12Disclaimer: Not mine. Still.
AU. Still.
A/N: This replaces the original 'The Female of the Species'. It fits into a story-arc that I call "Requiem fic-verse" in which Lupin and Tonks dodge Rowling's scythe, but you needn't have read them all, or indeed, any of them. There are a couple of references to other stories, but they're not important.
March 2001
It begins on his birthday. Their two-year-old son was put to bed after a small slice of Molly's cake, which meant that the assembled company was forced to eat what should have been dessert before dinner was even served. It's gone midnight now and their family and friends are rising from the table and saying their goodbyes, kissing cheeks, and promising to visit.
Remus Lupin is not the biggest fan of his birthday parties. For the past five years, he's been forced to celebrate them. His wife seems obsessed by dragging him into a spotlight he does not wish to stand under. He much prefers other people's birthdays when he can mingle with their friends, but refuse drinks when he knows he's had enough without seeming rude.
This one has been very pleasant - a small affair in their South Devon home with a meal he had pre-prepared, one of Molly Weasley's cakes, small amounts of elderflower wine, and their closest friends. It's one of the best birthdays he's ever celebrated.
There's a third of the sponge and a miniature bottle of Ogden's Old Firewhiskey left. Both are taken to bed. Lupin pretends not to notice the crumbs on the sheets and Tonks pretends not to notice how drunk her husband has managed to get on three measures.
He laughs a lot, thinks Tonks, when he's drunk - not his usual deep, throaty, sexy laugh, but a high pitched almost girlish giggle.
"Shh," she whispers, giggling herself. "You'll wake the baby."
Lupin pulls a face. "Ted's not a baby. He's nearly three, Dora."
She purses her lips, looking far too much like Andromeda for him to protest further. "Still too young to be woken in the middle of the night by his drunken father." She grins and reaches over to kiss him.
They're just slightly past tipsy, they're the happiest they've ever been, they're celebrating, and contraception is the furthest thing from their minds.
At least, not until the next morning.
Lupin wakes with a hangover. His wife does not.
Tonks swings her legs out from under the duvet and sits up stretching. Last night's mascara is smudged under her eyes, but they twinkle.
"I'd better give Ted his breakfast."
"OK. I'll be down in a minute. Just don't open any curtains."
Tonks sighs. "You didn't even drink that much, Light-weight." She hurriedly changes into her uniform and before he can even turn over and sit up, he can hear her pottering around the nursery.
She's in the kitchen when he pads down the stairs. The dishes are still piled high in the sink. Empty bottles litter the long oak table in the centre of the room. She hasn't switched the AGA on and the room is cold. The curtains are drawn, but the early spring sun shines through them and into his eyes. Teddy is eating a chopped-up pink apple and enjoying the crunch as he bites into each piece.
"Goodbye, boys." Tonks kisses both her son and her husband and turns to Apparate to work when Lupin tugs on her wrist and pulls her out into the porch.
"Last night-"
She laughs. "Remus, stop worrying. You're such a worrywart. How many times has it happened before? We'll be fine."
"What if we're not?"
"You always say that." She glances at her watch. "Look, can we talk about this later?"
April 2001
"You were right."
They're cleaning up the mess after Teddy's third birthday party. The kitchen is covered in brightly coloured glitter and streamers. The sun is setting over the cliffs and filling the room with an orange glow.
Lupin does not turn around. His wand is deftly taking down the paper chains in the each corner of the room. "I'm always right." He laughs, mistaking her tone. "What about?"
"Us."
He stops. The paper chain hangs from one end, dragging across the floor. Crossing the kitchen in three strides, he takes his sniffling wife into his arms.
"What did I say? What's wrong?"
Tonks struggles for her breaths. "I was wrong. We're not fine. You said we wouldn't be, and we're not." She buries her face in his jumper, hoping her mascara won't stain it, because it's pale blue and it's his favourite, and it looks wonderful on him, and mascara is murder to get out of wool. "I've wanted to tell you all day, but I didn't want to ruin Teddy's birthday."
