A/N: Thanks again for all of the support and comments. If anyone has story requests or the like, please share! I love prompts and tend to write better with them anyway.

For Peque Saltamontes

A Filled Space

Epilogue

She's attempting a breakfast when Remus stumbles in from the floo, his clothes wrinkled and his face tired. He scoops up his son and handles his breakfast, and as he tends to the clean-up, she studies his expression. Beyond the usual weariness, there's a gladness, a soft glow of something not unlike the softness in his eyes when he holds his son, or speaks of his youth. Tonks waits until Teddy is fed and happy and busied with a truck that sends him into fits of laughter, before taking his hands and forcing him to speak.

She listens, her head tilted and lips curved. She listens as he describes the past year, his slow attraction and then final admission. He doesn't spare any details, and she's thankful for the honesty. Before they were married, before they tumbled into bed and each other, they had been friends who could speak freely- she of her family and Auror struggles, and he of his fears and hopes. She wonders if the feeling that brought them to bond and handfast and bring a child in the world is at all similar to the rush that alights him now.

She shouldn't compare one love to the other, but she feels envy as she listens to her once husband describe how he's fallen in love with someone else.

"I want to do this properly," he tells her.

"Still worrying over what others might think?" she teases.

"Not of me-"

"Oh I know, Remus. You've never thought of yourself very highly. I had hoped I could change that, but…" She glances toward the floor pen, to where their son gurgles and bubbles, his hair a green bright enough to rival his godfather's eyes. She had hoped for many things, and as her mother's told her in the times since, men should be loved and not changed.

Tonks had always thought love would be enough to cause the change needed to sustain it; she wonders if Hermione Granger knows a secret Tonks does not.

"Listen," she implores at last, cupping his hands to her cheeks and forcing his gaze on hers. "Don't run away this time. Hermione's a hardy girl, but if what she's feeling is at all what I think it might be, you'll damage her."

She watches as guilt lines his eyes, as his lips draw downward, and the swell of affection and care is maternal and protective as she pulls him to her embrace. "Remus, if you're looking for my permission, you're being silly. You're my son's father and my friend. I only want you to be happy, truly happy."

She shushes his apologies, feels his tears wet her shoulder, and rubs his back in tender, smooth circles. Poor child, she thinks, and in the slow sigh that she swallows, Tonks feels something click back into focus, a shift in her heart that feels much like peace. Their son's laughter echoes into the kitchen, and silently, she wishes her former partner well.

May she have the same, she hopes.

Epilogue

He watches his wife frown at her roses, a gloved hand inspecting the dark green stalks and lips muttering as she scrawls small details in the black notebook that she uses to track all of her plants. He replaces his glasses and continues reading, enjoying the crisp breeze and thinking mildly of what they might have for supper that evening. The neighbors were on holiday again, and the girl they used to house-sit was seen earlier that morning.

He thinks to invite the young woman over to join them. She's a smart, young thing, and when she beats him at backgammon, he's reminded of his wife in their university days. He decides on a salad and fish on the grill, and his wife happily rings over the invitation later that afternoon.

Wendell's surprised when the girl brings a man with her, certainly closer to Wendell's age than hers. He feels suspicious when the man's hand lingers on the girl's elbow, and even though he knows the girl little beyond her occasional visits, Wendell thinks it important that he quiz the man on his intentions.

"You know Jean long, Mr. Lupin?" he asks with little preamble.

A curious smile twitches along the man's lips. "Yes, several years."

"And your relationship with her is that of, what, chaperone? Uncle?"

The man's smile grows, and his lightly colored eyes glance over to where Wendell's wife and the girl murmur in the kitchen. "I can rightly say that my feelings for Jean are not at all of the familial type, Mr. Wilkins."

Wendell frowns, not caring for the obvious amusement being shown his way. He leans forward, hands pressing back at his thick hair, hair that, if left to grow too long, kinked and tangled in a way not unlike the girl he feels such a misplaced sense of protectiveness for. "I don't find any of this very funny, Lupin. Jean's a lovely, young girl, and I mean to know your intentions."

"You'll find it strange, my saying so, but I think Jean would be very happy to know you care enough to ask." The man leans closer as well, his light eyes intent and serious for once, and in a voice that sounds so very different from the diffident tones used since entering, he says, "I love Jean, and I mean to ask her to marry me- at least, once I'm certain she'll say yes."

"Marriage, you say?"

"She certainly deserves better than me, I know, but as you say, she is lovely, and I'd be a fool to think to not take a chance."

Wendell studies the man carefully, the strange scars that mar his cheeks and worn quality of his clothing. There's a shabby veil about him, in his dress and the hold of his shoulders, but Wendell sees something beyond that, a quiet assurance. This is a man, Wendell thinks, who can be stubborn given the right sort of incentive.

"All right, Mr. Lupin, I suppose I can accept that. I'm not sure what Jean's told you of us, but Monica and I think of Jean a bit like a daughter. I'll expect an invitation to your wedding."

Happiness is bright again in the man's eyes as he shakes Wendell's hand, and the strength in his palm helps smooth whatever lingering doubts Wendell might have. He watches the two of them, his Jean and this Lupin throughout the evening, watches the way in which Jean insists on Lupin eating a second helping and how Lupin seems distracted by every sip she takes from her glass, every small gesture of her fingers.

They're a couple in love, and he tells his wife so later that night, as they ready themselves for bed. "Of course they are," his wife replies, her dark eyes mirthful. "Jean tells me that he used to be her teacher. A professor's aid is a bit like a teacher, don't you think?"

And she reminds him, with a long, minty kiss of why he first fell for her when she stepped into his laboratory session all those years ago, young and bright and far too lighthearted for a serious post-graduate.

