Coming of Age

Author's Notes: My deep gratitude to MadEye1200 for the most obliging beta work! *hugs* This story was begun just days before the release of Deathly Hallows, after which I simply didn't have the heart to finish it. However, I'm done sniffling now and finished it at last. Please be kind readers and leave me a review to tell me what you think. Thanks for reading!

Coming of Age

She knew she'd find him there. It was just where she'd have gone had she not been caught by Rufus Scrimgeour and made to give a full report of the evening. She was so glad to make her way down the spiral staircase from Albus'... No. That wasn't right, anymore. Minerva's office, now. It was terribly late but she very much doubted anyone would be sleeping tonight. Certainly not him. So, rather than going back to her cold, empty room in the castle, she went instead out the front doors, past the greenhouses and struck out for the far side of the lake.

As she expected, Remus sat on a large rock facing the water. It had been a favorite spot of hers in her school days and it came as no surprise to find it was his retreat as well. He sat, motionless, seemingly looking out over the lake but she thought he probably saw very little of what was before him. At this hour, the glass-like surface of the water reflected the approaching dawn, giving it a strange, green iridescence. That green reflection cast an even more unhealthy-looking pallor on Remus' expressionless face, making him pale. So pale. Like moonlight, she thought with a sigh.

She didn't bother trying to approach him silently. She didn't want to startle him and, anyway, she'd never been any good at stealth of any kind. Instead, she snapped a twig off the low-hanging branch of a tree and swished it through the grasses as she walked along the shore to where Remus sat. She clambered up on the rock beside him and looked out over the water as he did. She said nothing, waiting for him to speak.

"Scrimgeour is here, then," Remus said, more as a statement than a question. She nodded, still looking out over the lake. "I saw Harry. He only just got away from Alb- er, Minerva's office before the minister arrived." He sighed, closing his eyes. "I'm glad. Harry's been through enough tonight."

Feeling as if she ought to add something to the conversation, she asked, "Did Ginny take him up to Gryffindor tower, then?" She'd seen the way Ginny had guided Harry into the hospital wing to see Bill, seen the way Harry clung to her as he'd told them what had happened when Draco Malfoy found Dumbledore on the tower.

"She's with him," Remus replied, "but I don't know where they went. I didn't get the impression Harry was quite ready to face a common room full of students." He looked over his shoulder at the castle, forbidding-looking in the early light. "They're so young. Too young to have to face such things."

"A lot of old tosh," she snapped, her temper flaring suddenly, surprising even her. "Remus, Harry will be of age in just over a month. He's not a child. Frankly, I don't think he has been for quite a long time. How long has it been since You Know Who came back? Two years? If Harry was ever really a child, surely he wasn't after that night." She bit her lip, trying to lighten her tone. "I think your outlook on age is a bit mad, really."

"Tonks," he began in a placating tone. She wouldn't have that, though. Not now. Not after this night.

"No, Remus. Don't say it. I don't want to hear how you are too old to be involved with me. I never have believed it and I never will. You can save your breath."

"You save yours, Tonks," he answered roughly. "You might be able to pretend the age difference doesn't matter but I'm not. I won't." He turned away from her, hunching his shoulders. "I can't."

Tonks stared. Remus had often raised objections, tried to put her off and, most frequently, simply refused to discuss anything. But he had never spoken harshly to her, never sounded so bitter.

"I- "

"Please don't," he interrupted. He took a deep breath, as if to master his sudden anger. "It's my fault. I never meant to hurt you."

They sat in silence, watching the light change on the lake. Green turned to silver and then to rose. Tonks was always keenly aware of his presence but never had she been so oppressed by it. By him.

"Alright, Remus," she sighed, defeated. "I'll go. I can't force you to think differently." She scrambled to her feet. "But I'm going to have my say, just this once."

"I don't see-"

"Just this once, Remus. Surely you can stand it just this one time."

He didn't answer but Tonks decided to take that as permission rather than a dismissal. He owed her this.

"I won't trouble you with explaining why I've fallen in love with you," she began. Remus' shoulders twitched slightly and she looked away. "You refuse to listen and, anyway, I'm tired of stroking your ego. You do mean to hurt me. Every word you speak to me is calculated to hurt. If you hurt me enough, you figure I'll go away. And so I will. I'll go, just as I've promised. You see, I never understood until now just how large your ego has become. I can't possibly compete. No one can."

She looked back down at Remus and found him staring up at her with a mixed expression of surprise and anger. She gritted her teeth and felt her chin jut forward in response to his unspoken challenge.

"Answer just one question for me, first. All this grief and pain you're feeling - who is it for?"

Remus' silence settled on Tonks like a weight. She tried to look away but could not tear her eyes from his face and risk missing the moment when he might respond, however slightly. The deep rose surface of the lake turned gold as the sun edged over the horizon. The light dawn breeze ruffled the glassy surface causing facets to break and sparkle. After everything that had happened, the beauty of that sunrise was insulting.

But there was no response. No flick of an eyelid, no twitch of his lip. Nothing. Tonks turned away and began the long, lonely walk back to the castle. Albus was gone, the war had begun in earnest. There was no more time to waste in personal pain and doubt. She'd said what she needed to say and received all the answer she was likely to get. She could go anywhere now.

Her quiet, empty room did not provide the refuge Tonks had expected. Upon looking out her window, she realized she overlooked the very part of the lakeshore she'd just left. Impossible to look elsewhere, she watched the lone figure still seated on the rock, looking out over the water.

The sun had broken over the horizon and was near to edging above the trees of the Forbidden Forest when Remus finally rose and looked toward the castle. It almost seemed that his gaze fixed on Tonks' window but she dismissed that as unlikely at this distance. However, his next action proved her error. He lifted his wand and a silvery streak swept toward her and up to the window where she stood. Whirling, Tonks saw Remus' patronus, a tawny owl, swish in a loop and land before her.

"I'll admit I was mostly thinking of myself just now, Tonks," Remus' voice said through the owl. "But I meant what I said about Harry. He may be of age but that doesn't make any of this fair."

Tonks started to answer back before remembering the silver owl before her was only what amounted to a recording.

"I also meant what I said about my age. I can't just pretend it doesn't matter anymore than I can pretend I'm not a werewolf. I am old and poor and, yes, even dangerous." Remus' voice paused for just a moment before continuing. "But I am willing to concede that I might be wrong about how important that really is."

Tonks could almost see a sheepish expression on the owl's face as it spoke once more before vanishing. "If I came up to see you, would you let me in or just hex my bits through the door?"

The smart thing would be some bits-hexing. The logical voice in her head that always sounded a lot like her father said, "Send him packing. You've given him more chance than he deserves. I don't care what sort of heroic nonsense he gets up to."

But then, the other voice, the one that was surprisingly her mother, chimed in. "Love isn't something that happens to a person. Love is something you decide to do. You're attracted to him but now it's time to do the work. Are you going to run from that? Are you afraid to love him? All of him? Even the daft parts?"

She made a sound that was something like a choky, laughing sort of sob. Turning back to the window she sent her wolf streaking to the rock by the lake. It appeared before Remus only briefly and disappeared but it was plain he'd received its message. Before it had fully vanished, he was striding across the grounds.

Moments later, a light tap on her door sent Tonks lunging across the room. Opening the door wide, she flung herself into Remus' arms. She was sure she was right and he was just being foolish and maybe he was even an old fool but, as she drew him into the room, she felt he was, at last, ready to be his age and she thought, delighting in the jumble of clichés in her thoughts, one was never too old to learn.