Lupin suspects that he already knows what this is about, but he plays dumb. "What do you mean?"
She pulls back, turning away from him and announcing her suspicions to the corner cabinet. "I'm late. I mean, I'm really late." She runs her hands through her lank mousy-brown hair. "I really fucked this up."
Lupin groans and runs his hands down his lined and tired face. "You said you'd sorted it out."
Tonks shrugs. "I didn't think-"
"Oh, for God's sake! If you told me you were going to do it-"
"Shh, don't shout. Ted's asleep. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."
Lupin sighs irritably. "Don't be sorry. If anyone should be sorry, it's me. Who got you into this? Me."
Tonks wrings her hands. "Remus, you're scaring me. Don't do this again." There's an edge to her voice, one that reveals how terrified she really is and, because he knows this isn't how this conversation is supposed to go, because she shouldn't believe he'll leave her, because he knows that he ought to be walking on air, Lupin relents.
"That's not an issue here. That won't happen again." He sits at the table and rests his elbows upon it. "Dora, try to see it from my perspective. I tell you I have reservations and you say you've sorted it out. You had three days to do that."
"I didn't start worrying until three weeks later."
"Yes, but that's too late." Lupin sighs. "We don't have the space, we don't have the money."
"Well then we'll find it. Please let's find it."
Lupin nods. "Well, we don't have much choice, do we? Why are we even having this discussion? You need to see a professional before we make assumptions." He brightens. "It could be anything."
May 2001
Gemini Costello returns to her desk, on the other side of which sit the Lupins, anxiously waiting for the professional opinion.
"Congratulations."
Tonks risks a glance at her husband. He's smiling. She finds herself able to exhale. She'd not realized that she had even been holding her breath.
"I don't suppose you can determine the baby's sex at this stage?" asks Lupin.
Healer Costello shakes her head. "I'm afraid not. Modern medicine is a wonderful thing, Remus, but we've not quite progressed to the stage where I can determine the baby's sex before its genitals develop." She grins. "Any problems, you know where I am. Don't hesitate." She gestures toward her door and begins to sign documents.
Tonks closes the door behind her and follows her husband along the long white corridors of St. Mungo's. "She was a bit familiar with you, wasn't she?"
Lupin laughs. "Gemini and I were at school together. She was a couple of years younger and in Ravenclaw, but we had the same sort of interests. We joined the same societies."
"Oh. OK. I didn't like to say anything." She takes his hand and they walk in silence, fingers entwined, matching the same pace. "Are you pleased?"
Lupin squeezes her hand. "But I still don't know what we're going to do."
June 2001
The cravings begin in the early hours of the morning - bizarre combinations such as honey and crushed garlic on thickly buttered toast. Lupin, whose allergy to honey renders him useless at three o'clock when his wife wakes in the middle of the night, can't help but think it's no wonder she's sick the morning after.
Healer Costello advises moderate exercise. Tonks, for whom exercise even at the best of times is unwise, wonders what she can possibly do. She didn't exercise while pregnant with her son and he doesn't seem affected by it.
"So why should I do this?"
Costello smiles. "Not the biggest fan of exercise? No, I wouldn't be either if I could make myself a size ten in the blink of an eye."
Tonks is almost affronted. She's used to women expressing their envy of her talents. Her best friend has been saying the same thing since they were thirteen, but to have a stranger accompany the comment with a mechanical laugh, is another matter. She decides to remain silent and wishes her husband was able to make it to all of her appointments.
"Well, there's not a great deal of benefit for the baby - not that it'll do any harm. You see, the more you exercise, the more your body will adapt. Very soon, Mrs. Lupin, you'll gain a lot of weight. I'm sure you've noticed it already."
Tonks, conscious of her jeans cutting into her skin, pulls at the hem of her shirt and shifts in her seat.
