Title: A Mother’s Love

Fandom: Harry Potter

Pairing: Remus/Tonks

Rating: PG

Word Count: 488

Spoilers: For Deathly Hallows.

Notes: For the LiveJournal writer’s choice challenge 212 dragon. It’s an oblique reference.

“You do realise, of course, that your mother hates me.”

It was only after he’d spoken that Lupin realised they might not quite have been the best words to choose for the first words he’d spoken to Tonks since she’d come home. That thought was confirmed when Tonks looked over her shoulder at him, one eyebrow raised, lips twisted in what seemed to be caught halfway between a smile and a grimace.

“Well you’re certainly not her favourite person at the moment,” his wife allowed, turning back to her trunk, a flick of her wand making her clothes fly somewhat messily from there to the wardrobe.

“At the moment?” Once again the words were out before he could stop them, and this time Tonks turned fully to face him, her wand raised in a gesture that could only be described as threatening.

“I swear, if the next words out of your mouth include werewolf, I will jinx you.”

From the look on her face, Lupin didn’t doubt it, and for the second time that day, he was reminded that Tonks was descended from the House of Black, and had a temper to match. The first, of course, was when he’d arrived at Tonks’s parents’ house to beg her forgiveness, and had been met at the door by Andromeda Black, who had never looked more like her sister Bellatrix than she had at that moment. He’d been reminded, absurdly, of Harry’s first Triwizard task, and had found himself thinking that given a choice between facing a Hungarian Horntail and Andromeda Tonks, the dragon was by far the easier choice.

“Wouldn’t dream of it.” He held his hands up in surrender, breathing a silent sigh of relief when Tonks lowered her wand.

“My mother doesn’t care that you’re a werewolf Remus,” she reminded him. “The whole year of heartbroken misery I went through, followed by a shotgun wedding, followed by you walking out on me, on the other hand…”

“Point well taken.” Approaching her, keeping one eye on her wand hand, he placed his hands on her shoulders, grateful when she didn’t push them away. “I am sorry… for everything I’ve put you through… and I promise… I will prove to her that she can trust me… that you can trust me.”

Tonks chuckled. “If I didn’t trust you, Remus, I wouldn’t be here. Mum’s just going to take a while longer, that’s all… a mother’s love and all that…”

She looked down as she spoke, and Lupin’s hand followed her eye line, resting on the slight swell of her stomach. “So you’ll fight as fiercely for this little one?”

He thought, as her hand closed over his, her hair flaring momentarily red, that he knew her answer.

He was wrong.

“For us,” was all she said.

He’d been wrong many times since he’d fallen in love with Nymphadora Tonks.

That was the first time he was happy about it.