A week had passed since Tonks had pointed at the little wooden block on his desk.
And since that night—since he had lied—Remus had felt something buckle inside him. A quiet crack, not quite loud enough to collapse the structure he'd spent years holding up, but enough to weaken it. Enough to let the cold in.
He'd withdrawn further into himself. Even on the days he saw her—crossing paths in the corridors, passing her at lunch, occasionally sharing a quiet moment in the library—the ease between them had changed.
Tonks, for her part, hadn't pushed. She'd asked him twice, in that infuriatingly bright way she had—once when he'd dropped a quill and stared at it for far too long before picking it up, and again when he'd blanked during a conversation in the staff room and started stirring his tea with a fork. Both times, he'd given her the same vague response: "Just tired." And both times, she'd accepted it, if only outwardly.
But he knew her. Knew she didn't believe him.
And he was right.
Because that morning, as he made his slow way through the still corridors towards his classroom, Tonks was already there—waiting for him under the pretence of a forgotten book.
He didn't notice her at first. His thoughts were thick and distracted, and his headache had already begun to pulse dully behind his eyes. The scent of polished wood and warm stone wafted around him, but it barely registered.
Fatigue, he told himself. Just fatigue.
He pushed open the door to the History of Magic classroom, the hinges giving their usual protest as the wood swung inward. The scent of ink, parchment and the lingering trace of fireplace smoke greeted him. He straightened his shoulders more out of habit than resolve and offered his fifth-years a faint smile. It didn't quite reach his eyes, but they returned it politely nonetheless.
Quills hovered above parchment. Expectant gazes followed him as he made his way to the front. He set his satchel down and smoothed out his notes with fingers that trembled faintly.
"Right," he said, and cleared his throat. "Today we're looking at… the Goblin Rebellions."
He glanced down, eyes scanning the page. The words were there—his handwriting, unmistakably his—but already beginning to blur at the edges. He blinked hard, as though that might bring clarity.
"The rebellion that took place in the… er… late… eighteenth century—no—wait… no, that was the one after…"
His voice faltered.
The stillness in the room wasn't the usual, polite attentiveness. It was different now—uneasy, bracing.
He stared at his notes again, willing the right year to rise from the parchment. He could picture the period, the political tension, the social undercurrents, and the bloody conflict that flared near Hogsmeade—but the exact date, the treaty name, and the goblin leader had slipped clean away.
He swallowed, forcing his tone to remain even. "Which… which one was it that occurred in the seventeenth century?"
He pretended it was a rhetorical question. It wasn't.
A hand rose cautiously.
"Professor Lupin?" came a soft voice from the second row. "Do you mean the 1612 rebellion? The one near Hogsmeade?"
He blinked again, nodding once. "Yes," he said, voice thinner than intended. "Yes, exactly. Thank you, Miss…?"
"Meredith," she supplied, kindly, not mocking.
He gave a weak smile. "Of course. Meredith."
It should've ended there. But it didn't.
Another student raised a hand, gently prodding about the treaty signed after the 1612 uprising—a piece of magical legislation Remus himself had once memorised so thoroughly he'd quoted it verbatim in his first year of teaching. Now, faced with the question, the words failed to surface.
Nothing came.
He reached for the lectern with a steadying hand, knuckles tightening. His vision sharpened and dulled by turns. He managed some vague commentary, drawing on fragments of memory and broad brushstrokes of context—but the names were gone. Not merely misplaced, not lying just out of reach—gone, wholly and unnervingly absent, as if someone had gone in and swept them from the shelves of his mind.
When he dismissed the class five minutes early under the pretence of preparation, not one student complained. They packed quietly, quickly, their glances lingering a little too long as they left—concerned, uncertain. Meredith gave him a small nod before stepping out.
By mid-afternoon, the corridor was emptying for lunch, echoing faintly with chatter and the shuffle of feet. Remus made his way through it with his satchel slung over one shoulder, the weight of it pressing harder than it ought. His temples throbbed in a persistent, rhythmic pulse, and behind his eyes, a dull pressure had taken root.
And there she was.
Tonks.
Leaning against the windowsill with all the subtlety of a girl pretending to be engrossed in a book she hadn't actually opened. She looked up when she heard him approach and gave him a warm smile—but there was something careful in it, something measured.
