1997: This Is The Night, Part Two

"I thought you bought those books as presents for other people."

Tonks looked up with a start from the revised edition of Hairy Snout, Human Heart as Remus set two steaming mugs on the table and took a seat across from her in the booth.

"Yes, well." Laying the book on the table, Tonks wrapped both hands around a cocoa and hugged it against her dry, but still chilled, self. "You cast really good drying spells and all, but I wanted to be sure the rain hadn't ruined the books. You wouldn't have me give out water-logged ones, would you?"

Remus shook his head as he settled himself. "And I suppose you think I'm frightfully silly to suggest you can check a book's condition without reading it?"

"No. I think you're frightfully silly to have stood over there at the bar and wagged your finger at me. As if that would deter me from anything. In fact, you only stirred my rebellious streak."

For a moment, Remus gazed at the book with pursed lips. His expression was serious as he took a long drink of hot chocolate and Tonks, distracted by the sudden thought that she'd somehow messed up his plan again by diving into the book before he said, gulped down too much and burnt her tongue.

The thought didn't have time to niggle before Remus asked, tone a little too level, "Am I correct to assume you're not a speed reader, and that you've skipped the account of my early life?"

"Course I did," Tonks replied. "You know I wanted to read what you wrote about me." Stomach giving a little twist of guilt, Tonks added, "I didn't get very far -- just through your introduction about dating. It's hard to concentrate in here, with all the talking and the music..."

Her words trailed away as her ears pricked with the sounds of the Myron Wagtail crooning, "I Saw The Stars on Christmas Night" to the backup of cello and lute. She supposed it had been a little harsh of her to judge Celestina Warbeck for singing about the war being over when the Weird Sisters had started the trend last year.

"Go on, then." Remus sat back in his chair as the stiffness left his smile.

Tonks sloshed her cocoa as she set down her mug and stared at him for a moment. "You mean, go on reading?"

"Aren't you going to perish from curiosity if you don't?"

"Yes, but...you seemed to want me to wait...Have you got something planned for Christmas--?"

"Of course I do." Remus took another drink, and smirked. "And if I wanted you to wait, believe me, I wouldn't have told you to go on. I'd have vanished the whole lot of books."

Biting her lip against the goofy grin that wanted to bloom on her face, Tonks thought, for the millionth time, that it just wasn't fair that Remus was so damn smooth when he was being a condescending prat. She'd mastered bluffing in Investigation and Interrogation training, but somehow all of that control was shattered by those twinkling blue eyes and the curved mouth she desperately wanted to lean across the table and kiss. She couldn't let on that his brand of smugness was the spell for butterflies taking flight inside inside of her; he'd be as bad as Sirius.

"Now you're channelling Perfect Prefect Lupin." Tonks said, ordering an eyebrow to arch -- but his grin became lopsided and boyish and disarming again, and the arched brow became a lost cause as she laughed and traced the fuzzy lettering on the cover with her fingertips. "I'll feel silly sitting here reading while you sit there drinking your cocoa."

"You could read aloud."

Tonks didn't waste another second picking up the book and flipping through to where she'd left off. Once she'd found it, however, she hesitated. There was something truly strange about reading a book your boyfriend had written about himself -- and about you -- aloud to him. She was surprised Remus had suggested it. Wouldn't it make him self-conscious?

On sudden impulse, she pushed the book toward him. "Why don't you read to me?"

"Me? Read my own book?"

"S'what authors do, isn't it?" She didn't add that she found the prospect of his quiet, hoarse voice speaking the words that sounded so like him --that were from him-- but were much more than he ever would ever normally say, more than a little bit of a turn on.

"I suppose it is," said Remus, taking the book from her. "From the top of this page?"

Tonks nodded eagerly, and hugged her cocoa again, pulse quickening with anticipation as Remus took another sip of his, cleared his throat, then began to read:

"If I have managed to convey even half of the angst I endured as a teenager about whether it was right to keep my dark secret from my mates, and how paralyzing the fear could be that if the admission would not drive them away, my tiresomeness would, then you can imagine the extreme melodrama that accompanied my adolescent yearning for a love life.

