Ambiguous

She had known him, as a child, just a little bit. She had liked him even then, in the way that all children like an adult who listens seriously to them and doesn't talk down. He was so tall, and even though he never had treats for her the way that Sirius did, he always had a hug goodbye just for her.

She falls over a stool when she sees him again, when she is grown up and an Auror and he is still so much taller than she is. He doesn't hug her, but he shakes her hand and smiles. She is sure he remembers her, but never seems to have the opportunity to ask. Neither he nor Sirius talk to her as much as she would like, and she spends dinners amusing the kids. She listens to the other Order members discuss important things - she still cannot help thinking of them as The Grown-ups - with only half an ear because she knows that no one will ask her what she thinks.

She knows that they do not take her seriously, that Molly cringes when she comes into the kitchen and that Sirius and Moody trade glances over her head, but it does not occur to her to be offended or even disheartened. She has been a happy, uncomplicated person for most of her life, and dedicating that life to a shadowy war has not changed that yet. She makes funny faces and helps the kids feel safe and she is happy with that. So much of what they do is waiting, waiting, waiting, every movement a covert step of agonizing slowness and secrecy, and she imagines that when the war comes there will be great armies facing each other across mighty battlefields, lines of combats and ranking officers with uniforms. She imagines that she will face it bravely, and that she will die bravely if need be, and if that was the way the world worked, then she would be right.

But it is evil that they are facing, malignant and poisonous evil that spreads deceit from the shadows and draws closer when you are sleeping. It envelops you in dread and steals away the sun. And when the war breaks over them like a wave it is with a swiftness that steals her breath away, and she is dueling with real Death Eaters, with real enemies so suddenly that her thoughts of dinner, of a nice cuppa are still lodged in her brain, no matter how fast her heart races.

She is fearless. She fights courageously, as she knew she would be able to do.

And then there is stone rushing up to meet her, and stone hitting her body and she falls, and falls, and falls.

---

Nymphadora Tonks is only twenty-three years old. Although she went through hard years of Auror training and wanted it so badly and signed up eagerly to battle the forces of darkness, she is still just twenty-three. She cracked two ribs and broke her wrist when Bellatrix tumbled her down those stone steps, and although those were healed almost instantly by Moody she feels phantom bruises cover her body for weeks. Home - and still deafened, all words and emotion stolen from her - she strips off her robes and stands naked before the mirror and searches for those bruises, those marks that surely she now must bear.

She is unharmed and shattered, and cannot find the breath or thought to discover just what has been taken from her.

---

The next time she sees him, she turns the corner too fast into the kitchen and hits the frame of the door. He is bent over The Daily Prophet, and looks up with startled eyes. She freezes and rubs her shoulder ruefully, and they stare at each other in uncomfortable silence. She hadn't meant to find him; she hadn't thought anybody would be around Grimmauld Place at this hour; she is early for a morning meeting.

He doesn't say anything when she speaks, words tripping haltingly off her tongue, drifting away into meaningless air. Her voice is soft and she stares at the ground, and all the while she can feel his eyes on her bowed head, thoughtful. She feels as though she speaks forever.

"If only, if only - if I had stopped Bellatrix - if I hadn't fallen - Sirius would - "

She glances up, and sees that his face is very, very white. He stands, and the scrape of the wooden bench against stone is loud enough that she flinches back. But the look in his eyes is kind, and she is still as he walks to her and enfolds her in his arms.

She is still so much smaller than he is. Small enough that his chin does not brush against the top of her head. His body is warm against her and smells of manly sorts of things, of wool and aftershave and the faintest hint of skin. He holds her very tightly and doesn't mind when she gets tears or snot on his jumper. He sits her down at the table across from him and listens to her pour her fears out with undivided seriousness, because this is the type of person he is. It does not occur to him that offering comfort to a twenty-three year old woman would be any different from, say, offering comfort to an upset student during that blessed year of being a professor - and indeed, the similarities are comforting - no more than it occurs to her that for him, the real war was over fourteen years ago.

