100 Years

• • • • • • • • • •

He noticed on the first day of Fifth Year, while sitting underneath a large willow tree and watching his friends tease the Giant Squid. Occasionally his eyes would focus on Sirius as he poked it with his wand and Peter as he laughed manically, but it was James who Remus really watched.

James, who had grown a considerable amount over the summer, wasn’t watching Sirius or Peter; instead he was concentrating on a group of Fifth-Year Gryffindor girls on the other side of the lake, the members of which would occasionally turn to watch Sirius and giggle. While Remus observed this, he thought not of how his best friends would react, but of how much he wished it were him the girls stared at. It was never him, however, and somewhere in the back of his mind he acknowledged that a girl would most likely never feel that way for him.

When voicing these thoughts that night in the dormitory, Sirius patted him on the shoulder. “You’re young, Mooney—don’t get too hung up on birds yet. ‘Sides, you’re smart, handsome, got the whole animal instinct bit going on—I’d say you’ll do fine when the right girl comes ‘round.”

The whole situation was laughable, really, considering Sirius was three months younger than Remus, but Sirius had told them about snogging a Seventh-Year Ravenclaw in a broom closet back in March, so Remus was willing to believe that he knew more about the whole situation than him.

He had to admit, however, that he wondered if he would ever find someone who was willing to be with him—or if he even deserved to be loved at all. Werewolves weren’t known for the forgiveness others bestowed upon them, and Remus knew that simply because he had been bitten, his chances at finding someone with whom he could spend his life were slim. Even a slim chance, however, was enough to keep him hopeful, and as he buried his head in his pillow he wondered who it’d be and why she’d be the one.

For there would only be one. Werewolves mated for life; he knew this. He knew he would remain a virgin until he married, or at least until he was certain enough to give his entire future away to a woman whose face he couldn’t picture.

He was fifteen.

• • • • • • • • • •

His calloused hands ran across her smooth skin and he hungrily drank in her naked form in the waning crescent moonlight. It was exactly a year from the day the Potters had been killed and the Dark Lord defeated. He was alone when he wasn’t with her, but when he was he felt the loneliness dissipate enough for the beginnings of happiness to creep into his being once more.

“Remus,” she moaned as he kissed her lips—the ones only one other man had ever tasted. He flicked his tongue over her most sensitive spot and growled with pleasure as she bucked her hips. For a moment he forgot about the betrayal he felt, forgot about the man he had once called brother costing him all that had been good in his life, and instead he drowned himself in her, making her come. Remus was suddenly very grateful they had rented a room at The Leaky Cauldron. His flat mate wouldn’t have appreciated the noise.

When he crawled up her body, his erection seemed to throb in time with her heavy breathing. He too was naked, and for a moment he positioned himself at her entrance. Although he never made contact, he could still feel the heat of her wet center pulsating against the head of his manhood.

“Leave him,” he whispered, his lips millimeters from her ear. “Leave him for me, Andi.”

She gazed up at him with those sad eyes of hers and kissed him gently. The answer was always the same; he didn’t know why he bothered asking anymore.

“I love you,” she murmured, “but Nymphadora would kill me.”

It was almost a joke now; her husband, devoted in every way to her, was never mentioned as being a reason why she refused to run away with Remus. It was always her nine-year-old daughter. Always.

Andromeda Tonks slowly coaxed him onto his back and slid down the bed until she was positioned between his legs. She gave him an apologetic smile before taking him in her mouth, and suddenly things were all right for just a little while longer.

He was twenty-two.

• • • • • • • • • •

The months after his brother had fallen through the arch were even harder than the years spent grieving for Lily, James, and Peter. Remus walked around in a daze half the time, and soon Dumbledore had ordered him to stay at Number 12 Grimmauld Place under the constant watch of the other Order members.

He found her crying in front of the fireplace only a few days after Harry’s sixteenth birthday. She looked up at him, her blue eyes wide and sad, and there was no question. He sat down next to her and took her hand in his, the dancing orange blames burning colorful images into his eyes.

“Do you think that maybe we’re supposed to just settle?” she asked through her tears.

“Settle for what?” Remus replied, although he knew exactly what she was talking about.

She shrugged and looking uncomfortable for a moment before sinking dejectedly into the couch. “Settle for things in life. Are we supposed to settle for whatever we can get, or are we supposed to strive for more?”

He stared at her for a long moment before leaning in to kiss her swollen lips, salty from catching her tears as they ran down her cheeks. He hadn’t expected her to kiss back, and he most certainly hadn’t expected her to pull him down with her as she lay back on the couch.

Three weeks later she told him she was pregnant.

The letters from her mother arrived the next morning—a Howler for her and a message of congratulations for him. It wasn’t how they’d once hoped he’d join the family, but she was still happy for him and her daughter.