"Most of it had far more to do with the simple fact that I am rubbish with girls, and nothing whatsoever to do with my furry little problem. Perhaps it might have, if I had ever managed not to botch things long before a girl noticed the frequency and pattern of my stays in the hospital wing. Some nights I lie awake wondering if gawky, randy teenaged boys really are more off-putting than werewolves. And considering I always knew I wouldn't sprout a bushy tail in the middle of a date, I was far more concerned about breaking out in spots or a cracking voice--"

Tonks snorted into her cocoa, and Remus looked up from the book with a sheepish half-grin.

"Am I going to regret going against my taciturn nature?" he asked. "Must I relive the mortification of being sixteen?"

"I'm laughing because you toss and turn some nights, and I can picture you fretting over that," said Tonks, giggles underscoring her words.

Remus quirked a brow. "Not exactly reassuring."

"It's an adorable picture."

Chuckling self-consciously, Remus pushed his hair out of his eyes, then lifted the book again. "In that case, I shall let that be my segue." He resumed reading:

"Lest I paint an unattractive and inaccurate picture of my adult self, and receive fan owls from homely, desperate single witches over a certain age who would like to put my sleepless musings to rest, I will say that I did, for the most part, outgrow my awkwardness. Or, perhaps..."

Remus' eyes flicked up to her, then darted back down as he grinned wryly and read on, laughter in his voice, "Or perhaps I simply learnt to package it better; my girlfriend seems to find a sheepish grin, hands shoved deep into the trouser pockets, and a ducked head that makes the fringe fall in the eyes 'oh-so-adorably sixteen.'"

Face warm, Tonks let out a little shriek of laughter -- not so much because it was funny, as that Remus Lupin had actually included such a personal detail in a published book.

"Why did you ever argue being too old for me?" Tonks asked, and his chuckle seemed to dance with hers in the air to the Christmas music.

It was the Celestina song again, and oddly, when Remus resumed reading, Tonks found herself paying more attention to the lyrics than to Remus' cleverness about the dilemma of coming out to your girlfriend as a werewolf. Maybe it was because the Weird Sisters' song preceding it had put her in a more charitable frame of mind -- goodwill toward men and all that...But the verse in "O Starry Night" about chains being broken and oppression ceasing really was lovely.

Eventually, Remus' rasping tones won the war for audience against the wobbly soprano.

"If I ever do find out the solution for The Coming Out As A Werewolf Dilemma, I shall put it in another book, with a catchy title, perhaps along the lines of, Howl: How To Tell Your Significant Other You've Got a Furry Not-So-Little Problem, And Other Helpful Hints. But as my current girlfriend knew before we met what I am, and as I intend not to date any other witch, ever, you shall have to hope that another lycanthrope takes up a career as an author.

"Though perhaps I do have a handy hint, after all. If you anticipate meeting..."

He paused, smiled more to himself than at her; Tonks' really did think she might melt as he continued, in a tone she'd only ever heard him address her:

"If you anticipate meeting The Woman of Your Dreams and fear making that dreaded announcement: get yourself involved in a scandal -- small enough that you don't land yourself in Azkaban, but large enough that every witch in Britain -- at least the ones involved with Magical Law Enforcement or Control of Magical Creatures -- takes note of your name and associates it with lycanthropy. You never know; one might meet you, find you charming, and want to go out with you anyway."

"Or want to go to bed with you," Tonks blurted.

Remus looked up at her with rounded eyes and a lopsided smile.

"You're very funny and sexy in print, you know," Tonks said.

"Am I now?" Remus asked, chuckling quietly, and glancing out the window. "It's stopped raining."

"And since you asked earlier if I thought it would, I assume you've got something planned for outside?"

Eyes gleaming over his mug as he drained his hot chocolate, Remus got to his feet. "If I were really like the me you read in print, I'd say I'd been planning to make love to you in the street, but as I'm not nearly as interesting in real life, you'll have to settle for a leisurely walk home."

