonks and moving to unload it quickly. She left her bag on the table and went to retrieve plates as Sirius unpacked that one as well.
“Remus not here yet?” she asked, surprised. Tonks knew he’d just started recording sessions for his third solo album, but he was usually here an hour or so before her.
“He had to run back to his flat to grab some book he needs for a report he’s writing for Dumbledore. Should be back any minute,” he paused for a moment to scrape food onto the plate Tonks handed to him. “About what I said that night, Tonksy? I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said it, and even if I had a right to say it, you shouldn’t have had to hear it.”
“It’s fine, really, Sirius, as long as you’ve made up with Remus,” she said, raising her eyebrows at him, and her cousin nodded.
“Yes, we did the whole airing of grievances and hugging the next day, after I’d sobered up and he’d gotten some sleep. We’re all back to being best friends now.”
“Good. I don’t like when you two fight. You know each other much too well to be doing that,” she said, and Sirius laughed, nodding as they started on their dinner.
“True,” he paused to take a bite, and when he’d swallowed, continued, “And the other thing I said? About you and Remus? I think maybe you misunderstood me. I’m glad you two feel that way, because you’re two of my favorite people in the entire world. And you’d be absolutely adorable together.”
Tonks blushed, and Sirius laughed loudly, reaching out to place his hand over hers, “And I would be the first to offer the two of you congratulations. In fact, if I wasn’t, than I would be greatly offended. I would have to stop being friends with you both.”
She laughed with him this time, “Thank you, Sirius. It means a lot to me, but I don’t think anything will be happening for a while. I’ll make sure to let you know though.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure about that, baby cousin, but if you need to keep telling yourself that, go right ahead. I can wait.” They both laughed again, and Sirius pulled her into a hug at an awkward angle, messing up her hair before letting her go.
“What are you two doing?” Remus asked from the doorway, looking at the two cousins with a smile.
Tonks felt herself blush as she struggled for an answer, but Sirius filled in quickly, “Tonksy was nice enough to bring us dinner, and look, you’ve brought the huge case of Butterbeer! It’s like a party. We were just talking about the June concert.” Remus smiled, setting the twenty-four pack down on the table before retrieving one and a plate for himself.
“Merlin, that was a good day,” he said, looking through the cartons before making his choice.
“Moony, mate, that was one of the best days.”
~~~~
By the time they were nineteen, The Marauders were a fairly popular band in the wizarding world, particularly with young adults, the people who had grown up in the middle of the war, who looked at the band as peers, people who had gone through what they had, whose music was created by that shared experience. But they were not yet legends.
No one could have predicted that they would become legends on an overly warm day late in June that promised storms either. The concert was small, maybe 600 people, in a tiny outdoor stadium well away from any prying Muggle eyes. But legends they became.
The forecast may have called for storms, but that had never stopped The Marauders before, and they took the stage with a strange, sizzling energy about them, as though they had some hint about what this night would hold. They started the show with Satisfaction, which had started off every show they’d ever done, and everything just grew from there, each song building and building until the small stadium had seemed to crackle with energy.
The crowd exploded as they launched into I Am Unable and I Saw Her Standing There, flowing from one song to the next and back again, before dropping off into As Much As Lying, the crowd going silent as the heartbreak of Remus’s voice washed over them, the lonely piano notes and the soft, low thumps of Sirius’s bass strings and Peter’s drum, every single one of James’s chords like a teardrop.
In the silence of the stadium then, Remus had spoken for a moment, his voice a low rumble accented by the distant thunder. “Rise like Lions after slumber, In unvanquishable number, Shake your chains to earth like dew, Which in sleep had fallen on you- Ye are many- they are few.” There was no great explosion from the crowd at his words, a small part of Masque of Anarchy that he had memorized years early, but the air became even more charged, if that was possible, and the roar that began when they started Let’s Just Dance Instead could have blown windows out.
“And honestly, the world’s going crazy, and I’m just going crazy for you. All of it is falling apart, and all I’m falling for is you. This life may swallow us up whole, but you know what, baby, I think we’ll be okay, let’s just dance instead!” The song filled with the love and joy that Remus had written it with, infectious as the thunder grew louder around them.
It rained then, big fat drops that turned quickly into a drenching downpour, but it was a warm summer rain, and Remus just smiled, let James and Sirius take the lead, and followed them into the song he knew they would play.
“When it rains, she dances,” he sang, tasting rain and sweat against his lips as he wrapped one hand tight around the microphone and leaned toward the crowd. “When it rains, she dances, when it rains, she dances, oooh, how she dances.” He let the simple, repetitive chorus flow, closed his eyes and just sang, wondered how things in the world had come together so perfectly in that moment.
The rain had stopped shortly after, left the air feeling heavy and wet, everything and everyone soaked, but it couldn’t steal the atmosphere from the place, the crackle like lightning that still remained as the show wound down. And then Remus’s microphone began to pop and fizzle in his hand, some combination of his tight grip and the rain and the very electricity of the air around them shorting out the magic, and for a moment, he had just stared at it in his hand before tossing it aside and launching into Golden Slumbers at the top of his voice.
As he went on with Carry That Weight and The End, he pushed his voice further and further, but hit every note, the strange energy that had filled him the entire concert pouring out of him, propelling him forward now. But as he reached for the final note in The love you take is equal to the love you make,it broke, shattered into millions of tiny little pieces.
But moments later, the roar of the crowd filled in around the missed note, the edge and grit of it filled in by the sheer noise of the crowd, and Remus, having fallen to his knees in exhaustion, looked up through his damp fringe at the crowd in amazement. The others behind him had stopped playing to stare as well, letting the sound wash over them.
They stood like that for a while until Remus could no longer take it, could do nothing but stumble backstage and collapse to the ground. The thick wood of the stage was cool against his wet, heated back, the soaked fabric of his shirt clinging to his sweaty skin as he stared up at the starry sky, listening to the continuing roar. Someone thrust a bottle of water into his hand, but he could do nothing but breath, slowly and deeply, trying to memorize this moment.
Because the moments on stage had been perfect, but this was more perfect somehow, this world made simply of sound, warmth and solid wood against his back. Moving his hand just slightly seemed to use all of the energy in his body, but the cool water coursing over his raw throat was worth it. He continued to lie there, perfectly content to never regain his energy if it meant that this feeling never went away.
Closing his eyes tightly, he lay there for what seemed like forever and a day, but must have been only five minutes. Feeling someone above him, Remus finally opened his eyes to see Sirius hovering a few inches from him, his eyes bright and dancing and alive, his face nearly split in two by the toothiest grin Remus had ever seen on his friend.
“Moony, mate, I think that’s what they call the power of music,” he said, clapping a hand down on each of Remus’s shoulders in a sort of hug, and Remus could only nod slightly in response, his voice non-existent and most of his energy gone as well. Sirius had given him a little shake of joy before letting him go with a whoop that seemed to fill the whole world as he moved to embrace Peter, who looked stunned and glowing with pride.