Nymphadora Tonks learned her mother’s secret that morning and tried to leave Remus, but she only got as far as her bedroom to pack before collapsing onto her bed and sobbing for hours.

He married her the following morning.

He was thirty-three.

• • • • • • • • • •

The day their eldest left for Hogwarts was one of Remus’ favorite days. Their son, named after his brother and her second cousin, would never know the dangers Voldemort had cast across the Wizarding World only a decade before. Many of those closest to the Lupins had fallen, including Albus Dumbledore, Severus Snape, and Ron Weasley, but those left behind kept their memories alive. They made sure the world remembered the sacrifices the fallen had made to ensure the Wizarding World’s survival.

“It’s not going to be the same without him,” Remus murmured into his young wife’s hair, that day long and black; it was her natural state. Every time they made love she would revert back to her original form.

“No, it won’t be,” Tonks agreed, running her hand down her husband’s smooth chest. The full moon had been only three days before and he was still quite exhausted, but not so much as to deny his beautiful wife his love.

It was a joke between them; while he would forever be stuck with her, unable to take pleasure in another woman’s bed, he needn’t worry about her turning into an old crone. She would be ceaselessly stunning until the day she died.

“We’ll still have Alexadria,” he pointed out in a low tone, his lips finding hers for a brief but sensual kiss.

“And Jacob,” she added, the corners of her lips turning upwards into a grin that was solely hers.

“And Michele.”

She gave him a sly look and her hand traveled even lower until her wicked fingers were teasing the part of him that belonged only to her.

“I want another one,” she whispered, and he answered by pressing his lips up against hers. This time the kiss wasn’t brief.

He was forty-five.

• • • • • • • • • •

When they went out in public together, he felt old.

He had long since gotten over the twelve-year age difference between them; it was more that she never made herself look a day over thirty. He, however, was sprouting a full head of silver by the age of fifty, and by the time their first grandchild arrived, he was beginning to feel his years.

“How much longer do you think we have?” he asked one night as they sat side-by-side on the couch.

She gave him a curious look. “Ages, babes—why do you ask?”

He shrugged and began to rub his hand soothingly up and down her arm.

“Sometimes it feels as if we only have a few more days,” he admitted. “Other times it feels like we have forever.”

“We do have forever,” she pointed out gently, snuggling into the warmth of his embrace. “Even after we pass, we’ll still be together.”

He believed her. He always did. She had that way about her—perhaps it was her eternal youth, but she always seemed to be serene; innocent; truthful. In his eyes she could never tell a lie, and it was part of the reason he loved her so much that it hurt.

Remus never brought up the subject again.

He was sixty-seven.

• • • • • • • • • •

In the last years of his life, he felt himself grow weaker with each full moon. Eventually he became so lethargic and unable to simply be that he was bedridden. She stayed by his side at all times, and at his hoarse request morphed into her original form for the last year of his life. She was only eighty-seven years old, and sixty years of being an Auror had put her in top physical shape; she had at least a good thirty years ahead of her, he reasoned as he used all of his energy to draw her close to him.

When his last month came, he knew. He was weary from the very depths of his soul, and while he would have given everything he owned for just another year of her unshakable love, he knew it was time. They both knew, and it hurt him beyond words to see her so distraught.

“I can’t live without you,” she whispered as she lay next to him in the bed they had shared for nearly seventy years.

“And I you,” he whispered in return. His frail body was covered with a thick blanket and from his position he could see the sun disappearing underneath the horizon.

Their children were there; all eight of them, along with twenty-three grandchildren and already seventeen great-grandchildren, with three more on the way. They had even beaten the Weasleys.

In the minutes before the moon rose into the sky, Remus touched each face and said goodbye to all. After the last grandchild had been told to be good, their family filed out of the room, leaving the couple alone to say goodbye.

Using up the last of his strength, he turned to her and wiped away the tears that fell from her eyes with his calloused thumb. He gazed into the fathomless depths of her eyes, and she bent down to press her lips against his one more time.

“When I transform,” he said in a voice so quiet that she had to strain to understand, “close your eyes.”

He wanted the last thing she saw of him to be his human form. She understood.

“I love you, Remus,” she whispered through her quiet sobs, and he smiled.

“I love you too, ‘Dora.”

He held her gaze for the longest moment of his life, and in her eyes he saw his life; his purpose; his everything.

As the full moon rose into the sky on the night before his hundredth birthday, he felt the telltale prickles of fur growing across his face. Her body was shaking with sobs by then and, giving him one last long kiss, she closed her eyes.

He watched her cry until he slipped away, unable to take the stress of his transformations any longer. He wasn’t worried; he was sure they would see each other again in the eternal heaven she had promised him years before.

After all, she was his one.

He was ninety-nine.