---

Nymphadora Tonks is just twenty-three years old, and in spite - or perhaps because of - her bravery, her tough demeanor and conspicuous appearance, she is undeniably a woman, or more fitting still, undeniably a girl. The first death of someone close to her hits her personally, her first real combat shakes her so badly that she has pinned her hopes on a broken man and lost all sense of colour and vibrancy. But if she thought that death was horrible, death is nothing compared to the slow, daily grind against hope that is lycanthropy. As she imagined that war would be equal, the strong against the strong, so too she imagines that if only Remus would love her, then things will turn out all right. She is not wrong for thinking this, or ignorant, for love is a powerful thing.

She thought that Remus Lupin would protect her against all of the ills of the world, but in truth Remus Lupin is not very good at protecting anyone.

---

Remus drinks tea all the time, compulsively. If he is at home, if he is among civilized wizards, then he is drinking tea. If Sirius had still been alive, he would have been able to tell her that it is a compulsion that is decades old, that it is born out of years when hot tea was a substitute for food that Remus couldn't afford to buy, when it was a distraction against starvation. Tonks has never starved, and cannot understand, and she watches with puzzled eyes as Remus reuses tea bags until there is barely a stain of colour in his cup.

Remus' sense of humor is a morbid, dark thing, and often seems to confuse people in the Order. It is subtle and carefully controlled, as Remus himself is, not the sort of amusement that would come in the form of funny noses or inadvertent physical comedy. He is gentle with Tonks, of course, and considerate of everyone's feelings except Severus Snape's, whom he ridicules so slyly that it goes nearly unnoticed. It is separate from the walls that he has built around himself throughout years that, she assumes - without proof, as most people close to Remus do - were spent in solitude and exile. It exists without check or better sense that should tell him that Severus Snape is a threat to him and always has been.

Remus is capable of dancing forever around issues and secrets, and would have been content being aware and maybe a touch horrified by the knowledge of her growing admiration for him. But Tonks presses, and presses, and presses and finally comes out with it, and then comes out with it again, for if there is one word that love rarely heeds, it unquestionably is 'no.'

Then come dark months when Remus is far away and is bitter and restless when he returns, and when she tells him that she loves him he actually laughs at her, still shaking the filth from Greyback's lair from his robes, an incredulous bark of laughter. When he tells her that she deserves somebody young and whole, she puts every fibre of herself into denying it.

But when she tells him that she doesn't care about him being a werewolf, he disentangles her hands from his robes and says very steadily that she does not understand what that means and she should not even try. But when she says that he gave Sirius the chance to understand, his face closes and his tone turns light and self-deprecating, and it is almost worse than any refusal he could ever give.

Tonks spends Christmas Eve alone, and Christmas Day alone, tugging her mousy hair over her face and waiting for the crack of an Apparition that never comes, and never feels the press of melodrama around her neck even when she finally gives up and flees in tears to her mother.

---

It ought to have been shattering that Albus Dumbledore is dead and Snape is a traitor and Death Eaters have penetrated their most sacred sanctuary, Hogwarts. But when she remembers that night of unnatural darkness and bodies colliding in ancient stone halls without heed to magic or righteousness, it is the bright of a hospital bed that her memory will return to, so much sharper and real than combat and numbering of casualties, sitting beside Remus Lupin.

To an outside observer - beyond the narrow eyes of Molly Weasley, that is - she could hardly have picked a worse moment to assault him with her feelings. But there are many truths that live peaceably side by side in life, and this is one of them: Nymphadora Tonks is young and youth is so rarely unaccompanied by the conviction that the world revolves around it. And: Nymphadora Tonks is young and had never been so aware of her own mortality, and the mortality of the wizards and witches around her, and love is a thing that she knows is worth fighting for, regardless of age or lycanthropy or poverty. And: Remus Lupin is a private person, and Dumbledore was a pillar in a life that had all other sources of strength stripped from him, one by one, and when he learns of Dumbledore's death he loses the strength to stand as surely as though someone has cut his legs off at the knees.

His reaction to nearly the greatest tragedy any of them have ever known is to offer comfort and stop his friends from blaming themselves. Her reaction is to let her composure come crashing down, turn it into a spotlight on herself, on them, and cry to all: love is all we need.

---

And in the end, away from the clamor of the opinions of others, Remus bows his head and accepts her love. She twines her fingers with his and knows that everything will be all right. He kisses her forehead and knows that for people like him, there's no such thing as happily ever after. All of the reasons, the whys or why nots, fall away as he considers the fit of her body against his, because even if there will never be a happily ever after for them, there is always happily right now.