Turning his head just slightly, Remus could see James out of the corner of his eye, down on one knee, and Lily standing in front of him, tears on her cheeks, nodding furiously. He smiled, remembered the ring James had shown him earlier in the day, how perfect it was for Lily, how happy he was for them. Silently wishing them congratulations, Remus let his eyes close again and soaked in the feeling.
At that moment, he had no idea that he and his friends would become legends because of that night, had no idea what they would come to mean to the wizarding world in the coming days, months and years, how far their words and songs would echo. But he knew how important these moments were to find in the middle of war he’d grown up in, and he basked in it for just a while longer.
~~~~
For almost two years, The Marauders were on top of the wizarding world, a beacon of hope and energy in a war that was so short on both. Their third album, Rise Like Lions, came out, was met with instant success, the band’s reputation and fan base growing by the day it seemed. And then Halloween, 1981 came.
Remus knew the second he opened the door to find Minerva McGonagall standing on his doorstep at 4 AM. He’d grown up in a war, been a soldier for 4 years now, and he knew that you didn’t get calls at that hour that did not bring some tragedy. They didn’t yet know of Sirius’s betrayal or Peter’s death, but the loss of James and Lily cut deeply enough by itself.
He could remember listening to McGonagall giving the news, the startling shiny tears on the Gryffindor Head’s face as she’d stared at him, watching for a reaction. But he’d been numb, the ragged hole in his chest gaping, just coldness and pitch blackness where before there had been warmth. Remus had nodded slowly, McGonagall watching him, as though waiting for him to snap suddenly, before rising slowly and surprising him by pulling him into a tight hug.
After she’d left, assuring Remus that Harry was in ‘the hands of the people Dumbledore thought best’, he’d stumbled into the living room of his flat and collapsed onto the long couch, staring up at the dark ceiling. In the dead silence of the night, he listened to his own heartbeat, too fast and too hard, but there, somewhere within the empty hole of his chest.
Later that day, as Remus counted his heartbeats again, for the thousandth time, an owl had flown in a window he’d left open the night before, dropping a letter on the coffee table that would tell Remus of Peter’s ‘death’ and Sirius’s betrayal, and it would seem like just another part of the great tragedy to Remus, the hole in his chest ripping outward until it seemed to encompass his entire being, until he was nothing more than a gaping hole with a heartbeat that kept him going forward despite his utter emptiness.
He truly planned on never rising again, lying there on his couch as the wizarding world around him celebrated one of its greatest triumphs while he mourned his greatest tragedy, lying there until all the pain and coldness, the empty blackness of the chasm in his soul faded away and he could be with his friends again.
The Beatles saved him, and the thought of a family that would understand and need him as much as he understood and needed them.
~~~~
Remus sat on the back step of the house, staring out over the concrete yard, which was full of dead weeds and rubbish, but was cooler than the clogging heat of the old, dusty house. Sirius had retreated to his bedroom earlier with a case of Butterbeer and a half bottle of gin, and Remus could hear the old Stones album from here.
“Mind if I join you?” said a voice from behind him, and he turned, painfully, to see Tonks standing there, a Butterbeer in each hand.
“Not at all,” he answered, accepting the bottle she handed him after setting his empty one on the ground next to him, flashing her a smile before settling back down into the hunched position that seemed to cause his sore muscles the least amount of distress. Remus could feel Tonks’s gaze on him as he took a long drag of the drink, avoiding the gash in the right side of his lip.
“Is that from last night?” she asked, eyes drifting from his face to the waning, nearly full moon. He nodded, looked at the moon with her.
“Yes. Regrettably, my transformation from wolf to human is not very efficient, you could say. My mouth returned to its human size rather more quickly than I lost my fangs this time. Otherwise, it was a rather-,” he paused, searching for the correct word, “Well, it was not any more unpleasant than usual, I suppose you could say.”
Tonks smiled sadly, recalled a younger Remus, on their trips to the lake when she was little, when the four boys would sweep down into the Tonks house and whisk her off for adventure. Smiling, wet curls plastered to his scalp, pale even when the others were burned bright red, his skin seemingly impervious to the sun. She remembered the huge mass of scar tissue that composed one shoulder, the angry red stretch marks on the other, pale scars along his forearms and calves catching the sunlight as he popped out of the water, sputtering and lunging after James and Sirius. Afterwards, when the light was dying, James would get out his guitar and they would sing, all four of them, Peter quiet and nervous, James and Sirius very, very loud and hideously off-key, Remus shaking his head and laughing the entire time.
“Did you always want to be a rock star?” she asked, suddenly, and he laughed, turning to look at her.
“Why do you ask?”
She shrugged, took a long drag of her drink, and he rubbed at his right shoulder for a second before answering. “No. I just liked music. When we got the record deal, nobody was more surprised than I was. I enjoyed performing with my friends, but I never imagined it would end up like it did.”
“What did you want to be?”
“A teacher. I still do, really. I’m certified to teach Defense Against the Dark Arts and Transfiguration, and I could probably do Charms as well, though I’d have to finish the actual certification.”
Tonks laughed, shaking her head, “Imagine, a kid wanting to be teacher instead of a world famous rock star.”
Remus laughed as well and shrugged, “My parents were both teachers. Aside from James, Sirius, Peter and Lily, no one showed me more kindness than Professor McGonagall. Professor Dumbledore gave me a chance that no one else would have given me. Even Slughorn, who knew what I was, always treated me well, although I was absolute rubbish at Potions and, until my seventh year, showed really no promise of being that successful at anything.” He stared into the middle distance for a moment, “I wasn’t in his class when that first album came out, but he made a point of seeking me out and congratulating me personally. The man was a Slytherin through and through, but they’re not all bad.” He paused again, took a drink, the bottle slightly awkward in the side of his mouth. “In my eyes, there weren’t any greater heroes in the entire world than teachers.”
They were both silent for a moment, Tonks picking at the label of her bottle, Remus staring off into somewhere only he could see. Sirius had changed the record, still The Rolling Stones, but earlier now, the songs that had been on the tape Remus’s father had sent him all those years ago.
“Why didn’t you become a teacher?” she asked finally, and it was Remus’s turn to pick at his bottle.
“The others needed me. When the album got so big, so fast, I couldn’t quit on them. They’d never quit on me before, in all the time I knew them. They broke the law for me, when they became Animagi, and all they needed me to do was to continue doing something that I already loved doing? They were my best friends in the entire world.”
“And now? You’ve got all the money you could ever want, and with the concert schedule you’re doing now, it wouldn’t be too hard to have a job as well. I remember you reading to me, teaching me things when I was little. I remember how much I loved it.”
Remus stared at the hand clenched around his Butterbeer, the other straying to his shoulder, and Tonks wondered if he noticed he was doing it. “I’ll never forget how glad I was that my lycanthropy seemed to hardly be an issue with your parents, how much that trust and love meant to me. Not everyone is as accepting as you or your parents. People are all right about their children listening to music by a werewolf, but I don’t think they’d be so accepting if I was teaching them, do you?”
Tonks felt a flare of anger for Remus, who was still rubbing at his shoulder, and she set her Butterbeer down, reaching across him to grab his hand. Trapping it between both of hers, she waited until he looked up at her, and when he did, smiled softly and whispered, “You’d make an amazing teacher.”
