Rating:
R
House:
Schnoogle
Characters:
Remus Lupin Nymphadora Tonks
Genres:
Action Romance
Era:
Multiple Eras
Spoilers:
Philosopher's Stone Chamber of Secrets Prizoner of Azkaban Goblet of Fire Order of the Phoenix
Stats:
Published: 11/11/2003
Updated: 11/16/2003
Words: 63,409
Chapters: 18
Hits: 34,751

Amid My Solitude

samvimes

Story Summary:
Remus Lupin, dependable, able, and trustworthy werewolf, has been tapped as Dumbledore's right hand in the new Order, leader of the fight against the re-formed Death Eaters. ````While trying to be Harry's new guardian, fumbling his way through a beginning romance, and calming suspicions of spies in the Order, Remus must chase his werewolf heritage -- though it may cost him the elusive happiness he desperately craves.

Chapter 01

Chapter Summary:
Remus Lupin, dependable, able, and trustworthy werewolf, has been tapped as Dumbledore's right hand in the new Order, leader of the fight against the re-formed Death Eaters.
Posted:
11/11/2003
Hits:
6,934
Author's Note:
I owe much gratitude to the LJ crowd, who put up with my miscellaneous postings of snippets from this work for weeks; also to the Y!M regulars for letting me bounce ideas off them. Special thanks to Judy, Jill, Tai, and Yap, who beta'd relentlessly and quite well.

He never told us what he was,
Or what mischance, or other cause,
Had banished him from better days
To play the Prince of Castaways.
-- Edwin Arlington Robinson

Remus Lupin never had any trouble passing.

Not passing tests, of course. He was a bright, gifted boy. Not passing for fully human, he'd become adept at that. Not passing for Muggle -- after all, when you've learned to watch even your friends for the slightest hint they knew what you were, even after you knew they knew what you were...well. Learning from Muggles came easily to Remus. A pair of brown trousers, a white collared shirt and a brown waistcoat, and he might be just an overworked accountant, or a burnt-out journalist.

Passing for sober, well, that was harder, but Remus had a lot more self control than any of his mates could have dreamed of. There was one time, seventh year, when he and James had been down the pub drinking Firewhiskey, and old Kiernan caught them sneaking back in, and Remus'd had to explain, coherently, that James was feeling ill, while the other boy was passed out on his shoulder.

They got away with it though. Who knew how, but they got away with it.

You can't spend your whole life thinking that way, though.

James didn't get away with hiding, after all. Sirius didn't get away with taking stupid risks in the end and Peter...

Well, Peter got away with murder. So maybe you could. But only if you were willing to give up your humanity.

Hah.

As if he were really human anyhow.

He sat in the warm leather booth, in the upscale Muggle bar he'd found, and watched as Nymphadora Tonks wandered through. She was looking for him -- hell, most of the Order probably was -- and she'd find him, no matter how much he slouched down or turned away. So he didn't do either; he just waited, and drank his drink. Number five? Number four? Not that it mattered.

He caught the bartender's eye, and held up two fingers. The man nodded and brought two more bottles out to the table, taking away the empty bottle near Remus' left hand.

That got Tonks' attention, and he sighed. She made her way across the room, knocking over two chairs and a waitress on the way, apologising profusely. When she finally reached him, she put her hands on her hips. This would have been a bit terrifying if her elbow hadn't knocked over the beer sitting near the edge of the table. Remus caught it before it could spill.

Quick reflexes. Still passing for sober. Hooray.

She was wearing glasses, he noticed, though it took him a second to figure out why.

"Arthur," she snapped softly, and Arthur Weasley's head appeared in one of the lenses.

"Yes, Tonks?" came his voice, barely audible.

"I've found him."

"Is he all right?"

Tonks gave Remus a glare. "I think so."

"Hasn't done anything stupid, has he?"

"I'm right here, Arthur," Remus said reproachfully.

"I'm aware of that," Arthur answered calmly.

"So you've found me. I'm not going to kill myself or anyone else. And I'm not Sirius Black," Remus added, and had the pleasure of seeing both Tonks and Arthur wince. "So you can bugger off and leave me the hell alone."

"I'll call the rest of them off," Arthur said. "You look after him."

"I planned on it," Tonks answered. Arthur's head vanished, and she took the glasses off. She did not sit down.

"I bought you a beer," Remus offered, holding it out to her.

