Title: "The Curse No Man Can Bear"
Author: monimala
Fandom: Harry Potter (books and movies combined)
Rating/Classification: SAC for some very mild adult content, Remus/Tonks, implied Remus/Sirius, angst.
Disclaimer: J.K. Rowling owns all, not I.
Summary: I suppose the only way to summarize this is to say that it's an attempt at insight into an ambiguously bi, emo werewolf. 800 words, spoilers for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows ahoy!
Remus fumbles the first time he and Nymphadora make love. Quiet, straining to keep the parting of clothes and the soft noises muffled with charms, they are awkward and he is glad the darkness hides his blush. "Oi, Remus," she chides, gently, against his ear. Her mouth is a hot rush, too hot and young and wanting. "'S'alright, I'll change my hair to match your cheeks." He wants to laugh, but doesn't, afraid that Molly --with her sharp, mother's ears-- will hear the sound from two floors away. He buries his lips against the soft curve of Dora's shoulder, calls her that, "Dora," for the first time and loses himself too quickly in the stroke of her nimble fingers.
Afterwards, he passes Sirius in the hall. His old friend's been pacing again. Always relentless, always impatient, staring at the curtained painting that has been mercifully silent for hours. His dressing gown is open, the marks there black and sinister… tattoos of which he never speaks. "Oi, Remus," he mocks, huskily.
When he tugs at the curtain, Lupin does not cringe at the foul shrieks of "blood traitor!" and "filthy dogs!"
He is awkward and the darkness hides his blush.
**
The second time Remus and Dora make love, they are husband and wife, bound forever by a few simple words and hands held tight in front of Andromeda and Ted. He can still taste the sugar of the hastily battered wedding cake and the bitter of the flash of disappointment in his new mother-in-law's eyes.
"It should have been Sirius," she had said in a weary undertone before they Disapparated to somewhere safe, somewhere private. "It should have been Sirius for the children's sake."
As Dora unrolls the Muggle prophylactic over him, protecting her womb from him, Remus fumbles once more. He closes his eyes against the bright purple hair and the sparkling eyes and the hope and remembers Meda's words again.
"It should have been Sirius."
He did not misunderstand her then and he does not misunderstand her now, when the faulty sheath breaks and proves her devastatingly correct.
**
Remus slams out of Grimmauld Place and Apparates from the front step without a single glance back. The magic pulls him, whooshing fast past his ears, back to the house, back to Dora and her rounded belly and what must surely be a beast within.
A beast born of his cowardice, cursed and damned twice over.
He has not touched her since she told him the news, has not dared hold her in sleeping or in waking. Each day, he watches her face grow paler and he feels himself draw farther away. Far enough to run, to leave nothing behind save a few pictures fixed to the wall with sticking charms.
Just like Sirius.
Harry's words, his cry of "Coward!" reverberate through Remus' mind as he lands in Andromeda's back garden. He stumbles, and then pulls the brown-haired girl chucking gnomes into his clumsy embrace.
**
"Do you want to name him Sirius?" she asks, as the boy nestles against her breast and waves impossibly tiny fists at the unforgiving world into which he's come.
Remus strokes his fingers against both of their cheeks, identically soft and pink with the sound and fury of birth. "No," he murmurs, mildly. "No, we'll name him for your father."
Tears spring to her eyes. Not the first, nor the last she'll shed. "Then, for my dad… and his."
For three days, he holds vigil. Well into the rise of the moon, when he is half-mad and chained in the pantry. "Teddy grew a nose, Love," Dora tells him through the door as he howls with misery. "A right ugly *human* nose."
He wrenches the barrier a scant eight hours later with mortal hands. The fresh marks on his chest are black and sinister… tattoos of which he'll never speak.
**
He is beaten, so very tired, his body old and aching and each wound on top of another bleeding like the tormented nights where Moony ran wild. His arm is heavy against his side, broken, even as he blocks another one of Dolohov's curses with a weak jinx.
"Remus!" Nymphadora skids to a stop on the parapet, her wand out and pointed.
"Dora, no, turn back…!" he cries.
"Rubbish," she says with a cocky wink, the one that first caught him unawares. The one their son just learned a fortnight ago along with a pig nose and a lizard's tongue.
"It's the dog-loving blood traitor, is it?" The Death Eater spits at them, reminding him that this is neither the time nor the place. That perhaps it never was. "I reckon that makes you the bitch."
"Why, you…"
When Dolohov turns his wand to her, Remus' hand is steady.
"Avada…"
It is still too late.
--end--
July 21, 2007.