Remus blushed, looked away towards their joined hands, smiled, whispered back, “Thank you.”
~~~~
On November 5th, 1981, Tonks opened the front door and found Remus Lupin standing there, looking as though he wasn’t quite sure what to do with himself.
“Hello, Nymphadora,” he’d said, his voice scratchy and quiet, and she wanted to correct him, but couldn’t do it, couldn’t bring herself to do anything except wrap her arms around his waist and rest her head against his stomach. His hands curled over her shoulder blades, and she could feel him breathing, long, deep breaths. “Are your parents home?” She nodded against his stomach, but tightened her arms, not wanting to let him go just yet, warm, quiet Remus.
“It’s going to be okay,” he said, one hand moving to the top of her head for a moment before he crouched down to eye level with her, smiling slightly. “Don’t forget that, all right? It’ll be okay.” He pulled her close again, and she smiled a little too, remembering how it felt, how the muscles moved to be happy. She could hear her parents coming into the hall behind her, could hear Remus greeting them quietly, but she didn’t let go. She wasn’t sure she could.
She tapped on his shoulder then, and when he pulled back to meet her eyes, she whispered, “My name is Tonks.” And he laughed then, long and loud, and the sunshine was no longer abrasive, but warm and welcoming. It was going to be okay.
~~~~
“Thought I might find you up here,” Tonks said, leaning against the doorframe and looking at Remus, sitting cross-legged on the bed in the small room he’d been using when Sirius was too drunk to leave alone for the night, staring down at a notebook, music playing softly in the background.
“Hello, Nymphadora. Sirius was pestering me to sneak him out, and I was getting tired of saying no. It’s not a good feeling, to have to say it over and over again to him when he’s been cooped up in this house for so long.”
“No, it can’t be. And don’t call me that,” she narrowed her eyes at his grin, but then cocked her head to listen to the record he was playing. “What are you listening to?”
Remus looked down and blushed just slightly, high in his cheeks, before flicking his wrist at the record player to turn up the volume, “It’s The Fiddler On The Roof. It’s my favorite musical.”
“I remember you playing that for me when I was little! Tradition!” she boomed out in a comically low voice, and Remus shook his head in disbelief, flicking his wrist to turn the music down almost below audible.
“I cannot believe you remember that,” he said as Tonks crossed the room and plopped down on the bed in front of him. She pulled herself into a sitting position using his knees for leverage, and was suddenly and acutely aware of their closeness, pulling her hands away quickly, covering it by throwing them behind her as if for balance. Remus seemed not to notice though, and scribbled something in his notebook before closing it.
“I remember a lot of things that you taught me then. I was at a very impressionable age, and,” she trailed off for a moment, again aware of their closeness before continuing, “you were an excellent teacher. With pretty good taste.”
He laughed, the familiar lines appearing around his eyes, and she wondered when she’d started noticing things like laugh lines or how close she was to him. “Well, I’m glad you do. I’m glad I was able to do something useful in the time after- after all of that.”
Their playful mood disappeared almost instantly, lonely sadness in his eyes replacing the laugh lines, and she reached across them to take his hand, bringing them closer until her feet touched his and he looked up at her quickly before returning his gaze to the plain red cover of his old notebook.
“You did a lot of useful things then, and before that day, and you continue to do plenty of useful things. For being a gigantic, stubborn, daft git, you’re honestly one of the most useful people I know, both personally to me and to the world in general,” she said, squeezing his hand once, twice, three times in emphasis, and getting a return squeeze each time, an old ritual of theirs from the past.
“Did I ever tell you why I came to your house that day, after James and Lily were killed?” he asked suddenly, looking up from his notebook. Tonks had been staring at the places where her stocking feet touched his bare toes, and snapped her gaze up to his, trying to hide her blush.
“November 5th?” she asked, and he nodded, never taking his amber eyes away from hers. “I always assumed it was because you felt comfortable at our house and because you knew that we felt almost the same as you did.”
“That is why I came to your house, but not why I left my flat in the first place. I was lying on my couch, staring at the ceiling just like I had been for the past four days. I’d maybe eaten twice in that time, and mostly I alternated between just staring at the ceiling and sleeping. I don’t think I planned on ever getting up again. Then that morning, I heard Let It Be playing outside, car radio down the street or something. And I was so angry, that someone could be enjoying something that I loved in the midst of this enormous tragedy, that there could still be things in the world that were as beautiful as that song is, when it seemed like everything had ended.
“I jumped off the couch and I ran outside to, I don’t know, to do something about it, and I burst out of the building into this blinding sunshine and warmth. That’s what stopped me, the fact that on a November morning, it was warm and bright and the world had kept on spinning despite the fact that it felt like someone had ripped a giant wound in my soul. Suddenly the four people who were the most important to me had been violently torn away in what seemed like one motion.
“But standing there, in the sunshine, listening to that song? It made the hole seem less ragged. It didn’t make it okay, didn’t magically heal or fill the gap in my life. But it made the idea that someday, things would exist that might help to bridge that gap, that there would be a time when the world would seem okay again, it made that idea seem possible. I stood there for a while, until the song ended, and then I went back up to my flat, made myself a sandwich, changed my clothes and came over to your house. I started living again.”
They were silent for a minute after that, Tonks staring at their feet again, at the one long, pale scar that ran along the top of his left foot, from just below the nail of his big toe until it disappeared under the cuff of his pants, trying to remember the line she wanted to say.
“And when the broken hearted people living in the world agree, there will be an answer, let it be,” she whispered, not trusting her singing voice in the moment, the fragile, quiet moment that she didn’t want to shatter with her clumsiness.
“And when the night is cloudy, there is still a light, that shines on me, shine until tomorrow, let it be,” Remus whispered back, fingers gripping the metal spirals of his notebook tightly.
“I Want To Hold Your Hand,” she said, moving her gaze from their feet to Remus’s hand, the long fingers interlocking with the spine of his tattered notebook, concentrating on making the blush high on her cheeks disappear.
“What?” he said, cocking his head to the side with puzzlement.
She laughed, “No, I mean, that’s my favorite Beatles song, I Want To Hold Your Hand from Meet The Beatles!. It was the first Beatles song I ever heard, and I’ve loved it ever since.” Tonks didn’t say that she had first heard it performed by The Marauders in her living room, and only after hearing their version of the song had she worn out the record her father got her for her fifth birthday that year after much begging on her part.
“One of their best,” he said, fingers relaxing around his notebook as the recollections of those four days of November drifted back into his memory. “Such a simple love song, and yet, it’s inspired just about every love song since.”
Tonks nodded, smiling, glad that someone else understood the message she took from the song, “Exactly! It’s a song that’s as much about connection with another person, any person, as it is about love.”
“Yes, connection” Remus said, quietly, and Tonks saw that he was looking down at their feet, his having shifted just slightly as he’d leaned forward, his big toe now just barely touching hers, skin to skin, though a hole in her sock. Blushing suddenly, she looked away, fumbling to move off of the bed and stand.
