A Sense of It

That morning was colder then any Remus Lupin had felt before. Other mornings had a still, almost ethereal quality, but this one had a sense of something alive and dangerous. A sense of something about to happen. He didn't want that. The air nipped and stung at his bare flesh and the wind raced through his hair, catching and tugging each strand. It made him feel alive. He didn't want that either.

Clad only in a pair of cotton tracksuit bottoms, he stood in the doorway and surveyed the countryside, which was tinged white with frost. It could almost be beautiful, but he never saw landscape like that anymore. Instead he looked for signs of people, signs of magic, signs of anything. He raised his nose and sniffed the air, closing his eyes so as not to be distracted by the cold sunlight. It was much harder in human form to distinguish scents, but it was better then nothing. First he discarded the familiar; his own scent, the cabin, her, the musty odour of old blankets, and last nights dinner. Then he discarded that of nature; a shrew, the cows, a fox that had been hunting nearby last night, an owl nesting in the oak tree, the honeysuckle growing against the right outside wall, a small holly bush by the front door, the faint wisp of smoke... He paused and opened his eyes. Far away in the distance a faint line of grey floated up into the morning air. Above it something flickered unmistakeably.

He still found it odd that once upon a time, that sign brought with it so much anxiety and fear; but now, when it carried so much more weight, he only regarded it with a mixture of apathy and disinterest. His only thought on the matter was that the dwelling probably hadn't held out for long. With all the major strongholds fallen, one little house in the middle of the harsh Cornish countryside would hardly be much of a match.

Once upon a time. He sighed. He supposed it was a coping mechanism of sorts. To view one's previous life as something out of a book he had once read and now only vaguely remembered. A song which he couldn't quite recall the words of, nor the tune. Now it seemed that 'then' was an alien time, a strange time, a different time. He never chose the word 'better'. For him to do so would be pointless; a waste of energy. He had precious little of that these days, hardly enough to be used up in reminiscing. He knew she did though. In the middle of a task, during a meal, even sometimes when curled up to rest, she would become sad and withdrawn. During these episodes he never attempted to pry her out of herself. It would do no good and besides, he had more important things to worry about then someone consistently indulging in the past. He knew she wanted to speak about it. Sometimes she would begin a question without finishing it, but would look up at him hopefully for an answer all the same. Occasionally she would mention something that linked to something lost and would watch him for any sign that he understood, that he remembered too. On these occasions he found it best to play dumb. She hadn't attempted it in the last while, and for this he was glad.

He heard her stir behind him, but he did not turn around just yet. His skin was beginning to become accustomed to the cold, and he wanted to remain like that a little longer. He fooled himself that he was just testing his werewolf metabolism, strengthening it against whatever might befall him. He could not risk falling sick, and reminded himself of Russian women who plunged their babies into cold water, or rolled them naked in the snow in order to improve their immune system. He supposed they believed that whatever didn't kill them was bound to make them stronger. He took a deep breath and caught her soft, sleep filled scent on the breeze. He steeled himself against his natural urge and kept staring out towards the smoke. It seemed to be fading now, the smell barely a whisper. Last night he guessed, although the mark still burned into the air.

'Remus?' she asked fuzzily, and he turned to see her rubbing sleepy dust out of her eyes. They were deep, deep blue - almost black in fact. They always appeared that way in the mornings, and he always wondered if they were her real eye colour, unchanged from magic that faded as she slept. Her hair, too, was always a pale brown on the pillow next to him; although now she was awake, it had become black. She never wore colours anymore, and he never asked her about it. He faintly remembered a period when she used to experiment with every colour in the sun, but that too was 'then'.

He had asked her once what her real hair and eye colours were and she had shrugged at him.

'Not even mum knows, and I've asked often enough. Even as a baby, I would change them. The medi-witch said it was like babies learning how to suckle on a breast, a reflex of sorts.' Remus had, had an image of lots of babies in a line kicking the air, with one completely still child in the middle, changing the wisps on her hair from blue-to white-to purple and grinned at the thought of what would have happened if she had been born in a muggle hospital.

He closed the door, shutting out the world for a little while. As he moved towards the bed, he realised the memory seemed very old, though at the most, it must only have been a year ago. She scooted her legs out of the way, and he sat. From around her shoulders she took a scrap of blanket, warmed with her own body heat, and placed it around him. Only then did he realise exactly how cold he was. He stared down at his arms and noted nonchalantly the goose pimples which had popped up around the scars.

He felt the bed shift as Tonks walked towards the pot in the corner, and lit the wood underneath it with a box of matches they kept on the windowsill. It wasn't wise to use frivolous magic any more, now they were in charge. They could sense it too easily, and it really wasn't worth being caught for something you could do just as well with muggle means.

As she stirred the soup and Remus dressed himself, they didn't speak. It was easier to be silent, when he was avoiding trying to think and she had too many thoughts to put into words.

He still loved her though. It startled Remus to realise that. He watched her slim form bend down and blow on the wood, before stiffly straightening up to taste the cauldron's contents. Somewhere in the back of his mind he remembered that she had once been very flexible, and he felt a stab of pain. She was still dressed in the clothes she had worn to bed; a thin cotton night gown and the thought occurred to him that because he had left the door open for so long, the temperature of the cabin had dropped dramatically. He fished under the bed and fetched out an old woollen cardigan, holed with age but still serviceable.

He approached her slowly and offered it to her without a word. Her eyes answered very clearly, and she pulled it on, huddling against the itchy fibre. It was much too big and gave her the appearance of being much smaller then she actually was. Much younger too, but then, she was only 24. That was another unexpected thought. He looked back at Tonks, but she had once more switched her attention to the pot which was beginning to bubble a little. 24. He considered what he had been doing at 24, how he had felt, what had happened to him...

In one swift movement he held Tonks tightly in his arms, resting his cheek on her head. She left the spoon splash into the soup, speckling his shirt somewhat, but he didn't care. He could feel her sobbing against his chest, her hands gripping the material at his back, and he let her.

'Too young...' he whispered, 'we were both too young...'