"Exercise will help you adapt to the new shape and carry all that weight. It'll also ease labour, which means a less distressing birth for the baby." She smiles too sweetly. "Drink plenty of water and er…try not to hurt yourself." She winks. "You don't have any further appointments this month. When's the next, July 3rd? We can wait until then or I can pass on the details of your scan?"
Tonks frowns. "What does that mean? What have you found? Is there something wrong?"
Costello clutches her clipboard. "The baby's sex. Your husband showed interest in the information. Do you want to know now and pass it on to him, or shall I keep it until your next appointment? Perhaps you'd like to share the surprise with him."
Her mouth is too dry to respond. Tonks shakes her head.
Costello smiles genuinely. "You can expect your son in mid-November, between the fourteenth and twenty-second."
Tonks wants to share it as soon as she bounces through the front door, but the house is empty. Ted is spending time with her mother until five o'clock and her husband is still working excruciatingly long days as the Post-Lycanthropic-Infection Liaison Officer. It's the first job to come with an office and promotion opportunities that he's had in years, and she's pleased for him, but human rights issues cannot be solved in a matter of hours. She feels like she hardly ever sees him and longs for the days when he'd be waiting for her with a cup of tea and their baby son in his arms.
He steps out of the fireplace running a hand through his hair. It rises a little further from his scalp and helps him seem a little more awake, but the dark bags beneath his eyes give the game away.
Tonks has never been an accomplished cook. Her meals were cooked by her mother, the Hogwarts House Elves, Molly Weasley, and now by her husband. It's now seven o'clock and she's arranged for Ted to stay the night with her mother, but she takes one look at her exhausted husband and wishes dinner was on the table ready for him. He looks as though he's about to collapse.
"Right," he says, striding across the hallway, brushing past her to run his hands under the cold tap. "I'll make a start on dinner. Sorry I'm late. Where's Ted? Has he eaten?"
"I'm sorry I'm so useless," she says quietly.
He takes her hands in his, still damp and cold, and squeezes them. "Don't be ridiculous. You're not useless."
Tonks smiles grimly. "I feel it sometimes." She sighs. "Ted's at Mum's."
Lupin beams. "Lovely. Come on then." He ties an apron around his waist and ushers her to the sink. "Wash your hands and we'll start dinner."
Tonks stares at him. "You can't be serious."
Lupin raises his eyebrows. "Deadly." He lays out a chopping board and a small knife. "We're going to make casserole. Casserole is easy. You can chop the carrots and onions. I'll brown off the beef."
It bubbles in the blue Italian ceramic bowl, the only survivor of the set his mother received as a wedding present in 1959. It's a little unsuited to the warm weather outside, but he was right. It was easy to make.
"I usually add red wine," warns Lupin, "so it might taste a little different."
It's really not bad, thinks Tonks. Her husband may have cooked the beef and thickened the gravy, but she feels a part of this. She feels pretty good about herself after a terrible day. She's accomplished something she never thought she would.
"It's a boy," she says as Lupin reaches for her empty plate. "We're going to meet him in the middle of November."
He grins back at her, but very slowly his face falls. Tonks' heartbeat accelerates. She's said something wrong. Her hands shake under the table.
"What?" Her voice cracks.
Lupin averts his eyes. "Middle of November? When in the middle of November?"
"The second or third week."
Lupin nods stiffly. "Look, if it's the eighteenth-"
She sighs with relief. "Sirius?"
"If it's not the eighteenth," says Lupin, attempting a smile, "with your blessing, I'd like to name him after my father."
The lines fade from Tonks' brow. "That would be lovely."
July 2001
Teddy sits at the kitchen table and sucks the juice from a quatered orange while his parents begin their daily routine, wondering what they're going to tell him. An obvious bump is starting to show beneath Tonks' neon coloured maternity t-shirts. Their friends and family have all offered their congratulations and opinions on how to tell their son he'll soon have a brother.
They drew straws for the honour last night and Lupin, as he said he would, pulled the short straw from his wife's hand. He's sipping tea and peering at his son over the morning paper, desperately trying to come up with a good opening.
He settles for clearing away Teddy's finished breakfast and taking the seat opposite him.