“I suppose we should go check on my cousin,” she mumbled, but her natural clumsiness mixed with her scrambling urge to get away from Remus and left her sprawled on the floor. She squeezed her eyes shut as Remus gracefully lifted his longer frame from the bed, reaching out to help her up as usual. As soon as she was on her feet again, she moved away towards the door, too aware of the unusual yellow colors of his eyes, the clean, cottony smell of the t-shirt he wore, the warmth of his hand wrapped around hers.
“Yes, I suppose we should. Wouldn’t want him getting into too much trouble without us, would we?” he said, and Tonks relaxed a little under his puzzled gaze as he released her hand.
“Of course not. Where would the fun be in that?” she said, and he laughed as he followed her down the stairs and into the kitchen. Sirius gave them a suspicious look when they came into the room, but Tonks was relieved that Remus didn’t seem to catch it, and her cousin was soon distracted by a game of Exploding Snap.
~~~~
After November 5th, 1981, Remus found himself spending more time than ever at the Tonks’, mourning with them, and than celebrating with them, birthdays and holidays and days that weren’t anything special but were, because they were spent together. It was Ted and Andromeda who finally convinced Remus to continue the legacy of The Marauders by creating a solo album and going out on his own tour.
And he became Tonks’ best friend, because he felt the need to fill in for the other three, that she should be protected from the loss because no one could protect him from it. So he told her stories, read her books, sang her songs when she was little, and as she grew and headed off to Hogwarts, became her constant correspondent, helping her with homework and friends and to some extent boys, because just when everything seemed about to come crashing down on her head, a thick letter full of his neat handwriting would arrive and the world and all her problems seemed as light as air.
During the summers, they learned to play the guitar together, Remus always much better, experience winning out over her hours of practice, and discussed whatever they wanted, at first filling in the gaps of the past year with things that couldn’t be expressed in letters and then moving on to anything that came to mind.
And then there were the presents. Every year, without fail, every time the last day before Christmas break rolled around, Tonks received an envelope containing five tickets to Remus’s next concert and specific instructions to give them to people that liked her for her, not because she had Marauders tickets. And indeed, for about six hours she was the most popular girl in the school, and by following Remus’s instructions, she spent some of the best times of her life at those concerts with people who were still some of her best friends years later.
For her birthday, he always showed up with the sun on that summer day because she demanded that he give her his present as early as possible, since he refused to give her any hints. He simply laughed every time she mentioned it and complied. And the things he gave her: volumes of poetry, small pieces of jewelry, a new guitar every few years, and every single one of them personalized in some way.
At first she didn’t understand it, why he gave her all these fabulous gifts that must have cost him quite a bit of money, although he often wore worn shoes and oxfords that were a size too big, pants with thin knees and tatty hems. They were always neat and clean, but they made him look older than he really was. So she asked him one day, staring at the stone at the end of the thin gold chain in her hand, slowly changing color to match her hair.
“How come you always get me such nice, expensive presents, and yet you wear those things all the time?” she asked him, pointing to his favorite shoes, worn brown leather with thin, thin soles, but new shoelaces.
“They’re comfortable,” he said, but he was barely audible and wouldn’t meet her eyes. She had known him for far too long to miss the obvious signs.
“Remus, you can tell me. I love the gifts, I just want to know why,” she asked, and was surprised how young he looked when his amber eyes finally did meet her brown ones, how for the first time since that first day he’d shown up on their doorstep after Let It Be had reminded him what was so good about life, he looked like the young man who’d lost what felt like everything to the war he’d been fighting for what must have felt like his whole life.
“When I was little, even after I was accepted at Hogwarts, I knew that I wouldn’t ever be able to hold a job down very long because of my condition. Even if they didn’t actually find out that I was a werewolf, I would be missing at best one day a month and at worst three or four, and I wouldn’t be able to give them any kind of good explanation. I resigned myself to the fact that I wouldn’t ever have really nice things, and I was fine with that eventually.
“But I also realized that I wouldn’t ever be able to afford the kinds of gifts I would want to get for my friends, that I’d never really be able to show them how much they meant to me. And that hurt more than I imagined anything ever would, hurt more than any transformation I’d ever experienced, because my friends had given me so much, and it seemed like I’d never be able to give them even a fraction of that back.
“So when we signed with Yates and we got so famous and made so much off of royalties, it was like getting a whole new look at life. I’m the only one still receiving royalties, except for the percentage that goes to Harry’s inheritance, so my income has increased greatly since the others died. But these clothes are comfortable, I promise, and I suppose I just never got out of the mindset that teenage me put itself into before we’d ever even conceived of The Marauders.”
Tonks didn’t say anything, just handed him the necklace so he could help her put it on, and when he softly and simply answered “Beautiful.” to her question of how she looked, she wrapped her arms around him in a warm, tight hug.
But the best present Remus Lupin ever gave her was her graduation present. Tonks had been unpacking her Hogwarts trunk for a final time, planning to live at home for a little while as she started Auror training. She’d stopped for a moment to flip through the pages of an old poetry book she’d always kept by her bed, at Hogwarts or at home, when he’d knocked on the doorframe with a smile, two small black books, one old and one new, tucked under his arm.
“May I come in?” he’d asked, and she hadn’t even bothered to answer, abandoning the book on her bed and crossing to him in three steps to hug him tightly.
“Brought you a present,” he said, handing her the two books, “One’s a volume of poems I thought you might like. It’s always been one of my favorites, and that’s actually the first copy of it that I ever bought. I hope you don’t mind, it’s a little worn. And as for the other one, well, I thought it was time you had one. I’ve got a show in a few hours that I’ve got to go set up for, but I’ll swing by tomorrow, we’ll go out to lunch, my treat, to celebrate your graduation.”
And then he was gone almost as suddenly as he had appeared, the soft sounds of his footsteps down the stairs and out the door as he called good-bye to her parents. Tonks moved a stack of clothes to the floor to make room on the bed to sit down and opened the first book.
She forced herself to read the titles only, wanting to get her unpacking done before dinner, but she also noticed a few faint underlines or stars that Remus must have unconsciously used to mark his favorites. One in particular caught her eye, Dirge Without Music by Edna St. Vincent Millay, because several lines were underlined multiple times, as though no matter how many times Remus read the poem, he was always struck by those lines.
And as she read the poem slowly, she understood why. It was beautiful, and said so much about who Remus was and everything that he’d gone through and believed in, heartbreaking and inspiring at the same time. Unable to continue simply glancing at the titles because she now wondered if all the poems were as good as Dirge Without Music, she opened the other book to reveal completely blank pages, with the exception of the back of the front cover, where an inscription was written in Remus’s familiar small handwriting.
For a few seconds, she continued to flip through the pages, confused as to why Remus would give her a blank journal with no explanation other than the inscription, before she realized what it was. He had given her the one thing she’d always wanted, her own version of his beloved poetry notebook, to fill with her own favorites. And only he would know how badly she wanted that, the blank pages to fill with the wonderful words of others that described her so well.
She carefully copied Dirge Without Music on to the first page, and then went hunting through her collection for old favorites and new, spending a few hours immersed in the poetry. Her unpacking was nowhere close to finished by the time dinner rolled around, but Tonks found she didn’t care very much. Remus had re-given her the love of poetry that he’d first given to her all those years ago, though she’d never lost it. He’d shown her glimpses of that world, and now he’d given it to her for her very own.