"You looked… a little off in class today," she said, skipping straight past any preamble.
Remus slowed, stopping a few feet from her. "Did I?"
She raised an eyebrow. "Don't play that game with me."
He sighed through his nose, shifting the strap of his satchel. "I'm… managing."
"Remus," she said, crossing her arms, "managing doesn't usually include asking a fifth-year for the date of the Goblin Rebellion."
He winced before he could help it. "I… suppose I was a bit distracted. Four classes back-to-back. Haven't slept well."
She gave him a look. The kind that said, ′You're deflecting, and we both know it.′
"You're not sleeping," she said quietly. "You're losing track of things. You hesitate in ways you didn't used to. And today—today you didn't even look like you were really there."
He said nothing. Because it was true. Because he was terrified.
Because he didn't know how to tell her that the forgetfulness wasn't from exhaustion—it was spreading. Taking root. And it wasn't going to stop.
"I notice these things, you know," she added, her tone softening. "I care, Remus."
He swallowed. His throat felt tight and dry.
"I know you do," he said finally. "And I… I appreciate it."
"Then why won't you let me in?" she asked, quieter now. "What are you so afraid I'll see?"
Remus met her eyes, and for one agonising second, he nearly said it. Nearly told her everything. About the tumour. About the wooden block counting down the weeks. About the terrifying thought that he'd forget more than just goblin rebellions—that he'd forget her name, her laugh, and the sound of her voice.
But fear caught him.
Instead, he forced a breath through his lungs and smiled faintly. "Would you like to have lunch with me?"
She blinked. "Lunch?"
"In my quarters," he said, his voice gentler now. "There's leftover stew. And I make a passable cup of tea."
She hesitated. Just for a moment. And then her brow furrowed, suspicion giving way to something else—tenderness, maybe. Or pity. He didn't want pity. He didn't think she was the sort to offer it.
"All right," she said eventually. "But this isn't over. I'm not dropping it just because you're feeding me."
"I wouldn't expect you to," he murmured, already turning down the corridor.
She fell into step beside him, launching into some story about Peeves setting off an ink bomb in the dungeons that had turned three Slytherin boys entirely lavender. He gave a faint laugh—not quite genuine, but better than silence.
The door to his quarters creaked gently as Remus eased it open, the familiar sound oddly comforting despite the turmoil within. He stepped aside to let Tonks in first, and she crossed the threshold with a bounce in her step that was either genuine or a deliberate attempt to lift the air between them.
The room welcomed them with a quiet warmth—the fire in the grate still crackling from earlier, the faint scent of dust and old paper clinging to the corners. A stack of marking sat untouched on the edge of his desk, a half-read book open-faced beside it, as if he'd abandoned it mid-thought. Which, truthfully, he probably had.
Tonks meandered over to the table, absently flipping through the cover of a book he'd left there—a well-worn edition of A Modern History of Magical Uprisings. She didn't comment on it, though he saw her raise a brow. Her nose wrinkled at the smell wafting from the small cauldron he'd perched on a warming charm.
"Please tell me this isn't that stew you made last week," she said, peering into the bowl he'd just ladled.
"It's had a few improvements since then," he replied, handing her one of the mismatched bowls. "Added thyme. And actual flavour."
"Don't suppose it's poisoned?" she muttered, squinting at it suspiciously.
"Only mildly," he said, easing into the opposite chair. "And if I were planning to kill you, I'd do something far more poetic than stew."
"Romantic," she said dryly. "A tragic death over a gloomy lunch with a brooding professor. Sounds like something out of Witch Weekly."
He huffed a quiet laugh, the sound brief, almost hollow.
They ate in silence for a time, broken only by the clink of spoon against bowl, the pop of firewood, and the steady tick of the old carriage clock on his mantelpiece. Remus didn't mind silence, but this one felt… precarious. Balanced on the edge of something unspoken.
He watched her from across the table. The way she fidgeted with the frayed edge of her sleeve between bites. How she puffed at her spoonful when it was too hot. The small crease between her brows when she was trying not to appear worried.
She was reading him. Quietly, intently. He could feel her gaze the same way one feels a hand reaching gently into a wound. Careful, but impossible to ignore.
He stirred his spoon absently in the broth, staring into the swirl of floating carrots and potatoes, wishing the weight in his chest would shift—that the words would come. But they didn't. Just that same dull press behind his ribs, that looming thought that time was slipping and he still hadn't told her the truth.