"Teddy?"
Teddy looks up from his drawing. "Mmm?"
Lupin sighs good-naturedly. "Speak properly please."
"Yes, Daddy."
"Good lad. Your mother and I were wondering how you'd like a little brother to play with?"
Teddy frowns slightly, in deep thought. He rubs his eye. "No, thank you."
Across the room, halfway through her paperwork, Tonks giggles.
"Well, you see, the thing is, Mummy is going to have him in November."
Teddy thinks about this for a moment. "Oh."
Lupin meets his wife's eye and winces. She shakes her head with a small smile and he is comforted.
"It won't change anything, Ted," he says, smiling encouragingly. "Come on. Mummy's a bit busy today. Let's leave her to it. What shall we do?"
Half an hour later, they're dressed in red anoraks in case the weather changes and, in Teddy's case, matching Wellingtons. Tonks watches them walk along the cliff path, holding hands, from the window. Her mood plummets when she realises that soon they'll be all boys together and she'll be completely outnumbered. She shakes her head and forces herself out of her melancholy. Closing the window, she returns to her paperwork.
August 2001
It's the night after her birthday when she decides to come on to her husband. She's still a little conscious of the stretch marks Teddy gave her, let alone the fresh set, but her belly is round and firm, her skin glows as though it is translucent, and her long dark hair is lustrous and wild. For the first time in weeks, she feels attractive.
"Is this the second-trimester sex I've missed so much?"
Tonks raises her eyebrows and rolls over. "If you're going to smart-mouth me-" She's cut off by her own giggles and turns back to him, wrapping her arms around his neck. Her well defined bump pushes against him and he smiles against her lips.
"I hope I'm not about to give him dimples."
Tonks laughs and nudges him playfully. "God, shut up."
A small tapping sound silences them. The handle lowers slowly and the door creaks on its hinges as it is slowly pushed open. In the darkness, Teddy's bright silver eyes are all they can make out.
"Mummy, I don't feel very well."
Tonks reaches for her nightdress, slips it on under the duvet with remarkable practiced skill and slides out of bed, ushering her young son out onto the landing.
"Daddy needs a little minute. He…" She struggles for a suitable lie to tell the child. "He's not feeling well either." She pokes her head around the door. "How are you feeling?" she asks.
Lupin manages a smile. "I'm OK." He shifts further left to make room for Teddy with the warning that if he's going to be sick, he should aim it at his mother.
"You know," says Tonks with a grimace, "the chances of this happening are going to double."
Lupin laughs softly. "I can wait. Besides, soon it'll be morning and Ted'll be at your mother's."
Tonks merely looks at him. "Are you forgetting a little thing called work?"
He leans over to kiss her. "I'll tell them I've caught my son's stomach bug. I'll tell them I'm dead if I have to."
They've spent the day in bed and she's only getting dressed in the early hours of the evening. Tonks blushes at the thought of looking her mother in the eyes. Even after three years of motherhood, she finds the gap from minx to mother difficult to bridge.
Her husband, who, in her opinion, was born forty, has never found it difficult. He manages to pull off lover, husband, and father with ease. She pins it on his corduroy trousers and woolen jumpers. He looks the part of the nurturer, while managing to balance geeky and gorgeous.
"It's not bloody fair," she mutters, climbing into her pyjamas and closing her wardrobe doors in defeat.
September 2001
She doesn't remember feeling such pain when carrying Teddy. Maybe, she thinks, it was due to having so much else on her mind that she didn't have time to concentrate on the child pushing against her ribs.
She spends her days running back and forth to the bathroom, opening and closing the windows as hot flushes come and go, and lying on the sofa, wincing every time she has to sit up.
Teddy is of the age where he ought to be starting school. Had he not been born with the ability to change his appearance at will, he would attend the local Muggle primary, but he's too young to understand the Secrecy Act and, as his mother is heavily pregnant and his father has not long started work, Teddy is taught at the Burrow by an obliging Mrs. Weasley who frequently babysits her granddaughter and likes her to have someone her own age to play with.
