InsaneJournal

Fic: Afterthoughts (Tonks)
Here's a little something I've been working on in spare moments.

Title: Afterthoughts
Author: lyras
Summary: Tonks gets a few things off her chest.
Word count: Just under 1,000.
Rating: R for sexual references and language.
Pairings/characters: Remus/Tonks with past Remus/Sirius. Teddy.
Notes and warnings: Afterlife fic. Punctuation/grammar abuse. I'm not really sure where this came from. Constructive criticism is always welcome and appreciated.


And I loved you, you know. Even though I knew you were lost, always pining for people who didn't love you enough. The Potters. Sirius. Dumbledore. Harry bloody saviour Potter. Do you think he thought twice about you after Sirius died? But I loved you, and that was scarier than anything, wasn't it? No wonder you ran away, from me and from your son.


Oh, Teddy, my Teddy, do you have a mother now? Who is changing your nappies; who is waking when you're hungry; who is dreaming of your future? I should have stayed with you, darling, but I didn't, I couldn't even though I wanted to. It was my job, you see, and your father had gone; he was always running away but I thought I could protect him. And if nothing else, we died for a better world, didn't we?

Oh, yes. That'll make you feel better when no one hears you crying in the night, won't it, my lovely? Your parents died for the greater good; well, that's just precious. Who cares about a baby boy?

I did. I do.

Are you walking yet, my Teddy? Are you driving your granny mad by making your toys stick to the ceiling the way I used to do? Do you ever dream of me, do you ever dream of your parents, my poor little lost boy?

Dying doesn't hurt, but I hurt and you hurt and he hurt and so much pain isn't right.

We were happy, even during the worst times. Your father smiling at me at you and it was like sunshine on a foggy London street when he did that I lived for those smiles. Those cracks in the shutters.


But I know you fucked Sirius is that what you thought of when you fucked me, when we made our son, or that first time when I'd been crying? You didn't cry, no, you only cried the once, when I told you about the baby. But that night you were crumpled and parched and you needed it as much as I did, maybe more.

I wasn't the only one, you know. We all fancied you a little - I remember Molly fawning over you, Hestia flirting, Emmeline and her sidelong glances. Your long-suffering air worked like an aphrodisiac.

Yes, you'd suffered, but you wanted to keep it all inside your head, inside your heart like a bitter almond, and I wanted to help you, but no. All those nights when your body and mind were ripped apart, all that death, all those jobs you never got, and I wanted to help you, but they got there first, didn't they?


I'm sorry, Teddy. Your father loved you. And he loved me, I know that.

The first time we kissed, we were upset. Your Uncle Sirius had just died, you see. I watched Remus for days, watched him hoarding his grief, and I was unhappy too - if I hadn't let myself get distracted, dear Aunt Bellatrix might not have had a shot at him. Sirius had had such an awful life and I couldn't even tell my mother he'd been innocent, for god's sake, my mother, who'd loved him so much that she never mentioned his name while I was growing up. And your father had been his closest friend, and one night after duty he started talking and it was like the spring tide, breaking higher and higher as if he couldn't stop until he'd engulfed us both.

I listened - I wanted to know everything about big bad Sirius. And somehow, at the end of the night, I kissed him or he kissed me. I'm not sure who started it, although I hate how corny that sounds. Perhaps we both needed each other. We were always as much about need and denial as we were about love.


And you fucking ran away because you cared more about the dead, about Harry bloody Potter than you did about me or our son. Are you happy now? Have you expiated your guilt? You had a death wish from the moment Sirius died, the moment you lost the last of your childhood. You might've been happy with me, we might've been happy, and when Teddy came along we were for a while, but really you wanted to be back with your friends. You never grew up, Remus, did you, you never got over that moment when three teenage boys said that they didn't care that you were a werewolf.

Well, you got what you wanted. Are you happy?


People will tell you things about your father, Teddy. If you're lucky, they'll say he died heroically. That he was a good man, loyal, self-sacrificing. All of that's true. But I suspect you'll hear more of the other kind of story: he was subhuman; he lived like a jackal on the fringes of society; he had some hold over me or my parents, because otherwise why would an attractive young woman with everything going for her throw herself away on him?

Don't listen to them, dearest. If you want to know what your father was like, talk to your godfather, and to Minerva McGonagall. Ask Neville Longbottom and Ginny Weasley about how he helped them at school. Ask Hestia Jones what happened the night Fenrir Greyback came calling for her. Ask Arthur and Molly Weasley where Bill's textbooks came from when he started school. Ask around, darling, and you will hear hundreds of stories about the real Remus Lupin. The one who did stupid things, who had a crippling inferiority complex and a hell of a lot of baggage, but the one who held me when I cried, who could speak to me with his grey eyes, who could turn me on with a knowing glance in a roomful of people, so much so that once we... Well, never mind.

That's the real Remus Lupin. The one I loved; the one who loved us both to the best of his ability. Remember him. Remember me.


Remus?