"Why the sudden invitation?" she asked eventually, too casually to be casual.
He didn't lift his eyes. "You said you'd been skipping meals again."
"I have not," she replied, mouth full.
He arched an eyebrow.
"Fine," she relented with a grin, chewing. "Maybe once or twice. I get distracted. Sue me."
He gave her a faint smile, one that didn't quite hold. "I thought it might be nice," he said. "To share a quiet lunch."
She softened a little, glancing down at her bowl. Her next words were gentler. "You're still avoiding the question."
He set his spoon down, the clink on the wood louder than it ought to be.
She was looking at him now, properly. No jokes. No theatrics.
"Remus," she said, voice low. "What's going on with you?"
He stared at the table. The truth clawed at the back of his throat. He wanted to tell her. Merlin, he wanted to spill everything—the memory lapses, the missed dates, the fear that one day he might not even recognise his own handwriting, his own name. That the tumour was gaining ground, day by day. That this—lunch, the fire, her—might all be slipping out of reach faster than he was willing to admit.
But he didn't.
Because he couldn't.
Because once he said it aloud, it would be real.
Instead, he reached out and turned his palm up gently on the table between them.
Tonks blinked, caught off guard, but only for a second. Then she placed her hand in his, steady and sure.
"I just wanted a bit of quiet," he said quietly, his thumb brushing her knuckles. "With you."
Her fingers curled around his without hesitation.
"That's all right," she murmured. "You don't have to say anything you're not ready to."
He looked at her and something inside him twisted. She wasn't just trying to coax the truth out of him. She wasn't pushing. She was offering something far rarer.
She was staying.
There was no pity in her eyes. No pressure. Just quiet certainty.
And for a man who had spent most of his adult life believing that people left—that they always had good reason to—he realised with quiet dread that he was allowing himself to hope.
"Thank you," he said, his voice scarcely more than a whisper.
Her lips curled into a small, knowing smile. "So," she said, "do I get pudding for surviving your 'mildly poisoned' stew, or is that asking too much?"
He gave a soft, genuine laugh. "You're in luck. There's treacle tart."
Her face lit up with unmistakable glee. "No. You didn't."
"I did."
"Remus Lupin," she said, utterly delighted. "You domestic marvel. You've just gained yourself a full letter grade in my estimation."
He stood to fetch it, and she launched into a half-mocking monologue about how she'd rank the domestic talents of all the Hogwarts staff, placing him somewhere between Professor Sprout and a house-elf. He let her ramble, listening with something close to contentment.
She made the room feel full. Not crowded. Not overwhelming. Full—as though the space itself breathed more easily with her in it.
When he returned with two modest slices of tart, he found her sitting cross-legged on the rug in front of the fire, parchment on her knee, a quill behind her ear. Her boots had been kicked off, and one sock was halfway down her ankle. Her head was bent in concentration, tongue poking out the corner of her mouth as she scribbled something in quick, messy script.
Remus leaned quietly against the doorframe of his study, tea cooling in his hand, simply watching her.
The light filtering through the windows was low and pale now, casting a faint sheen across the tops of her hair. Today it was pink, the colour catching faintly in the flicker of the fire. There was something so ordinary about the moment, so undramatic, and yet so fiercely beautiful that it knocked the breath out of him.
She looked peaceful.
"Why is alder the best-suited wand wood for non-verbal magic?" Tonks asked suddenly, not looking up from her parchment.
Remus blinked, caught off guard.
He shifted his weight against the doorframe. "Because it's naturally unyielding," he said, his voice soft but steady. "It won't perform for just anyone. It chooses witches and wizards who don't just possess power but show… consistency. Generosity. Quiet strength. It's a wood that responds to those who help others, not out of duty or ambition, but instinct."
Tonks paused her scribbling, brow furrowed as she considered. "So… not me, then," she said after a moment, her mouth twitching into a lopsided grin. "I'm about as steady as a Kneazle in a jar of pixie dust."
A breath of laughter escaped him—involuntary but warm. "That does sound about right."
She turned halfway in her seat to squint up at him, mock affront drawn across her features. "You're meant to defend my honour, Professor Lupin."