Tonks' days only really begin after half-past-three in the afternoon when Teddy comes home, grinning from ear to ear and thoroughly pleased with what he has learned. She listens attentively until six o'clock when Lupin takes him off her hands, sets him homework, and makes a start on dinner.
If not for the fatigue, pain and irritating shifts in both temperament and physical state, Tonks thinks she could happily live like this for quite some time. She's only been on maternity leave for six weeks and boredom has not yet set in.
October 2001
"Remus, will you piss off!" She shoves him to his side of the bed with more force than necessary. "Jesus Christ, you move over here every night. Stop wriggling all the time!"
Their son is plagued by regular nightmares. Unable to make sense of them and having done everything in his power, Lupin is unsure what else to do but go to him and stay with him until he falls asleep. As a result, Lupin is kept up at night by his irate wife and his terrified son. With his eyes barely open, he groans at the sound of Teddy calling him from the next room.
"Right," he hisses in response, "I'll be in Ted's room. You've got the bed to yourself."
Tonks immediately regrets her outburst. "Remus, I'm sorry. I-"
He doesn't respond.
She lies awake straining to hear the sounds in the next room, wondering if they're asleep. She creeps across the landing and peers through the open door. The bedside light is still on. Her husband's legs are bent at an uncomfortable angle in order to sleep in his son's bed. Teddy smiles softly in his sleep.
Hoping she does not land on the creaking floorboard, Tonks steps closer until she is able to crouch beside the bed, bending slightly, and kiss her husband awake.
Lupin groans. "What's the time?"
"Shh. Ted's asleep." She shrugs. "About four o'clock. I'm sorry I'm such a bitch. I'm just ready to have this baby right now. I mean, really, right now. It's starting to get to me. I don't feel myself and I'm totally incapacitated. Please come back to bed. You can wriggle all you like. I don't really mind."
Lupin smiles. "I know. I'm sorry. I can't help it." He slowly gets to his feet and pulls the cover over his son, kissing his forehead and stroking his copper-coloured hair. "Goodnight, Ted." He turns to his wife, his smile wide. "Maybe when the two of them are in here together, the nightmares will stop. Won't be long now."
November 2001
"Congratulations." Healer Costello hands Tonks a brilliant white bundle. "You have a healthy baby girl."
Tonks beams. The girl has strands of her father's hair, his beige colouring, and his wide black eyes. Tonks peers intently at her, but she does not morph. She lies sleeping in her mother's arms, unaware that her brother had changed his hair colour twice by this time.
"Girl?" cries Lupin. "You said we were having a boy."
Tonks looks up at him, her eyes wide. "Is there something wrong with that?"
"No, I'm just…I'm just surprised."
Costello laughs. "I'm afraid that it sometimes happens. Occasionally a baby will play coy with me, or a little girl, much like yours did, decides she's going to play a little trick with her finger. Do you have a name ready or shall I write 'Baby Girl'?"
Tonks grins. "November eighteenth."
Lupin nods. "Penis related finger jokes obviously come from your side of the family." His right arm snakes around his neck. "Actually, um…if she wasn't born today, we were going to name the boy after my father. I wonder if we could name her after my mother? Would that be all right?"
Tonks smiles at him. "Emma? Emma's lovely. It ends in a vowel. I know how you like a name to carry when you shout it." She laughs weakly, exhausted. "Emma Lupin. I do like it."
Lupin turns to Costello. "Emma then." He beams. "We're going to call her Emma."
Costello leaves the room with a nod to her patient and Tonks rocks her child gently. "She doesn't morph, Remus."
Lupin shrugs. "Nor do I. It's nice not to be the only one."
Tonks frowns, suddenly serious. "What if she's a Squib?"
Lupin sits beside her. "You said yourself that metamorphagi are born, not made. Your mother and father couldn't do it, so it's obviously not genetic." He grins as his daughter opens her big black eyes. "I mean, look at her. She's magic."