~~~~
She found Remus in the small library on the second floor, one of the first rooms that Sirius and he had cleaned out upon entering Grimmauld Place. The main library had not been dealt with yet, so Remus used the smaller one as both a study and a place to store the books he needed for Order business. And, apparently, a place to grab a quick nap, as the tall man had folded himself into what was probably a fairly uncomfortable position on the short couch within.
Moving quietly through the room, trying not to wake him, aware of the fact that the full moon was only two days past, Tonks settled carefully into the armchair near his head. There was a book open on the floor next to him, one of his large hands marking the place, and she picked it up, retrieving the piece of paper lying on the ground by it to mark the place before glancing at the front cover: Guards! Guards! By Terry Pratchett. The book still in one hand, she unconsciously reached out and pushed the curls of Remus’s fringe away from his closed eyes. When her fingers brushed his forehead, he stirred slightly, and she barely managed to pull her hand away from his face before his eyelids fluttered and opened to reveal his unusual amber eyes.
“Hello,” he said, quietly, voice still a bit scratchy and slow from sleep.
“Hello,” she said back, looking anywhere but at his face, trying to hide her blush at nearly being caught. For a moment, there was an awkward silence as he looked up at her through lidded eyes and she gazed down at him, unmoving, her hand still hovering between them.
“Have you gotten a birthday present for me yet?” she asked, flipping through the pages of his book for something to do with her hands, because a single curl had escaped from his fringe and hung between his eyes.
“Of course,” he answered, solving the problem by sitting up slightly and pushing his fringe back himself.
“Oooh,” Tonks said, sitting up a little straighter in her seat, distracted from her embarrassment and Remus’s hair by the prospect of a present, “What is it?”
Remus laughed, “Well, it wouldn’t be much of a surprise present if I told you what it was, would it?”
She frowned and made a displeased noise. “Ughhh, not even a hint?”
“I think it’s the best gift I’ve ever gotten you,” he said, smiling, rubbing sleep out of his eyes as he looked up at her from his slumped position.
“Better than the necklace you got me a few years ago that says good morning whenever you open it?” she asked, and he smiled more.
“When you were seven, you told me a secret; that your favorite part of the day was the morning, because everyone said good morning to each other, no matter what kind of rush they were in,” Remus answered, moving slowly and stiffly to sit up next to her.
“And you remembered that all this time, some little tidbit that I told you when I was a kid?” she asked, wide-eyed, as he stretched his arms above his head and grimaced at the pain in his shoulder.
“It was just something that I’d always remembered, I guess. And I was looking for your present and there was the locket, which was beautiful and perfect for you, but I wanted to add a personal touch. The charm wasn’t all that complicated. Does it still work?” Remus asked, and Tonks nodded slowly, mutely, thinking how just this morning she had opened the locket to hear the soft ‘Good Morning’ issue out. But then she shook herself slightly and frowned at him.
“That wasn’t a good hint at all, Remus,” she whined, but he just laughed and stood to leave, reaching to retrieve the book she still held in her hands.
“I know you’ve struggled with patience your entire life, Dora, but perhaps this is finally the time where you find the as yet untapped well of it that I’m sure you have. You’ll just have to wait a few days to find out,” he said over his shoulder as he left the room.
“Don’t call me-!” she shouted after him, until she realized that he hadn’t called her by he despised first name. He’d called her Dora.
~~~~
She tried to wrestle more hints out of Remus in the days leading up to her birthday, but all he would do was smile that infuriating smile of his and exit the room with his book, tossing a quiet “Patience, Dora,” over his shoulder. So on the morning of her birthday, she showed up at Grimmauld Place very early, intent on making Remus give her the present as soon as possible.
Tonks had expected to find Remus already here, making Sirius a greasy breakfast to get over the latest hangover, or at the very least, Sirius asleep at the kitchen table, about to greet his latest hangover. But the kitchen was empty, save for a small box sitting on the counter, card propped up against.Nymphadora Tonks was written on the front of the card in a familiar hand.
Puzzled but eager, she flipped over the card while she poked at the box, which gave a slight rattle but otherwise gave no hint as to what it contained. Written across the back of the card in Remus’s straight, slightly leaning script was a single line: Thank you for your patience, Dora. I hope you like your present. Happy Birthday. Love, Remus.
Pulling the lid off the box, Tonks revealed a small cassette player and an unmarked cassette tape, which only piqued her curiosity further. Quickly, she slotted the tape into the machine and pressed play, turning the volume knob all the way up. The kitchen was suddenly filled with a low crackling sound, and then a familiar voice cut through with “Ready, Dora?”
She didn’t hear herself answer Remus, but must have done so, because suddenly there was music she recognized, and then Remus’s voice filled the room, accompanied by a squeaky, small one she realized must be her own. “Where did we go, days when the rains came?”
Tonks stood there in the kitchen, listening in awe to the tape, full of music and memories. She remembered the day this tape had been made, a rainy day in August, less than a month after the concert that had made The Marauders into legends. She remembered how worried she had been, that her favorite friends would have no time for her now that they were so famous.
And then that day they had burst into her house with their normal energy, Sirius scooping her up to twirl her around over and over and over before sitting her on the ground and telling her that the band needed her help desperately. They turned the living room into a temporary recording studio and spent the whole day there, recording anything and everything that she had asked them to.
Most times, it was her small, childish voice joining Remus’s, but on some of the songs, she could tell that she must have been playing the bass or drums. Four songs after Brown Eyed Girl, the recording got clearer, and she realized it must be from a different session, songs she recognized from Rise Like Lions, but in between the songs, she could hear bits of talking, discussing the name for the album. These songs must have been from one of the early sessions on Lions because she knew they’d decided on the name early on in the process.
Then the tracks grew fuzzy again, even harder to hear than the first five songs on the tape, but she recognized what they must be immediately. Tonks remembered her mother trying to pay Sirius, but Sirius and the others insisting that she had more than paid for them with all her help, remembered being in the stadium that day, as Remus and his friends had changed the world, remembered how her father had handed her the ticket she’d used that day and told her never to lose it, because she would want to remember this June day forever.
As the last roar from the crowd cut off, a much clearer voice cut in, Remus’s, saying, “Happy Birthday, Dora, I hope you’ve liked your present so far. And I hope this makes it even better than the necklace I gave you.”
And then Remus’s clear, wonderful voice filled the room, “Oh yeah, I’ll tell you something, I think you’ll understand, when I say that something, I want to hold your hand.” Remus was singing her favorite Beatles’ song, possibly her favorite song ever, for her birthday, and she stood transfixed as it washed over her until it ended and the tape player clicked off. Carefully, she ejected the tape, staring at it in her hand for a long moment.
She took off running then, not caring about her clumsiness, or anything else, because she had to find Remus, and tell him, make him understand what this meant to her. But when she reached the second floor and saw him emerging out of the library, Tonks froze, unable to say or do anything but stare at him. He seemed to be in a somewhat similar state, but managed a quiet, “Morning, Nymphadora, and happy birthday,” in what seemed to be a fairly normal voice.