"S'okay," Tonks said as he offered her a hand up, then helped her into her cloak. "Love-making on the street couldn't probably isn't nearly as exciting as it sounds."

"No," said Remus. "I suppose cobbles would make things a bit...bumpy."

Laughing, Tonks pulled on her gloves, then slipped her hand into his as they wove their way through the maze of tables toward the exit to Diagon Alley. "I think a Christmastime walk's quite sexy enough for me, so long as there's love-making at the end--Oh!"

Tonks stopped short as they stepped through the opening, realisation striking her like a brick wall. It all began in Flourish and Blotts...they had to have a cocoa at the Leaky...now a walk home...Remus was re-creating the night she'd discovered Hairy Snout, Human Heart, and they'd first said, I love you.

Only girlfriend still? Shepherd's words returned, striking her with a force that knocked the wind from her lungs.

Dear Merlin... Could Remus be planning to--?

"Leave something behind?" Remus asked, eyeing her with an arched eyebrow.

"No." Tonks shook her head. "Just surprised by the cold."

Remus released her hand and wrapped his arm about her waist as they ambled in the direction of home. Despite the lull in the storm, almost no one had ventured out of their homes or the Leaky; shop lights were dimmed, "Closed For Christmas, Will Re-open 27 December" signs hung in many windows as the keepers closed up early.

"Quiet tonight," Remus commented, just as Tonks noted that the only sound was the scrape of their shoes on the wet cobbles. "Will you sing?"

Recalling how she'd done that other Christmas when they'd walked together like this, Tonks obliged. "O starry night, foretelling in your shining--

"There aren't any stars out tonight," Remus interrupted.

"There are," Tonks argued. "They're just hidden by the clouds. And if you want me to sing, it's got to be this one, because the bloody song's stuck in my head."

"Go ahead," Remus said. "You'll make it sound better than Celestina, at any rate."

"O starry night, foretelling in your shining,

It is the night of our sweet freedom's birth!

Long lay the world in war and terror pining,

Till love endured and brought peace to the earth.

A thrill of hope, the weary soldiers cheering,

For love has conquered death and its dark lord!

Lift up your eyes, O see the stars appearing!

O night divined, when we laid down our swords!

O night, O starry night, O night divined!

"Brave soldiers fought, for they loved one another;

They battled hate and secured us our peace.

Chains have they broken; all wizards are brothers.

By Merlin's name, all oppression shall cease!

Sweet songs of joy in grateful chorus raise we,

Let all among us lift a voice today!"

"All among us, Remus," Tonks interrupted herself, choked by the swell of joy that rose as she experienced again what she'd felt earlier, when Remus kissed her, that she had fought and won a very important personal battle, and that somehow tonight, Christmas Eve, was the culmination of every hope and fear she'd had for him, for them in the past two years. "That means you, too."

"May I read a bit more to you, instead?" Remus asked, bringing them to a halt in front of a park bench. The same one they'd sat on two years ago...

Tonks sat, and watched as Remus unbuttoned his overcoat and took out a present wrapped flawlessly in silver paper spangled with gold stars, tied up with a gold bow.

He held it out to Tonks, and as she accepted it with trembling hands, she knew at once that her own copy of Hairy Snout, Human Heart: A Lycanthrope's Look at Life & Love was inside.

"Why didn't you give it to me in Flourish and Blotts?" she asked as her gloved fingers fumbled to undo the bow. "Or the Leaky?"

Nerves made her babble; she knew the answer. Knew what lay beneath the paper she was opening with so much more care than she'd ever opened a present before, knew what would come after...Remus didn't seem to notice, but merely watched her with a smile as he sat beside her, sliding an arm around her shoulders.

Did he know that she knew? Did his thoughts resemble anything like hers right now?

As she freed the book from the wrapping paper, Remus' hands -- he'd taken off his gloves, and she felt the warmth of his skin even through her gloves -- covered hers as he gently pulled it from her.

