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The woman with the mousey-brown hair stood, alone. As she slowly closed her eyes a tear fell, unbidden, to the cold, hard ground. The heat from her body quickly melting any of the delicate snowflakes which fell from the sky, glittering like diamonds in the brilliance of the winter sun.

She tried to open her eyes. Tried to force herself to watch his retreating back as he walked proudly, his head held high, into the distance. This could be the last time she ever saw him alive.

No!

She would not think like that. He would come back, safe and healthy and, Nymphadora Tonks sighed, they would once again resume their distant relationship.

She willed herself to look once more at the figure far in front of her. He did not know she was there. No one did. Just Dumbledore. He knew. And not only of her whereabouts. He knew Tonks and he knew her heart. He knew that never had she ever before given herself so completely to another. Her mind. Her heart. Her body. Her soul. They were not her own. They belonged to Remus Lupin; he just did not know it.

The woman opened her eyes, slowly, biting her lip in anticipation. The once delicate snowflakes had become a storm. Whipping her hair and her cloak across her face, around her body, obscuring her vision. She separated her fingers and ran them through her long, straight hair; then pulled it back, holding it against her head. Enabling her to see... to see...

Too late.

He was gone.

She felt a lump rise in her throat as her eyes began to frantically search the frozen wasteland spread arrogantly in front of her like an unyielding enemy. But it was too much.

The wind, the snow... He was gone.

She sank to her knees. She should have told him, should have said something, she should have...

"Nymphadora."

She turned, slowly, to face the voice.

"Nymphadora."

"...Professor..."

"Now now my dear we are now friends, colleagues. Please, Albus."

"Albus, I... I just, I..."

"Shush my dear, I know."

"He's just..."

"...I know."

Nymphadora Tonks sighed. It was a sigh that said more than a thousand words. A sigh that spoke of love, and of loss. Of hope, and of fear. Of desire, and of rejection.

She stood to face her old headmaster. He smiled gently at her, a twinkle in his eye and a mischievous look upon his face.

"He will return. Do not doubt it."

"But what if he doesn't, what if something happens, what if..."

"Ah. 'What if.' I have always found it to be a most interesting combination. 'What.' 'If.' Fascinating the way the human mind works. Always seeking, always searching for a way to turn the world against them, to make the possible impossible, turn the hopeful into the hopeless. Two words full of impossibilities. Yet they are also two words full of possibilities Nymphadora. Possibilities and Positivity. If you only make them so."

With that the wizened old man raised a hand and slightly reclined his head in farewell, he then turned ever so slightly and vanished. Nymphadora stared at the spot where he had stood and just watched. Watched as his footsteps gradually disappeared. Filled in by the snow.

When there was nothing left to see she turned once more to look out over the blanket of snow and into the forest which would now be Remus' home.

No. Not his home. Home is people. Not a place.

Home

Home was with her. She smiled softly... With her.

And until he returned they would be vagrants, wanderers; destined to belong to no place and to no one until he finally decided to do that most simple of things, and follow his feet. Follow his heart.

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