“You called me Dora,” she said, finding words finally, quietly, reverently, as if by saying the words she might make them untrue and shatter the fragile hold she had on herself now, “On the tape, you called me Dora.” Remus nodded. “And the other day, in the library, you called me Dora.” Another nod. “And,” she said, as the realization dawned on her, “every time I asked you about the present, you called me Dora.” He nodded once more before speaking.
“You said you wanted a hint,” he shrugged before continuing, “I think you were about six and a half when most of those songs were recorded. A few weeks after that was when you realized that you could go by Tonks, and by doing so, avoid being called by your first name while still being very attached to your identity, which was important to you even then.
“The others all took to it, and even your mother grudgingly accepted it, though I think she just hoped it was a phase that you would grow out of in a month or two, but I’ve always missed calling you Dora. I thought it suited you very well. I still think it suits you very well.”
“And is that why you’re always calling me Nymphadora?”
Remus shook his head. “No, I call you Nymphadora because I always enjoy annoying you slightly, and also because it’s a beautiful name for a beautiful girl. But I’ve always liked Dora more. It means gift, you know.”
For a minute that felt like hours and hours and hours, Tonks just stood and stared at Remus, the tape still held in the limp fingers of one hand. He studied the two feet of worn carpet between them, one hand jammed into the pocket of his jeans and the other alternating between pushing his fringe away from his eyes and fussing with the collar of his dark oxford.
Suddenly, without realizing what she was doing until her hand touched his, she reached out as his fingers left his fringe to travel towards his collar and intercepted it, her fingers twining around his. They stood, suddenly nearer each other than they had been moments before, fingers laced as the both of them looked down at their intertwined hands.
Tonks wanted to ask if he’d meant all of the things he’d sang on that tape, if that last song was a message as much as a gift, but his fingers were so warm around hers and he was so close, amber eyes now fixed on hers, closer, closer, closer. And as his nose brushed against hers softly, she realized it didn’t matter if he’d really meant those words, if he’d used the song to say things he didn’t think he could have otherwise, because nothing could matter as much as this moment.
Remus smelled like paper, ink, soap, something distinctly him underneath it all, something familiar that she could not identify. His breath was warm over her lips and she lost the battle to keep her eyes open as she realized what it was. Remus was warm and solid through his shirt; his hair soft at the back where her free hand had come to rest, and he smelled like, felt like, was home. He was memory and song and warmth and love, love, love for Tonks, whether he said out loud or not. Her hand tightened around Remus’s as their lips met.
She tried to remember who had initiated the kiss, whether she had pushed up on her toes or he’d leaned down towards her, but his lips were soft and warm over hers, fingers still warm and tight around hers, and who started the kiss seemed very, very unimportant in comparison to the actual kiss. His free hand left his pocket to skirt over her hip and shoulder lightly, before settling it against her cheek, tilting her head back slightly for better access, fingers threading through the short hair by her ear.
~~~~
Singing when Tonks was in the audience, he decided, was like the feeling in the air during that note, that all encompassing feeling of energy and insanity, the heaviness of wet, hot air and knowing that things were right and good in the world and nothing bad could ever happen.
But kissing Tonks was different. Kissing Tonks was the moments after, cool darkness and quiet, the wood of the stage against his back and learning to breath again. That was what it felt like: new, burning oxygen and coming home.
He pulled away, hands still framing her face, his forehead resting against hers for a moment, trying to catch his breath, before he whispered, “My brown eyed girl.”
She smiled, laughed, and his lungs burned with sudden happiness and the need to move, so he wrapped his arms around her waist and picked her up, twirled around and around and sang, nonsense words and sha-la-la-las in between kisses. There were things that would need to be worried about, he knew, as the light caught the pale scars on his forearms, as he felt the post-transformation ache in his shoulders and knees, but none of those things were important in that moment, had no place in that bubble of breath and joy.
He voiced them a little though, giving into his lifelong role as the responsible one, nothing specific, just a whisper against her lips, “This might be hard.”
“I know,” she whispered back.
“People are going to look at you differently once they know.”
“Because I’ve snagged myself a dashing older rock star?”
Remus laughed softly, “Thank you for that, but no. The entire world knows I’m a werewolf, Dora. There will be people who are not all right with us being together, people who you never would have guessed would object until you see the look on their faces when we walk in holding hands,” he sighed, closed his eyes as he pressed his forehead to hers, didn’t want to worry about this right now. He opened his eyes to see her still smiling. “This might be hard.”
“I know. I’ll just have to learn to turn the other cheek as well as you do. Or some really imaginative curses,” she said, and for a moment, Remus had no idea what to do with her, this wonderful, crazy woman with her pink hair and her laugh and her ability to make him forget everything in the world except for her. So he just wrapped his arms around her waist again, pulled her close to him, breathed in the smell of her hair. Her fingers traced over the pale skin of his arms, lingered for a minute at the bends of his elbows before continuing up his arms.
“Coming to my show tonight?” he asked, as her hands reached the collar of his shirt and slid under softly, warm through the thin fabric.
“I don’t know. Can I request a song for my birthday?”
“Mmmm,” he said, humming into her hair.
“Moondance,” she whispered, and for a moment, she wondered if he had heard her, until his arms loosened around her and he leaned back to look into her eyes.
“I’ll have to talk to your cousin,” he said softly, and she nodded. Taking a deep breath, he reluctantly removed his arms from her waist and moved past her to head down to the kitchen, where he hoped Sirius was already up and started on his breakfast.
Pausing outside the kitchen door, Remus took another deep breath and walked in, hands shoved into his pockets and shoulders slumped. Sirius was at the stove, three whole eggs next to him on the counter along with the shells of two more.
“Morning, Moony, you’re here early. That part of your present to Tonksy?” he asked, pointing the spatula he’d been using to flip the eggs already cooking at the tape recorder left on the table, and Remus nodded before speaking.
“Yes. I took some of our old recording sessions- the one at Andi and Ted’s house with her, the first one we did for Rise Like Lions- and the recordings we have of the June concert, and put them on a mix tape.”
“Bet she loved that. She’s already here, right? Never could wait for her presents that one,” he said affectionately as he cracked another egg.
“That’s actually why I wanted to talk to you. She requested a song for my concert tonight. Moondance. I wanted to- I wanted to make sure we were okay with each other about that whole thing. I know we didn’t really talk about it, just sort of let it pass, but I don’t- I don’t want to hurt you again. I know how important that song is to you.”
Sirius stood completely still for a moment, the only sound in the kitchen the sizzling of the eggs, before he spoke, “Of course it’s fine, Moony. I was stupid, about that song. I understand. It’s just hard, you know, hearing how all those people who used to be fans of mine could turn against me for something I didn’t actually do. But of course, Remus, go ahead and play it. You don’t have to tell the story if you don’t want to, if you think that would help.”
“Of course I’m going to tell the story, Padfoot. What else could I do?” Remus answered after a few moments, and Sirius smiled and laughed as the last two eggs were added to the pan before he crossed the room to hug his friend quickly.