"You've got a lot of nerve, Lupin," she said, taking the beer and setting it back down on the table so hard that it shook.

"Yes, I do hope I can afford that extra," Remus said, musingly. "I don't usually carry much Muggle money -- "

"It's not like the rest of us have anything else to worry about, oh no, none of us were upset. We had nothing better to do than go chasing after you."

"I did not ask you to come find me," Remus replied.

"What were we supposed to do?"

"I wasn't aware I had to ask permission before having a drink after a very long, very horrible day," he continued. "After all, I'm a grown man. I stood up and I gave my testimony and I didn't shed one damn tear, even when that horrible woman went into her lovely little diatribe about whether or not a werewolf could be trusted under oath. I thought to myself, Remus, I think I'll go have a beer. I don't really want to be around while the rest of them stare at me as if I was some sort of tragic carnival freak."

"I don't think most of them know what a carnival is," Tonks answered, but there was a tacit apology in her voice.

"Their ignorance is not my problem."

"We all thought it was very wrong of them to debate your honesty right there in the inquiry," said Tonks, seating herself. She toyed with the beer bottle. "Arthur Weasley said he'd like to talk his boys into rigging up a surprise in her office. It didn't sound like it would be very nice."

"I don't see why we had to do it anyhow," Remus said rebelliously. "We couldn't clear his name while he was alive, I don't think a hearing's going to do him much good now that he's dead. Probably just come back with the same verdict anyhow. Peter Pettigrew's dead and Remus Lupin's a lying werewolf."

"Dumbledore thought it was important," Tonks reminded him. "Since there wasn't going to be a funeral."

"Who wanted a funeral?" Remus asked, furious. "Who needed a damn re-hashing of his whole wasted life? Who wanted that? Not bloody me, I can tell you that much. Let the poor man alone, for God's sake."

"Talking about him now, or about yourself?" she asked, taking a sip of the beer. He covered his eyes with his hand.

"I don't know, Tonks," he replied. "It...for a minute, it was like things were falling into place. I wasn't...we were rebuilding something. I had the Order back. We had Sirius back. I started thinking maybe...I started thinking even that Snape wasn't so bad, you know? That he was some kind of replacement. For Peter. Not really one of us, but there if you needed him. And then it all went to pieces again."

"Snape's still around. He likes you." Tonks considered this for a moment. "Well, he doesn't hate you as much as he could, anyhow. And the Order's still there."

"Yes, and where exactly is my place in it?"

"You know you -- "

"Please, Tonks, I haven't fit in anywhere since I was twenty," he snapped. She cocked her head at him, curious.

"Since you were twenty?" she asked. "What happened when you were -- oh."

"Yes. Oh."

"I was ten."

"I remember."

"I don't. Well, sort of," she said softly. "I remember mum waking me up in the middle of the night and telling me about it. Some of it," she added. "And later on, mum cried a lot. I remember that."

"She was very upset. Andromeda never believed Sirius was a traitor." Remus took a deep drink. "But I did. I hate myself for it, but I believed it. Who wouldn't? All those witnesses, and that ruddy finger...I didn't have just Sirius to be loyal to. I had to be loyal to James and Lily and Peter, too."

"Must've been awful for you."

Remus studied his bottle, while Tonks took a long drink.

"I was in London," he said softly. "I was boarding with a Muggle family, working a Muggle job as a cover. We couldn't communicate -- the Order, I mean. We couldn't talk as much as we do now. Our enemies were at the height of their power. Another few months and I knew, even if Dumbledore wasn't going to say it -- the Order wasn't going to survive."

Tonks was watching him, curiously.

"So I didn't hear about it immediately," he continued, not sure why he was even bothering to tell her this. "And by then..."

His chest seized up, and he took another drink, trying to relax his muscles enough to continue talking.

"Dumbledore came to the house. And we talked for a while. In two minutes, everyone I loved was suddenly gone. I don't have much family, my friends were all I ever really had -- and they were dead, and Sirius was responsible. Harry was gone to live with Muggles, and all across the country..."

"People were celebrating," Tonks said in a hushed voice.

"I went down to Diagon Alley, you know, to get more news. I walked in and the place stopped dead. And everybody looked at me. They all knew. They just stared. Because one of my best friends killed three of the others. And I was left."

"What did you do?"

