The Long Fight of Nymphadora Tonks

Chapter 1: Alone

"How did this come about?" Remus Lupin asked of the room at large.

But he received no answer. How could he, when he was all alone? Alone as he had been for so much of his life, alone as the nightmare of his childhood had condemned him to be. The worn hearth rug, the faded curtains, the threadbare cushions on the armchairs that had been patched so many times - these were his only companions, and they could not answer him. He gave a short, mirthless laugh in the silence, and shook his head. Sinking into the chair nearest the fire, he stared into the empty grate and wondered.

Just how had this come about?

Dad argued with Fenrir Greyback. Greyback bit me for revenge. We lost everything. And then Albus Dumbledore became headmaster of Hogwarts.

Remus remembered his parents' delight at the news that the new headmaster was revoking his predecessor's decision to forbid their son access to the school, and his own initial disbelief, followed by a kind of elation he had never known, followed by sadness as he realised what this meant - that he must leave home and leave his parents. Alone.

But I wasn't alone for long. Thanks to James.

What a lad James Potter had been! Eager, always on the move, full of life and joy and energy. He had taken Remus under his wing almost at once - a funny thing, really, when one considered how very different they had been. And he had introduced Remus to Sirius Black.

And that was when it all began. With my meeting Sirius Black. If I had never met Sirius, if we had never become friends, then all of this might never have happened the way it did, and I would just go on being alone and no one would try and stop me. No one would care.

But they had cared. James and Sirius and Peter Pettigrew - the stocky, fair and timid boy who had looked so forlorn on that first night at Hogwarts, who had wanted someone to make him feel he belonged, to protect him from bullies and help him along when the work got too difficult for him. Yes, these three friends had cared about him. And he had cared about them.

I must have seemed to strange to them at times. The way I always fell in with what they wanted, even when they knew well enough that I was against it. But I daren't object. And the stories I used to invent! Surely I knew they would see through my lies, surely I was clever enough for that.

They had been clever. They had worked it all out. And they had confronted him with it. He had been afraid that they would turn away from him and leave him alone again, but they had not. On the contrary. Peter alone showed any concern, James and Sirius seemed positively thrilled to find one of their best friends was a werewolf, it had been like a particularly daring adventure to them. It was Sirius who had come up with the idea that they should learn to become animagi.

Sirius, always reckless, always eager to try out some new way of breaking the rules that he thought no one had tried before. And I let them do it. It was my fault. Everything that happened was my fault.

Remus shook himself. He had no wish to let his mind wander on that track.

The amount of books we must have gone through during those years. I bet Professor McGonagall would have been delighted to know how much we were learning about Transfiguration in our spare time. No wonder James was so good at the subject. And then, of course, Sirius found us a place to experiment during the summer.

Sirius never talked much about his family. His friends all knew that he had no affection for his mother and father, and next to none for his younger brother. They also knew that these feelings were mutual. The Black family, as a whole, considered Sirius a disgrace because he refused to fall in with their ways, to follow their principles - and because he was sorted into Gryffindor rather than Slytherin. The one notable exception was his elder cousin, Andromeda.

How old was she then? Twenty-one, maybe? She'd certainly been out of Hogwarts a couple of years. She'd been married for at least one year, too. To Ted Tonks.

And this marriage had been the reason why Andromeda was similarly excluded from the family fold. For Ted Tonks had been muggle-born, and therefore worthless in the eyes of her family. Sirius had looked up to her for that, though that was not the expression he would have used.

What was she like? I don't think she was really the kind of person you expected to look up to. She was small, as far as I remember. She had dark hair. Her face was delicate ... heart-shaped. Pale. Rather pretty ... She was pregnant.

The thought sent a chill down Remus's spine. He had been about thirteen when he had met Andromeda Tonks. And she had been pregnant.

And that, I suppose, is how it all came about. Sirius took us to visit his cousin during those summer holidays and she let us have the use of the attic, and she knocked before she came in and interrupted us, and brought us home-baked scones and pumpkin juice. And then, one day, Sirius got an owl to say she'd delivered. A baby girl. Nymphadora.

Andromeda had sent Sirius a picture of her baby every Christmas, but there had been no more visits to the Tonks's house during the holidays.

How long was it before we all saw her again, together? Four years, perhaps. About that, I suppose. It was the year we left Hogwarts, and she came down with her family to meet Sirius off the Hogwarts Express. We all went to Fortescue's for an ice-cream before we went home, and Nymphadora pinched my wafer.

Remus got up out of his arm chair restlessly and paced around the room. It was all so long ago. James had been alive, Sirius had been free and happy, Peter had been their friend, and he had been young. Now he felt old and weary. That little girl, Andromeda's daughter, was the young one now. Young and vibrant and full of cheer and colour. And it was not easy to remind himself that she was the same child who had climbed trustingly onto his knee to taste his ice-cream on that sunny day all those years ago. It was not easy to accept that though she was a woman now, he must not look at her that way.

It's no good telling myself she's come back into my life for a reason. My life has been over for many years, it's hers that's just beginning, and it's hers that matters. She loves life. And she must be allowed to live it, fully and whole-heartedly, as I have never been able to live.

He told himself that her fate was to find love and happiness and joy in life. And his was to stay as he had always been. Alone.