“When did you start taking song requests from Tonks anyway? In the past, you’ve never taken song requests from anyone before the show, only during it,” he said, glancing over his shoulder after he’d returned to the stove.
“Well, er,” said Remus, caught off guard by the question and scrambling for any answer that wasn’t the actually answer, “It’s her birthday, and this will be like the thousandth The Marauders concert she’s been to and-“
But Sirius had known him too long and whirled around at the stove to study him suspiciously. Remus could feel himself blushing, just slightly, but enough to give his friend the last bit of evidence he needed to figure out the truth and dash out of the kitchen, calling over his shoulder “Watch my eggs!”
Remus heard a small shriek from upstairs as he moved the spatula around the pan, and Sirius entered the kitchen a minute later, arms wrapped around Tonks’s waist. Once fully inside the room, he spun around, laughing, and she was caught up in it as well, until they were both dizzy and out of breathe.
When he’d finally put her down, he said, “Well, go on, go over there and stand by him.” Giving her cousin a quizzical look, she nonetheless followed his instructions and moved over to where Remus still stood by the stove.
“Just let me be the first to offer my congratulations to the two of you,” he said, and Tonks laughed as she remembered his words from the other day, crossing the room to hug him tightly again. Remus followed her, trying to hand Sirius his spatula back, but the two cousins pulled him into the hug anyway and he came more willingly than he was willing to admit. After a few seconds, Sirius pulled away, seizing the spatula from Remus and moving back to his eggs with an energy that Remus remembered from the days before Azkaban, but hadn’t seen nearly as often since.
“Well, you two sit down, and I’ll fix you breakfast, Tonks in honor of her birthday, and Moony on obviously being very charming, since he is simply not attractive enough to have gotten my lovely cousin on looks alone.”
“Thank you, Padfoot,” said Remus, rolling his eyes as he wound his fingers with Tonks’s under the table, while she filled in with, “I happen to think he’s very handsome.”
“Shows what you know, Tonksy,” he said, reaching for the kettle, and the other two just shook their heads and settled down to wait for their breakfast. The three of them talked while Sirius cooked, and Remus couldn’t remember a time when he’d felt quite like this, Sirius happy and Tonks’s warm hand wrapped inside his.
~~~~
Remus had always loved being on stage, with his friends or by himself, as long as he was singing, but he’d never known how much more he’d love being up on stage when he was only twelve hours removed from kissing Nymphadora Tonks for the first time. This bar was one of his favorites, and he’d played here about a dozen times on this current round of concerts. The place was packed, some people settling down to dinner at the many tables, while others sat more towards the front, drinks in hand as they cheered his walk onto the stage.
He found Tonks sitting at one of the front tables as he slung his guitar strap over his shoulder, and she smiled at him as he bent over the microphone slightly, trying to hide his own huge smile as he sang, “I can’t get no satisfaction.”
He finished Satisfaction and waited a moment for the applause for the familiar song to die down before he spoke, “This song goes out to someone very special, who loves this song just as much as I do. Hey, where did we go, days when the rains came? Down in the hollow, playin’ a new game.” Tonks smiled at him again as he continued, and he was glad he hadn’t sat down again as he hit the bridge, because he wanted her to understand how much this song meant to him, to them.
“With you, my brown eyed girl, you my brown eyed girl.”
The crowd applauded again when he finished the last set of sha-la-las, and he sat down to catch his breath a moment, and to tell the story that needed to be told. He began when the bar had fallen almost completely silent in anticipation of the next song.
“I don’t know how many of you were around when The Marauders were all together as one band, still fairly new to the whole concert thing,” he paused for a few seconds to allow the cheers of those who hadbeen there to die down again, “Still trying to hash out a good set list that we could all agree on. And I really, really wanted to play my favorite Van Morrison song, Brown Eyed Girl, but,” and he paused for another moment, taking one, two, three long breathes, eyes focusing on the guitar balanced carefully on his lap before he looked back out over the crowded bar, “Well, Sirius thought that it was far too sappy and far too sad, but he eventually agreed to play the song, but he made me promise that any time we played Brown Eyed Girl, we would play Moondance, which Sirius sincerely believed to be the sexiest song ever written that wasn’t a Rolling Stones song. Also, I think he was a big fan of the use of the word fantabulous.”
She could see the relief that washed over his face as the crowd laughed at the small joke, fingers adjusting into the first chord as he continued, “And so, because I played my Van Morrison song, here’s Sirius’s. Well it’s a marvelous night for a moondance, with the stars above in your eyes. A fantabulous night to make romance, ‘neath the cover of October skies.”
~~~~
He’d stood halfway through the first line, sliding the stool back a little with his foot, and leaned into the microphone, his voice soft and intimate, sending a shiver down Tonks’s spine as she watched, idly trailing her finger around the lip of her beer. She could feel the crowd getting sucked in as well, with every chord from the old guitar and every word quietly sung, people moving closer to the stage, and she realized something: of course they were going up there for Remus, sucked in by his easy command of the stage, but they were also crowding around the stage to hear Sirius’s song, to be reminded of that time and that boy, that rock star, that they had missed so much for so long.
Remus sat again when he was finished, and seemed to just think for a moment, a blank look on his face before pulled the guitar off over his head and moved the microphone and stool over to the piano before speaking again.
“I play this song more than I play Moondance, but I think it’s been a while since I told the story about it properly. This is a song that Peter and I wrote together, which is not unusual in and of itself, because Peter and I wrote a lot of songs together. He had a knack for choruses and I had a talent for verses, but this song is different, because Peter wrote the verses, about a friend of his who struggled with depression, and I wrote the chorus for him, because he told me he couldn’t figure out a way to simplify it enough to make people understand what he was trying to say. And this song has always been one of my favorites that we ever played.”
The bar was quiet again as the lonely opening notes fell from the piano, but people moved toward the stage again, for Peter’s song as they had Sirius’s, the music transcending anything that they’d done all those years ago, whether the people in the crowd accepted the truth or not.
“She can tell by the storm clouds in sight, weatherman says five inches by tonight, oh and in the rain, the world doesn’t look the same, and the skies open up and the heavens cry, and I swear the saddest girl in the world’s never known a tear in her life.”
Tonks saw it suddenly, who Remus was singing to. Not Peter now, who betrayed Remus as much as he betrayed any of the others and left him alone untouched by death or prison to live out the story, but the Peter of his memories. The round little boy who wrote those simple choruses for all the songs Remus couldn’t condense himself, who kept a steady beat as James and Sirius went off on their own tangents, both on stage and in life. Remus was remembering and honoring his long lost friend the only way he knew how.
“When it rains she dances, when it rains she dances, when it rains she dances, afraid she’ll lose her mind. When it rains she dances, when it rains she dances, when it rains she dances, keeps no track of time. When it rains she dances, when it rains she dances, when it rains she dances, ooooh, how she dances. When it rains she dances, and I wish the saddest girl in the world was mine.”
When he finished, he met her eyes for just a moment, and she could see the tears, just at the edges of his amber eyes, a certain glassiness evident before he turned back to the piano and the next song.
