Note: These are 10 drabbles (each exactly 100 words) written for 10 prompts at the rt_morelove Twelfth Night Tales event. They span the year of Deathly Hallows, from Tonks and Remus' wedding to Teddy's birth. Each drabble ends with a key word from its respective prompt; the prompts in full can be found in the end note.
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1. Flirtation
The little wizarding tavern had shut its doors; their impromptu witnesses had gone home.
Remus and Tonks stood on the pavement in the mild Scottish night and looked at each other. In a day, they'd gone from two discrete entities to one entity unbreakably bound.
Remus studied Tonks' upturned face in the warm wash of the streetlamp. "I haven't much of a home to offer you," he said gravely. "But I imagine there's an inn somewhere around here with a threshold I could carry you over."
Tonks' laughter peeled out towards the stars. "Remus Lupin," she said, "was that flirtation?"
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2. Moon
"I hate for you to see me like this," Remus rasped. "I hate for you to have to take care of me."
The first full moon of their marriage had not been kind to him, and Tonks cradled his aching head in her lap. She'd done all the fetching of cold compresses and massaging of cramped muscles she could do; now, it was simply a matter of being there.
"Remus," she said, leaning in to kiss his temple, "everyone's got a dark side. Everyone's got stuff they wish no one had to see. Yours just happens to be the moon."
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3. Crookshanks
Tonks breathed in, appreciating the scents of flowers and summer in the Weasleys' garden. Fleur was stunning in her gown, Ginny radiant in her bridesmaid's dress, and Molly, miraculously, crying tears of joy to see her little Bill married to the girlfriend she'd sworn she loathed. Tonks smiled.
Then she nearly tripped; Hermione's squashy faced cat was twining around Tonks' ankles. Tonks looked down; the cat stared up, penetratingly. Tonks sniffed the fruity drink she'd been about to sip from and realised it was alcoholic, not juice but wine.
Tonks laughed out loud and said, "You're one clever cat, Crookshanks."
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4. Almost
Remus slammed out of 12 Grimmauld Place, his whole body shaking. How dare Harry call him a coward.
He pounded down the street, Disapparated in a rage to Diagon Alley and slunk into the Leaky Cauldron, still fuming. He ordered a Firewhisky, then another.
Even the third drink didn't make Harry's words any less true.
Remus stared into the bottom of his glass and reached the hardest and most important decision of his life.
He stood, slightly unsteady, and pulled out his wand to Apparate home. To think he had almost made the worst mistake of his failure-ridden life.
Almost.
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5. Fog
Remus gasped for breath and tried to struggle forward. The world was murky, grey, he was on a mission, he didn't know where he was, he was supposed to be somewhere but he'd failed.
He gasped again, and woke.
Tonks' hand found his in the dark. "It's okay," she whispered, voice rough with sleep, holding his palm tight against hers. "You're here."
Remus breathed until at last he calmed. He held Tonks to him, buried his nose in her hair, felt her solid and warm and bursting with colour, a world away from his nightmare of loss and cold fog.
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6. Cottage
Remus took Tonks to the tumbledown cottage in Yorkshire where he had lived in the past. She wanted to see it, she said. She wanted to know as much of his life as she could.
"It's not much," Remus said, as they stood in the autumn sunlight, holding hands and surveying the ugly place, its roof losing a slow war with gravity. He could hardly believe he'd once cobbled together a life here.
"It's not so bad," Tonks said. "No, really, Remus, it's not. But I'm glad now you've got somewhere to go that's a home, not just a cottage."
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7. Linger
Tonks' parents had gone all out with the Christmas decorations. Mistletoe even hung in the kitchen doorway. It was war, it was danger, grief and loss, but it was Christmas, too. It was Tonks and her husband and their child to be, and her mum and dad, and she wouldn't have it any other way.
She caught Remus there, as he hurried past on some cookery-related task, snogged him once, caught sight of his dazed expression, smirked, and kissed him again.
"Sorry," she whispered into his ear. "Was there somewhere you needed to be? Didn't mean to make you linger."
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8. Spring
When the first crocuses exploded up out of the moist earth in her parents' garden, Tonks burst into wholly unexpected tears.
Remus found her there, crying over the purple and white and yellow flowers that spangled like stars across the canopy of bare dirt, and he came to her, baffled and distressed and wanting to help.
"No, it's nothing," she tried to explain, wiping her nose messily on the handkerchief he offered. "It's just pregnancy hormones, I guess. It's just – it's been winter for so long, Remus. It's been war for so long. I thought it would never be spring."
.
9. Crush
Bill came by sometimes to bring news. Tonks was so huge now she could barely move, so he would sit with her, laughing and chatting. Remus hung back, smile enigmatic.
"I've always wondered," he mused one day, after Bill had gone. "You went to school together. Did you ever…?"
Tonks almost spit out her pumpkin juice. "With Bill? He was a Gryffindor, two years older – it was like different planets."
"Ah," Remus said, and something in his posture shook freer.
"Oh, come on, seriously?" Tonks laughed, pulling him in for a kiss. "You really thought Bill was my schoolgirl crush?"
.
10. Babies
"Babies," Ginny said, gazing down in wonder at Teddy and his tiny, scrunchy face on her lap. "What a wonderful and strange way to start a person."
It was a wonder they'd managed to pull off this visit at all, two families in hiding in the midst of a war.
Tonks laughed and reached over to stroke her son's smooth cheek, holding Remus' hand with her other. "You tell me if you come up with another way to make people, okay? For now, I think the rest of us are going to stick with the old-fashioned route of making babies."
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End note:
The full prompts for each drabble are as follows:
1. Flirtation (prompt #24)
2. "Everyone is a moon, and has a dark side which he never shows to anybody." (Mark Twain) (prompt #16)
3. Crookshanks (prompt #15)
4. Almost (prompt #3)
5. Fog (prompt #10)
6. The 'tumbledown, semi-derelict cottage in Yorkshire' referred to in Remus' Pottermore bio. (prompt #27)
7. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to kiss you twice and then linger on the second one." (From The Holiday) (prompt #23)
8. "If we had no winter, the spring would not be so pleasant; if we did not sometimes taste of adversity, prosperity would not be so welcome." (Anne Bradstreet) (prompt #18)
9. An old crush stops by. (prompt #7)
10. "Babies are such a nice way to start people." (Don Herold) (prompt #26)
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Come check out the event at rt [HYPHEN] morelove [D O T] livejournal [D O T] com! Lots of new Remus/Tonks fic to write and read from now until January 6...