"Turned around and walked out. Found a Muggle bar," he said, a trace of irony in his voice. "Got very, very drunk. Old habits, I guess," he added. Tonks signalled the bartender for a second beer.

"Not the best way to deal with things, is it?" she asked.

"Do you really think, Tonks, that I have ever dealt with the fact that in one day I lost my entire life?" he asked. He would not cry in front of Tonks. He would not.

"How do you live with it, then?"

Remus shrugged. "You go on for a while, pretending that you're all right, and sooner or later..."

"...it's true?"

"No. You just get really good at pretending." He finished his drink. His head felt light; he wondered how long he'd been in the bar. He'd been drinking awfully fast, at first, and it felt like it was about to catch up to him...

"Hm?" he said, aware that Tonks had asked him something.

"I said, and you had to go through it twice, didn't you?" she repeated, in a small voice. He didn't answer.

Not quite passing for sober anymore.

"Maybe you're right," he said.

"About -- "

"Maybe I ought to go home," he continued, over top of her question. Then he remembered where home was. "Or maybe I ought to go anywhere but home," he concluded. "I'm damned if I'm going to sleep there tonight. Not after this day."

"There's a hotel just up the street that's not too bad," Tonks said.

"Can't afford a hotel," Remus muttered.

"The Order can," she answered. He laughed, bitterly.

"That's right!" he said brightly. "Sirius' share of the Black fortunes is in the hands of the Order, isn't it? How splendid."

"Don't, Remus."

"What? Don't appreciate the irony of it? Don't be angry because Sirius has literally given everything it is possible to give and the Ministry of Magic still thinks he's a murderer?"

"Don't be bitter."

"I don't know how to be anything else."

She sighed, and got out of the booth, and held out a hand. "Come on, let's find you a place to sleep it off."

She tossed some crumpled Muggle money on the table. He was finding it mildly difficult to stand; Sirius and James had always teased him about being a lightweight, about that werewolf metabolism of his, which kept him ludicrously thin but didn't handle alcohol well at all.

They wandered, Tonks half-supporting him, out into the evening, and up the street; he nearly fell over when she stopped in front of the hotel and he kept walking.

"Thank you, Tonks," he said, when she finally leaned him against the wall in the elevator, after a brief conversation with the front desk. "I am," he said, carefully, "An absolute mess, aren't I?"

"Yes," she replied, toying with the keycard to the room.

"Thank you for your honesty."

She helped him out into the hallway, and found the room, and unlocked it; inside was a bed, and a dresser, nightstand and table -- all the usual accoutrements of a room that people merely stayed in, rather than lived in.

"You'll be all right here," she said, as he pulled off his shoes and socks, undid his waistcoat.

"I think 'all right' is a relative state," he answered.

"You use awfully big words for a drunk man, Lupin," she said, squinting at herself in the mirror. Her hair went from long and brown to a short, pixie-like blonde. He smiled.

"Some people get maudlin. I get verbose," he replied. "And maudlin," he added, after a moment's thought.

"Lupin..."

"Mh?" he asked, undoing the top button of his shirt, sitting on the edge of the bed.

"Do you..." she paused, and looked...almost embarrassed. "Would you like me to stay with you tonight? Until you're...asleep? Arthur's pretty much given me the night off, and..."

A realisation dawned on him, and he blinked in its blinding light. "Are you trying to get a leg over, Tonks?" he blurted.

"A leg over? Who uses that expression anymore?" she asked, startled.

"I do," he replied, feeling a bit foolish. Of course she wasn't. He was ages older than her -- well, all right, ten years, still -- and he was a ragged, depressive, and at the moment quite sloppily drunk werewolf...

"And...erm...if I am?" she asked, trying to look mysterious and succeeding in knocking over the telephone book on the dresser. When she'd recovered it, he was watching her.

"Everything I told you about tonight..." he said, slowly, trying to figure out what exactly he wanted to say. "That all happened...when I was twenty, and you were ten."

"What's that got to do with anything? I'm not ten anymore," she said.

This was true, and the sort of logic that appealed to his senses at the moment.

Tonks was a lovely woman. An unutterable klutz and occasionally indiscreet, but a beautiful, nice, and friendly person. These were few and far between in his life. Of course it was mildly amusing to watch a woman a decade his junior try to seduce him, while knocking over cups and phone books. And it was flattering, also.

And suddenly he really, really wanted it. His whole body wanted it. Bits of him were becoming quite insistent about wanting it.