"Oh, I think your honour can weather the truth," he said, crossing to the fireplace and setting down his forgotten mug of tea. It had gone cold. He didn't remember when.
As she rolled her eyes and bent back over her essay, muttering something about 'insufferable academic types', he moved towards her without quite knowing why. Each step was deliberate and careful—not only because of the pounding behind his temples, which had grown more insistent with every passing hour—but because something inside him was shifting. Tipping.
He didn't stop to think. Didn't calculate the outcome.
He simply knelt behind her, arms reaching round her shoulders, drawing her gently into him.
Tonks froze. "Wha—?"
"Just let me hold you," he murmured, his voice roughened, stretched too thin. "Just for a moment."
There was a pause—not long, but it held the weight of choice. And then she let go. Her shoulders eased beneath his arms, her posture softened, and she let the quill fall soundlessly to the floor. Her head tipped back until it rested against his collarbone.
He shut his eyes.
She fit there far too well.
For a man who'd long taught himself not to want, this—her warmth, the nearness of her—was unbearable.
Tonks wasn't gentle in the usual sense. She could trip over her own boots, curse like a sailor, and barge into a conversation with the subtlety of a hex. But beneath it, woven through all that colour and noise, was a startling tenderness. A kind of unflinching loyalty. She was brave in ways he wasn't and unafraid to live loudly where he had long since decided to fade into the corners.
She made the idea of having something—of keeping something—feel possible again.
Which, of course, was the cruellest part.
Because it wasn't a future he could allow himself. Not truly.
He leaned forward, letting his forehead rest lightly against her hair. The scent of lavender clung faintly to her—likely from her shampoo or a charm gone awry. Woodsmoke. Ink. The warmth of her was real. Present.
But so was the pain behind his eyes, creeping and dull, growing sharper as the afternoon wore on.
He'd been holding back the truth for months now. Not just from her—from everyone. It had started with the memory lapses: forgetting whether he'd already drunk his morning tea, losing his place mid-lesson, and mixing up the years of key historical events he could once recite in his sleep.
Then came the headaches. Subtle at first. Then harsher. Now constant.
He knew what it was. He'd gone to St Mungo's in secret. Taken the tests. Heard the diagnosis spoken aloud by a mediwitch who'd looked far too young to say the word 'inoperable' with such matter-of-fact finality.
A slow-growing tumour, lodged deep. Magical in nature, but not responsive to standard spellwork. Too dangerous to remove. Not dangerous enough—yet—to kill outright.
It would be slow, they'd told him. But inevitable.
Tonks shifted in his arms slightly, and he felt her hesitation before she spoke.
"Remus?" she asked, voice quieter now. "Is something wrong?"
He didn't speak.
She waited. Then, softer still: "You're scaring me. I don't understand what's going on."
He swallowed. His arms had tightened around her without meaning to.
He wanted to tell her. The truth was pressing against his ribs again, aching to be let out.
But if he said it aloud—if he saw her face crumple, saw her eyes darken with grief or pity—it would become real in a way it wasn't yet. Right now, it was just him and her and the fire. Just this moment. Just breath and warmth and the lie of safety.
So he said nothing.
He just held her.
And for now, she let him.
Let him pretend that the worst hadn't already begun. That time wasn't slipping past them. That he wasn't already forgetting names, or losing hours, or waking in the middle of the night with words on the tip of his tongue that wouldn't come.
She stayed there with him—curled into his chest, her hand resting on his arm—and said nothing else.
She didn't need to.
And in that silence, Remus made a quiet vow to himself: not yet. He would tell her, but not yet. He needed a little more time. Just one more day of peace. One more afternoon with her pink-haired head tucked beneath his chin and no one asking questions.
Just one more.
The room had quietened.
The fire had dwindled to soft embers, casting faint orange light over the rugs and low shelves, the spines of books long faded from too much handling. Somewhere beyond the windowpanes, the wind moved through the upper turrets of the castle, rattling the leaded glass with gentle insistence.
Remus sat in the worn armchair near the hearth, elbows on his knees, head in his hands.
She'd left not long ago—only an hour, perhaps—her fingers brushing his on the way out, her smile small but warm, eyes lingering in that way that told him she'd still been waiting for the truth he hadn't given her.