~~~~
Tonks waited by the side of the stage for Remus to appear, watching the next band set up and tune. There was still no sign of him as the lead singer for Three AM stepped up to the microphone, guitar hanging loosely in front of him.
“ I’m Sebastian, we’re Three AM, and all we can really say is that we’re very honored that Remus Lupin himself would play before us on this stage, and he actually requested that we do a song, and you know, who are we to deny a request from Remus Lupin?” This drew a laugh from the crowd, Tonks included, before he continued, “So this is for his brown eyed girl.”
And just as the singer on stage spoke the words, she heard them behind her as well, my replacing his, and she turned around to find him there, leaning against the wall, hands in his pockets as the opening chords of I Want To Hold Your Hand reached her ears.
“I wondered why you didn’t play this song,” she said, and he pushed away from the wall, moving towards her as Sebastian started, “ Oh, yeah, I’ll tell you something, I’ll think you’ll understand, when I say that something, I want to hold your hand.”
“Well, if I’d sang it, I wouldn’t have gotten the chance to dance with you during it, would I?” he asked, wrapping one hand around hers and the other arm around her waist, pulling her close.
After a few seconds she rested her head against his chest, and they swayed in silence for a minute, until Tonks broke it. “This kid’s pretty good.” Remus nodded, his chin moving gently against the top of her head where he’d been resting it.
“Yes, nice fellow, too. Plays seven different instruments, though his vocal range could expand a little. Told me he’s working on it, loves doing covers of our songs, but always has to take When It Rains She Dances down a little in the chorus because he can’t reach a few of the notes very well.”
She sighed, shaking her head, “Only you would notice something like that,” she said, and Remus joined in with the song quietly, taking each line up a step or two until it finally broke, partly from the note and partly because he was laughing so hard. As the song ended, he leaned down and kissed her suddenly, and though it was still new, it felt like she’d been doing it for a long time, the way their lips moved together.
When they finally broke apart, the next song had already started, and Tonks pulled Remus out of the shadow of the side of the stage, on to the main dance floor out among all the other people. They danced together for the three faster songs Three AM played next, holding hands as Remus twirled her and they laughed and sang along with the rest of the crowd.
“Glad you’re all enjoying yourselves tonight, and as a thank you to you all for sticking around after Remus’s set, were going to play our favorite song by The Marauders. It’s a little slower than they play it, but we really like it this way, and we hope you do too.” Clearing his throat, Sebastian leaned close to the microphone, fingers going slightly white as he wrapped them tightly around the neck of the guitar. “I was trying to write a song for you, just so I could sing it for you, to tell you how I love you, couldn’t get it started, not a single part of it, not a single line of it at all, so let’s just dance instead.”
Tonks and Remus moved closer almost immediately, his arms wrapping around her waist once again as hers draped over his shoulders and around his neck. He smelled warm and safe, and a bit like the beer he’d been drinking a few minutes before. Three AM continued, much slower than the original, and Tonks spoke up after a few minutes, “I like this version.”
Remus laughed softly and nodded, “I do too. It’s almost like an entirely different song.” They fell silent after that, the song soft, slow and lovely in the background. Every once and a while, one of Remus’s hands would travel up her side and over her shoulder to cup her cheek and bring her lips to his in a soft kiss for a moment before it returned to its original position.
“I’m scared, I think, maybe,” he whispered, suddenly, surprising her though he was barely audible over the music. He moved their joined hands to rest over his heart, and Tonks could feel his heartbeat against the back of her hand, strong and slightly fast, the adrenaline from the show not having worn off yet.
“Scared of what?” she asked, mesmerized by the differences in their hands for a moment. His were darker, calloused along the top of his palm, much larger with much longer fingers than hers, pale and tiny with his wrapped around it.
“Of messing this up. Of what’s going to happen next in this war. Of tomorrow, and the next day, and the next full moon.”
Tonks stared up at him, long bangs falling into amber eyes, and she remembered him younger, book tucked under one arm in the doorway of her father’s study, reading poetry over her shoulder with a smile. She pushed up on to her toes to whisper into his ear.
“I am not resigned to the shutting away of loving hearts in the hard ground,” she said, and she could almost feel the worn edges of the slim volume where she’d first read that poem, the faint black line where his hand had unconsciously underlined those words again and again, the inscription in the front in his straight, small handwriting: Poetry is important. Share it with the people you love. –RL
“More precious was the light in your eyes than all the roses in the world,” he said back, staring at her for a moment, eyes locked on hers with an intensity she had always associated with Remus and his music, but now was only for her. And then he was suddenly tugging on her hand, pulling her through the crowded bar and out into the empty street under the warm summer rain.
Once they’d gotten away from the crowd and out the door, he whipped off his jacket and wrapped it around her, using it to pull her close again.
“Such a gentleman,” Tonks joked as she wound her arms around his neck while his large hands spanned her waist. For a while, they simply swayed, the music from the club barely audible. But then the tempo and volume of the song inside the club increased and suddenly Remus grabbed her hand and pulled away.
“We’ll catch our death out here,” she said, trying and failing to look serious as he spun her again and again.
“Then we’ll die dancing!” he shouted, pulling her tight to his chest, and she giggled at the water dripping off his curls, at the spark in his eyes, at his sudden loud enthusiasm. He kissed her suddenly, hard, and she could taste beer and Remus for a moment before he pulled away again to shout, “We’ll die happy and free, and what more could any man ask but to dance with a pretty girl in the summer rain, anyway?” She giggled some more, wondering if he spoke in volumes of poetry when he was young, making a note to ask Sirius when she saw him next.
She thought of her own memories of a younger Remus, how he’d taught her all the best things about poetry and music, how he’d brightened almost every day he’d been in, even the most horrible ones. And now she thought of how safe she felt in this moment, this tiny little globe of her and Remus and love.
She loved him for a lot of reasons. But she loved him the most because he felt safe and warm, like home, no matter what was happening.
~~~~
Remus knew that it wouldn’t always be this perfect, wouldn’t always be just the two of them trapped in a world all their own made up of summer rain and soft music just at the edge of hearing. When they arrived home, it was just as likely that a brooding, drunk Sirius awaited them as it was that his happy mood from this morning had lasted through the day, and tomorrow they would still wake up in the middle of a war that it seemed everyone wanted to ignore. In a week and a half, they would have to go retrieve Harry from his terrible relatives; Harry Potter, with Lily’s eyes and James’s face, the last, best hope for the Order, for the wizarding world, the last great hope for the existence of the world his parents had fought for.
And who knew when this war would end, and how, and who would be there at the end of it to pick up the pieces and strive to create the world that Remus’s friends had died for, that Remus, like Harry, had lost and sacrificed so much for.
But Remus didn’t want perfection all the time. He knew that perfection came in small, wonderful bursts: in a new song he liked or an old favorite, in the well worn pages of his beloved poetry books, in the moments when Sirius wasn’t drunk or stuck in the past, but was bright and passionate and happy. And in these moments with Dora, her small, warm body close to his in a quiet world that was full of rain and music and love and nothing else.
Remus didn’t want perfect. He just wanted those small bursts. He just wanted Dora.
Please leave feedback for this author HERE