Epilogue

The wedding is larger than he'd have thought she would like. He spies her parents, under their different names, laughing with Arthur and Molly, and he feels an emotion not unlike guilt hit him in the gut when he thinks of all that she kept from him. His own wedding is on its third delay, but he doesn't want to think of that mess, not now when he has free range of an open bar and his best mate keeps him in steady cups.

Harry drinks from his fourth of the night, and watches as Remus holds Hermione close on the dance floor, their silhouette a curved line in the floor's shadows.

"You ever going to fix that?" His godfather nudges his elbow, and Harry struggles to remain balanced. His tolerance is low, and he feels his age yet again, hating it and dispassionately hating most everything else as well.

"Fix what?" he asks, pretending ignorance.

"Whatever happened between you and the bride, son. Moony knows something of it, and I suppose I know enough as well, but don't you think you've drawn this out too long?"

"I haven't done anything. She's the one who won't look at me." And she won't, not in the way she used to, with a steady belief and care that made him feel alone in the world, a shining star in a dark sky that she relied on to guide her. Her eyes look on him as she would Ron, with kindness and exasperation and good humor, but not what he's hoping for.

Sirius drinks slowly from the clear liquid that makes up his tall glass. "Do you love Ginny?"

He chokes, the fire whiskey burning as it tilts up through his nose. He sputters and is near tears when he finally clears his throat and stares, suddenly frightened and exposed. "Of course I do!"

"Then stop delaying your wedding, get over whatever you're holding against Hermione, and grow up."

Harry takes the fifth glass when it's offered to him and finds his fiance in the crowd of dancers. She's with her oldest brother, who spins and dips her as she laughs and reddens in the heat of the sudden motion. Her dress is the wrong color for her hair, but he knows it's one her mother made her, and he feels a sickening thickness in his stomach. He'll hurt her, he realizes. He probably already has.

And if he marries her, he'll ruin the woman who smiles so easily and laughs so fully and has dreams of joining the professional leagues one day.

Sirius follows him when he stumbles over past the wedding tent and into the bushes of the far yard; his godfather claps his back as Harry empties his stomach, tears clouding his eyes and nose runny. How did he muck it up so badly? First Hermione… and now Ginny. Had there ever been a woman he'd care about that he didn't hurt?

"It'll be hard, but you have to be honest, Harry. Tell Hermione the truth and then let that wound close over and seal. You'll break Ginny's heart, but that too will mend. There are men who'll love her the way she deserves. And then you-"

Harry glances up to his godfather's features, still handsome but worn. "What'll I do?"

"You'll come with me. There's a place I went, that first year after escaping-" A distant look, vaguely happy and steeled with something harder crosses Sirius's expression. "It'll do you good."

And Harry believes him. It takes two weeks to run through the list, but he follows his godfather's advice. Hermione cries and hugs him, but her words are exactly as he expects. The sting of her rejection is less so, and the regret he feels from the way Ginny's open, surprised eyes melt into horror and grief is far more painful. He apologizes to her parents, apologizes to her brothers, and feels the worse when Ron pulls him to his chest for a long embrace before shoving him out the door.

He spends his first week on Sirius's island in fitful slumber, and when he wakes, pale and starving, his godfather teaches him to fish. A year passes with little marking it, but Harry feels the changes in himself. More than the darkening of his skin from days spent in the sun and sea, more than the quiet of his voice from nights spent retracing his childhood, more than the stories he learns from his godfather, the stories of his parents and their parents, and the whole generation that left him behind- he feels the changes in his heart.

The gnawing want is appeased.

He thinks, perhaps, he's finally found what it is to be content.

Hermione's letter comes to him by way of an exhausted golden owl. Her script, unbound by a restriction on feet or inches, loops and entices him with news of the people he left behind. She writes of Ginny's engagement, and Ron's newest romance. She tells him of Teddy's latest exploits and Remus's new job at Hogwarts. She shares, near the end, after a blot that speaks of hesitation, that she carries a new life in her womb.

Will he come home, she asks him. Will he return to them?

It's how easily he agrees that assures him he's healed.

Epilogue

The swell of her belly makes his usually practiced movements clumsy, but she laughs and sighs into his mouth as he finally slips into her warmth, their joining catching their breaths as it always does. That first time, nearly two months after their first kiss, had been frenzied and rushed and perfect, but he prefers their gentler moments to the fast fulfillment their mutual attraction occasionally demands. He prefers to watch as her mouth parts with each slow thrust; he prefers to feel the aching build to her tightening satisfaction.

He prefers to savor her every reaction, to draw out each second until she can only think of him, can only breathe if it's him who grants her air.

"Remus," she says, voice breaking, "please-"

And he does please, he lifts her leg and pushes deeper, angling further, and using his fingers in a way he knows will send her spinning and breathless. Her lips try at words, but she's incoherent, and he chases after her loveliness with a gratification of his own. He kisses her neck and tucks the damp strands of her hair past her ear, freeing the length of her soft skin to his breath and attention.

She smiles, tired and worn in the best sense, and Remus traces the arc of her breasts down to the curve of her stomach and the life enclosed there. He had seen the fear in her eyes when she first told him, the weak fear that he might react as he did once before, but his heart is settled. He touches the skin that separates him from his second child, and he can only be thankful.

"I love you, Remus Lupin," she tells him, and he draws her to his chest. His feet are grounded, and the hole that he has carried since his childhood, since the bite that warped him into something secondary from a person- he can feel its absence.

The hole-

The missing piece-

Remus holds his wife, thinks of his son and future child, and the friends that grant him their love. The void that he struggled to give name to, to grant mercy to as he rejected his monstrous other self- he thinks now that it's yet another filled space, a spot he can forgive and accept and perhaps, just as much as she has given him, love.

She fades to slumber, and never willing to leave her for long, he is fast behind her.