He'd promised to walk her down to the corridor, but when he'd stood, the dizziness had come on too quickly. He'd masked it well—or so he thought—with a mumbled excuse about marking papers, then stayed in the doorway and watched her walk away with that careless bounce in her step that always made something in his chest ache.
And now the quiet pressed in. The pretence was gone.
His fingers raked slowly through his hair, gripping at the back of his neck. The pounding had returned—not sharp now, but thick and insistent, spreading behind his eyes and across the bridge of his nose. He'd stopped taking the healing potion several days ago. They didn't last long enough to make the effort worthwhile. They only dulled the edges, never the centre.
He exhaled shakily, leaned back, and let his head rest against the chair.
The wooden block sat on the small table beside him.
A simple thing. No larger than his palm. Each face was carved with a different numeral. One side had been scraped slightly, worn down by anxious hands, the grooves smoothed by use. He turned it slowly in his fingers, eyes fixed on the number it displayed now.
Seven.
He'd moved it down this morning, when he'd woken up unable to remember his own middle name for a full five minutes. It had come to him eventually, but only after a deep well of panic had opened beneath his ribs. That had been enough to warrant another turn of the block.
Seven days. Give or take. Not a precise calendar—just a quiet measure of decline.
He ought to have told someone by now.
Not just Tonks—though her face had hovered behind his eyes every night—but Lily. Poppy. Someone with the authority or knowledge to prepare for the inevitable. Someone who could step in when he finally couldn't recall his own timetable or forgot the name of the boy who sat in the front row with freckles and a talent for regurgitating textbook passages like they were scripture.
But each time he reached for the words, something in him recoiled. He had lived his whole life burdened by the things he could not change. And now this.
A tumour.
It almost felt farcical, piled atop everything else. Life had always found new and creative ways to turn his body into a battleground.
Remus tipped his head back again, letting his eyes close, the heat of the dying fire brushing the edges of his knees.
He remembered how it had started. That day in St Mungo's, alone in the Charms-Induced Neurological Assessment Ward—a place that smelt of parchment and formaldehyde. The Healer had been polite. Kind, even. Had used all the right words. "Slow-growing. We'll monitor closely. A candidate for potential intervention." And then, when he asked the questions that mattered: "Yes, you may experience episodes of memory disruption. And no, we cannot guarantee magical treatment will be safe. The placement is… delicate."
He'd thanked her. Shook her hand. He walked out with a pamphlet in his pocket he hadn't once opened.
It wasn't that he wanted to die. That wasn't the issue. He had survived too much and clung to too many scraps of life to simply give up. But he didn't want to spend his final weeks in a ward, tethered to charms that couldn't stop the decay. He didn't want visitors looking at him with watery eyes, speaking slowly, as though they were already mourning the man he used to be.
He didn't want Tonks to see it. To watch him disappear.
The air in the room felt heavy now. Thicker.
He sat forward, elbows digging into his knees, and placed the block back on the table with care. Not reverently—he hated the bloody thing—but with the resignation of someone who knew he would still reach for it again in the morning.
Seven days.
He wouldn't make it that long.
Not without telling her.
Not without it consuming him first.
A knock sounded at the door.
Soft. Hesitant.
His stomach dropped.
He didn't move.
Another knock. "Remus?"
Tonks.
He stared at the door, heart hammering, throat tightening. Of course she'd come back. She always did. She had that stubborn kind of heart that refused to leave well enough alone.
He stood slowly. Wavered. Then crossed the room and placed a hand on the doorknob, forehead resting against the wood.
He didn't open it.
"Remus?" she said again, voice quieter. "I just… I forgot my wand. I think I left it near the chair?"
He glanced back. There it was—her wand, tucked half beneath the armrest. A flicker of a smile tugged at the corner of his mouth, then faded.
He opened the door, just enough.
Tonks stood there, arms folded, hair fading from pink to a soft, hesitant brown.
She looked up at him, searching.
He held out the wand.
She didn't take it straight away. "You alright?"
He nodded, lying with the same ease he'd practised since he was seventeen. "Yes. Just tired."
She didn't believe him. He could see it in her face. But she accepted the wand, nodded back, and didn't press.
"Goodnight, Remus," she said softly.
He held her gaze. "Goodnight, Tonks."
That made her snort faintly, as he knew it would. She turned away, and he shut the door gently behind her.
Then leaned back against it.
And let himself feel it all.