But.

He put his face in his hands. Nothing was ever easy, was it?

"And where, exactly, would that leave us in the morning, Tonks?" he asked.

He felt her hands on his. She knelt -- fell over -- got back up and looked into his eyes, pulling his hands from his face.

"Well...we'd have had a fun night," she said thoughtfully.

"Do you really suppose you'd have all that much fun? The state I'm in?" he asked.

"I think so," she answered. And kissed him. He wasn't sure how to react to that, so he retreated to the tried and true method that had gotten him through lifelong lycanthropy and the deaths of his best friends -- he didn't react at all. She leaned back. He expected her to look hurt; instead she just looked puzzled.

"What exactly," she asked, thumbs stroking the palms of his hands, "does it take to break through that self-control of yours, Remus?"

The feeling of her fingers on the sensitive skin of his hands was distracting in the extreme. "There's a good reason for it," he answered, absently.

"Here and now?"

"Everywhere. And always." Touch, touch, touch went her thumbs. It was difficult to breathe.

"But I know your secrets." Touch. Touch. Slide of her hands up his arms, pushing his sleeves back. "I know who you are."

Slide again; one of her hands undoing the buttons of his shirt with a sudden and surprising dexterity.

Who you are.

Fingertips on his bare skin.

Who you are. Not what you are. Who you are.

Lips on his, and still he didn't react. Pressure of her body against him, pushing him backwards. The world spinning, definitely hard to breathe, hard to think.

"I don't know if I even could let it go," he said hoarsely. "Nobody ever made me before -- "

"Have there been a lot of befores?" she asked.

She had a point. There had been some, but not in a long time...

Never mind that now. Shirt off his shoulders. Counterpane beneath him. Weight on his hips, and still he did not move.

Her hands left him, as she pulled her own shirt off over her head.

No, don't stop touching me, I couldn't bear it if you didn't --

He gave an inarticulate groan, and rolled, taking her with him, pinning her underneath him. She cried out in surprise, but not for long. Lips on hers. Grabbing her wrists tightly, pulling her hands to him. Touching. Contact. Pressure. Clothing long gone, no longer an issue, please touch me...and she was more than obliging...

But there was one last little bastion of control, one small inner lockbox that could never, ever be bypassed. A failsafe deep in his soul as he moved with her, crying out, his face pressed to her neck, teeth --

No.

He would not bite. He wanted to, wanted to let that last go and surrender, but if he did that, he really wouldn't be human.

So instead he kissed and tasted her skin and when she cried out so did he, and for one second it was almost perfect.

For a second the world went away. But only for a second.

"Do you want me to go?" she asked, after they had caught their breath, after he had wrapped his arms around her and they had kissed and touched their way through the silences. "I'd understand if you did."

Remus shook his head, and pulled her tighter. He'd broken. It was horrible and wonderful at once, but whatever it had been, it had shattered something and he needed her to stay until it had healed.

"Please don't go," he whispered. She touched one of his arms, hesitantly.

"I was afraid for a minute you might bite me," she said.

"I know." And he had known, somewhere, that the intensity of what they'd just done had frightened her.

"But you didn't."

"No." He closed his eyes, let his forehead press against hers. "So...did you...have fun?" he asked. She laughed.

"Yes, I did, Remus," she replied, her hand drifting up to stroke his cheek.

Yes, please touch me.

He sensed, dimly, that it wasn't the same for her as it had been for him; a purge of emotions, yes, and the peculiar longing for human contact that comes when too much time is spent pondering death. But for her it had been just what she'd said -- fun.

For him it was something much darker and more dangerous. A loss of control. Not since he was a boy had that happened when it wasn't the full moon. It was not fun for him, but this time, it had been necessary.

What would I have done, he wondered, if she hadn't found me tonight?

The answer was easy. Keep on pretending. And sooner or later you get really good at pretending. Which was what he had to do anyway.

So nothing was really any different, except that there was a woman sleeping in his arms, instead of a cold empty bed, and some of the perpetual tension in his shoulders and his belly had loosened a little.

She sighed, and her hand moved again, drifting down to rest against his neck.

He would think about her hands and her body and her smile, and sleep, with her here like this. He could go back to pretending in the morning. There would be time in the morning, when he was once more Remus Lupin, dependable able and trustworthy werewolf, whom everyone liked but nobody touched.

***