Disclaimer: See first chapter.

A/N: I don't know what happened last night, but I suddenly knew what I was writing for this after being stuck for weeks. It almost doesn't belong here. I desperately wanted this to be a one-shot and I think I might have taken it in a different direction and ended up rating it higher. I may yet, which might explain why this one ended up so short.

31: Lock and Key

2001

He's still not sure when it began. It wasn't as though one day he found her physically repulsive and the next, utterly beguiling, but it's difficult to place the moment she ceased to be Nymphadora Tonks, Order member and colleague, ceased even to be Nymphadora Tonks, close friend and confidant. It might have been their first mission together, the night she brought half a bar of Honeydukes Finest "just in case" and held it so tightly that when she'd intended for them to celebrate a job well done with it, the pockets of her red dragon-hide coat were ruined. It might have been the evening she leaned in closer than necessary to deliver a whispered one-liner and her hot, peppermint-scented breath danced around his collar. Or it might have been a night like this, when the summer evenings are balmy and the air smells like lavender and citronella and the little jars, full of her conjured blue flames, give the garden an almost spooky glow.

It was certainly not love at first sight. Slowly his love for her had crept up on him, until he sat beside her sickbed in a private room at St. Mungo's, praying to a god he no longer believed in, watching the soft rise and fall of her chest. And when she croaked his name the next morning, it pounced.

He still finds it difficult to watch her sleep. It reminds him too much of that slow drip of icy fear. She sleeps in an eerie peace, one arm resting her head, the other draped across her waist. Her breathing is soft and slow, completely inaudible – Juliet in the crypt.

If Juliet had been four months pregnant.

He winces at the creaking hinges of their bedroom window as he reaches out to close it. Her eyes still closed, she turns her face to the source of the sound.

"Remus?"

"I'm sorry."

Yawning, she stretches her body out, one arm straight up, the other straight out as she rolls her shoulders. She pushes her slightly stumpy legs toward the end of the bed and her peach camisole rides up, exposing the developing bump. "What time is it?"

"One o'clock."

In the heat, she has slept above the duvet in only a peach camisole and a pair of knickers. She groans good-naturedly and wriggles in protest. "Has Ted had lunch?"

Lupin hums as he lowers himself slowly onto the bed so as not to further disturb her. "And dinner too."

Her eyes fly open and she gasps in horror at the sight of the dark night beyond the windowpane. "I only came up for a nap! Why didn't you wake me?"

"I didn't like to."

With a soft sigh, Tonks pulls down her camisole, her hand resting on the bump. Healer Costello has told her that the baby is now about the length of a banana. She runs her hand under it slowly. "I'll be up all night now. He's playing havoc with my habits. I was never like this with Ted."

Even at night it is too warm to sleep together under the covers. Lupin reaches under the sheets to retrieve a pillow and fluffs it up. Nestling into it, he replies, "I think we can count Ted an anomaly. There was a war going on and you were carrying him in winter."

Tonks sits up, now wide awake. "What do you mean by that?"

"I mean that you are a sloth every summer."

Her lips form a perfect O. "I'm not a sloth!"

His laughter is soft, little more than a catch in his breath. "That's why you're a Hufflepuff. The Hat obviously recognised the sleeping pattern of a badger and thought – ouch!"

Tonks, having barely nudged the small of his back with her elbow, rolls her eyes. "Oh, that didn't bloody hurt."

"Excuse me. I am in possession of a weak and broken body."

"And when your baby is born, me too, pal." Lying on her back, she grins up at him as he turns over to face her, his elbow holding his weight. "What did you have for dinner?"

Lupin falls back onto the pillow. "I left pasta and pesto for you."

"Is it that nice stuff?"

"It's spirali, yes."

"Cheers. Is it weird if I eat that at one o'clock in the morning?"

"Not so long as you don't bring it up here."

He remembers her reading somewhere that she ought to sleep on her left side because of something to do with the placenta, but as she sleeps on the left side of their bed, it has forced her to abandon their usual sleeping positions. Though they wake up on separate sides of the bed, he prefers to fall asleep facing her, talking to her. Ending the night facing her back, listening to her breathing gradually slow, is an alien concept. He edges toward her until he can feel the warmth of her body and cautiously wraps his right arm around her middle, his hand resting at the peak of the bump.

"Can you imagine what it's going to be like when there are two of them?" she asks.

Lupin hums dubiously. "I don't know. I imagine it'll be worse when they're older and the two of them can conspire with each other."

"When they decide they're going to change their faces and hide in plain view."

"I want to laugh, but I know in nine years, it won't be funny."

She laughs breathily and a muscle at the pit of her stomach jumps in time. He can feel her laughter and he wonders whether their child can sense their happiness. He's never known a love like this, something uncomplicated and unconditional. He's never loved so whole-heartedly. It is a love that is not without fear, but which adapts and grows with it. It's true that food is love and living at Grimmauld Place, he found himself making unholy amounts of shepherd's pie because it would, for a moment, lift the perpetual storm cloud that hovered over Sirius, but, while it's an entirely different kind of love, he's never gone out of his way to use somebody's favourite pasta shape before. He doesn't tell her any of this enough.

"I love you."

"Will you still love me when I bring a bowl of pasta to bed?"

He drops a kiss to the sensitive spot on her neck and whispers, "Definitely not."

"Pity. I was just starting to like you."