"I know I teased you about reading it out of order," he said, "but I hope you won't mind if I skip ahead to a particular passage?"

She nodded, feeling strangely aware of how her heart was beating in her chest as she watched Remus' fingers flip through the book to the passage, the particular passage...

Oh, Merlin, she'd never imagined it like this.

How would he say it? Was this really happening? Was she reading too much into this?

"I've heard it said," he began, breath forming clouds in the air as he spoke, "that it is not good for man to be alone. I would venture to say that it is not good for werewolves, either."

Tonks' eyes fluttered closed. This really was happening. He really was going to...

"Those years following the deaths of my parents, my friends, when I was in and out of work as frequently as my girlfriend chooses and discards hair colours, fostered deep insecurities about my prospects for ever having the normal life my parents had always dreamed for me. When I met Nymphadora (she's so beautiful when she pretends to be cross with me for calling her that), her creativity, her flexibility--"

"Lovely bit of innuendo there, Remus," Tonks heard herself say over him.

"--and quite frankly, her saintliness..." Remus' fingers squeezed her shoulder, but otherwise he remained intent on the book in front of him as he said casually, "I'll make a note to my editor to change that to impishness in the next edition."

His eyes, twinkling with mischief, darted sidelong at her and Tonks, laughing, snuggled into the crook of his arm. She wrapped her arm around him, slipping her hand inside his overcoat. This was lovely -- marked with Remus' special touch of sweetness and humour, all arranged just for her. She thought of that wizard in Flourish and Blotts, buying his wife a cookbook for Christmas; that would never be Remus -- not just because she didn't cook, but because he was Remus.

The rumble of his voice as he read pulled her out of her thoughts and reminded her to savour this moment, which only came once in a lifetime, and all too soon would end.

"...creativity, her flexibility and, quite frankly, her saintliness," he repeated, "made me dare to hope -- until duty compelled me to go and live among the worst off of my kind.

"Foolishly, I did not have the faith that love could withstand separation, or circumstances which dredged up every last one of those old insecurities. To speak in detail about that time would be to dwell too much on a past I'd like to leave behind, but suffice it to say that, cut off from human society, I became far more fixated on the one night I have a hairy snout than on the twenty-seven I do not."

Tears pricked her eyes as Tonks remembered last Christmas, and how Remus had held the old anonymous copy of Hairy Snout and said it was the work of a foolish boy with a heedful of impossible dreams. Thank Merlin he didn't feel that way still. Thank Merlin he'd written his story again, written these beautiful words about dignity, about claiming his rightful, human place in society.

"My life is marked by changes. Naturally, I fear and hate change that is beyond my control. All my life, I have sought to take part in things through which I might bring change to the world, and thus feel a semblance of control. I hope that this book might help change the way the world perceives me and those like me -- not just because we ought to have the rights other people do, but because I know how easily a lycanthrope's self-perception can be coloured by the perception of the wider Wizarding community. However, I hope cautiously. While I've got a bit of gold in my vault now, from my publisher's advance, and perhaps will receive enough in royalties to take my girlfriend out for a few hot chocolates, I know that I may yet remain unemployable, feared...

"Nonetheless, I will try -- because my efforts to change the world are sure, at least, to change me.

"I never dreamt there was anything to do with my lycanthropy that I could control. For over thirty years, I've thought that my condition shaped me -- but it was the changes life wreaked, which could befall anybody, that moulded my heart. My human heart. And what becomes of my heart -- whether it remains locked up inside, untouched, uncultivated, to wither and die; or given over to the full moon's power; or given to another person, in love -- is my choice."

Tonks sat up as joy welled, ballooning in her heart, pushing a beaming smile across her face. Remus removed his arm from around her, and turned slightly toward her, so that their knees touched, as he lowered the book to his lap.

His eyes moved up from the page and locked with hers.

She caught her breath.

Clouds formed in the air as Remus spoke. "I gave my heart to Nymphadora Tonks."

His hands pushed the book toward her, and she looked down to see that he'd spoken the words that were printed on the page. Written for her. Learned by heart because they were his heart.

Tonks lifted her eyes to his again. Her heart had stopped. She thought she'd stopped breathing, too, but from all appearances, her breath seemed to be mingling in the air with his.

"I tried to take it back," Remus went on, "but she refused to return it. It's because of her, for her, that I've written this book, and penned my name to it -- healed, whole, unashamed, determined to be the man she deserves, because apparently a stupid, stubborn man is far more off-putting than a werewolf. And that is why..."

Remus moved again -- oh dear Merlin...He'd got up from the bench -- but not up from the bench...

He was kneeling.

He was taking her left hand in both of his.

"And that is why I've just dropped down on bended knee...To ask her to do me the honour -- the very great honour -- of being...my wife."

Tonks gasped.

Not just because he'd actually asked her to marry him -- and even though she'd known it was coming, it still managed to take her completely by surprise -- but because, as Remus pronounced the words my wife, an illustration of a red jewellery box appeared on the page, beneath the very sentence he had quoted. Her eyes darted to his hands -- which she expected to be reaching into his pocket for a ring box. But Remus, a smile playing at the corners of his mouth, nodded back toward the open book in her lap.

The image materialised into a real velvet case, and opened to reveal green silk, upon which rested a gleaming diamond ring.

"Oh, Remus!" Tonks pulled her hand out of his and picked up the box. "Remus, it's beautiful..."

It wasn't a rock, like Bill Weasley had given Fleur, but it certainly was the sort of ring to catch an eye when she moved her hand and the angles of the cut gem caught the light.

She laughed. "You weren't joking about spending your advance, were you?"

He grinned -- boyishly, with the fringe falling over his eyes. "I didn't spend it all. I wanted to, but I thought a ring that size might be impractical when you're chasing dark wizards...Not to mention I was afraid of what you'd do to me if I didn't let you tell me how to spend some of it."

Tonks thrust the ring box at him, and held out her left hand. "Put it on me? Oh--my glove."

Remus caught her hand again, chuckling. "Just a moment. There's one very crucial bit you'll want to consider before you say yes." His eyes twinkled. "Which you haven't actually said yet."

She giggled, and felt her cheeks warm. He was right -- she hadn't said yes. Leave it to her, to botch how to respond to such a meticulously planned, wonderful proposal...But Remus was peeling away her glove, anticipating she wouldn't be too put off by whatever it was he wanted her to read--

"...and to be the mother of those someday Ferocious Fourteens who I solemnly swear not to remind her are more bothersome than werewolves."

Her laughter pealed through the night, yet there was a tightness in her chest as it dawned on her that she was the fulfilment of the "future wife" Remus had dreamed of so long ago, in the summer of 1975 when he'd written this book. His parents had given him the dream, and though the hardships he'd faced, particularly this year, had stolen it, she had made him dream again.

And now it would no longer be a mere dream.

"Yes," she said.

Joy broke across Remus' face, eyes so bright that Tonks thought for a moment that the clouds had rolled away to reveal a sky blazing with stars. Of course it had not. In fact, a large, icy drop of rain pelted their twined hands. It glistened in the lamplight -- as did the diamond engagement ring, still nestled in its red velvet case.

"Will you put it on me now?" Tonks asked. "I've said yes."

For the first time since he'd knelt down, Remus broke eye contact as he slid the glittering gem onto her fourth finger. Tonks watched him, loving how the look of pure pleasure on his face eased away the years from his features. As soon as the ring was in place, before Tonks had a chance to admire it, Remus had, in a swift motion, stood and pulled Tonks -- who barely caught the book before it slipped off her lap into a puddle -- into his arms, and kissed her breathless.

"Merry Christmas, Nymphadora," he said. "No present in the world could be better than--"

The clouds burst, and for the third time that night, they were wet through. As they splashed down the street toward home, Tonks sang in a volume Celestina Warbeck could only dream of achieving:

"Love is our lord! It shall endure forever!

Its pow'r and magic evermore proclaim!

Its pow'r and magic evermore proclaim!"

The End