A Fire Sparkling in Lovers' Eyes

Disclaimer: The characters here and the world they inhabit are the creation and property of JK Rowling and her assigns.

Tonight there were kisses as he pulled her close. Her body was still shadowy, but it felt more solid this time as her breasts pressed against his firm chest. There were kisses and an undulation that Andromeda copied instinctively. They moved together, clinging to each other in desperation, until everything was wet and sticky...

Andromeda sat up in her dry bed yet again.

What is happening to me? she thought to herself.

You can't have... Somewhere in the ether was a sense of embarrassed dismay.

Understanding dawned upon her. That was Tonks? She had somehow been pulled into his dream? She'd been pulled into a dream where he imagined and then his body... ieeew, gross.

You seemed to be participating.

That's the worst part. Andromeda got out of bed and pulled on a dressing gown. She walked to the common room, choosing that spot because every footstep seemed to make her feel better.

She ended pressed against the wall next to the fireplace. In this spot she felt almost good. If she thought hard, she could picture him pressed against the wall next to another fireplace. She imagined only a wall of stones between them, and her body calmed.

Why do I feel this way? I can't live like this.

We have to obey the potions, came the answer.

What must we do?

I do.

Andromeda stepped away from the wall in the same way she had waked from the dream. It couldn't be real. Ted Tonks wasn't on the other side of the wall. Slytherin's and Hufflepuff's common rooms couldn't back up to each other like that, could they? More to the point, that wasn't the Mudblood whispering into her mind, telling her...what?

I do love you, Dromeda.

Why did it twist her insides to know he felt that way? Maybe he was just hoping to have sex with her. Isn't that what all the groping boys in her own house wanted? Is this all to get a quick shag, then?

The stab of pain in response to that thought twisted her insides even more. I don't want a quick shag. I don't want to be merely lovers. I want to marry you and make love to you with honor and respect.

Who?

She recalled the way Avery forcibly took her elbow the last time they were getting off the Hogwarts Express. She remembered Nott pressing up against her in a dark corridor of her aunt's house at a party over the Christmas Holiday. Worst of all, she recalled the Dark Lord sliding up behind her at the same party, putting his hand over her stomach and saying, "You will produce great offspring, Miss Black. I'll have to watch you."

A sense of disgust came to her. I won't let them touch you like that again.

Because a man takes care of the things that are precious to him.

Andromeda didn't know how to respond. I don't...Mudblood, I'm not worthy of that kind of love.

There was no answer. She moved a chair close to the wall and curled up in it, determined to get some sleep without feeling ill.

After that, he rarely spoke aloud to her, except to ask that she pass something down the table in Potions class. He left her alone most of the time. She watched him flirt and laugh with other girls, determined to ignore it as much as possible.

Her dreams became more erotic. Every night their bodies became more solid in dreams she now knew were shared. She realized he was following her thoughts in the shower. Now that she was newly aware of her body, she confessed to herself that she was lingering more over her breasts and the backs of her legs as she washed.

She was more aware of his body, too. Somehow at odd moments she was stopped in the middle of studying transfiguration late at night or just before dawn so that she could feel the ripple of muscle on his chest or his incredibly... scrumptious... arse... and even other things. What do you think? he asked her one morning as he lathered himself. She had immediately gotten out of bed and started reciting runes to herself in order to clear her mind. Yet twenty minutes later when she was in the shower, she couldn't seem to help exploring her own body, trying to judge if what she had seen in her mind would fit.

She could barely look at him without blushing any more. She spent the day feeling horribly sick until she sat down at dinner and saw that he was there, too. They never opened their mouths, except to eat, and barely looked at each other, but his thoughts were all toward her. And hers were directed at him.

Will sex fix it? Should we just find someplace and get this over?

Are you prepared to feel this way for our entire lives?

She did look at him, then. He was some Hufflepuff Mudblood who could never travel in her family's circle. Yet when had her whole existence started to revolve around him? She shut her mind to any answer that might be forthcoming.

He caressed her breasts until she felt that she couldn't stand the pleasure of it. She gasped for more, begging for release. His kisses were magical, making her feel safe and warm, but also passionate and gasping for more. She felt him move within her, touching her and sliding, in and out. They both moved with abandon, pushing together until he groaned loudly and Andromeda felt the usual wet stickiness, but it extended to her fingers. This time, she discovered that her nightie had been pushed up and she had been touching herself. Her cheeks flamed in embarrassment.

I'm content to do this every night for the rest of my life if it's all we'll have, was his cheerful thought.

Food had ceased to have meaning, since she often felt sick. Darla Bulstrode asked if she was up the spout only to have Heather Parkinson point out that Andromeda was likely to die a virgin. As they discussed her potential sex-life in front of her, Andromeda's cheeks flamed red at the thought of her anything-but-virginal dreams. Something better happen soon to remove the magic of the potions affecting her and Tonks.

She read about the three potions and their possible antidotes. She was willing to learn any new technique or buy any expensive ingredient to sort it all out. Her research was disappointing. The few antidotes that existed for the Amortentia worked in ways that were completely counter to the antidotes for Veritaserum. It seemed that love and truth were difficult bedfellows, but once brought together, they were even more difficult to separate. The physical solution was becoming obvious as the best choice.

She sought him out one night when they were both patrolling the corridors.

"May I help you?" he asked.

She couldn't speak, but simply beckoned. There was an unused office in the dungeons, since Slughorn preferred to have his upstairs. She brought him there, where she had laid a warm fire and transfigured the teacher's desk into a comfortable couch. The living quarters were just beyond.

"I think we should...you know...get it over with."

He looked hurt, but how he felt was worse. She felt his sadness wash through her. "Am I really nothing more to you than a means to feel better? Do you want nothing more than my body?"

"It's not like that, Ted." She reached for him. "I just can't live like this."

"I wouldn't be able to live with myself if we did that."

"Then what am I to do?"

"Say you'll marry me."

"You know I can't." She looked up at him in dismay. "Is it really going to be like this forever?"

He traced her cheek. "I wish I could fix this for you if not for me. I'd like to send you off to a happy life away from me. You're not going to be happy with the result. I'm beginning to think you wouldn't have been even if this never happened."

"I would..." she started to say, but she knew it wasn't true. Her life was never intended to include happiness. She looked up at Tonks. Life with him promised contentment if not outright happiness. Life with her other options promised pain and misery if not outright horror.

When he hugged her, she felt as though she were encased in a protective cloak of warmth that nothing evil could penetrate. "I'm sorry, love, but we have to face the facts. I'm in love with you, and I think you feel something for me, too."

"It's just the potions."

"Is it?"

She thought of the way she had always stopped short of being actually cruel to the Mudblood, because although he was...what he was...he was nevertheless likeable. Some law deeper than that of blood would have been violated if she had gone out of her way to hurt him. And she had been aware of him all year, she admitted to herself. Not aware, as one would realize the presence of any other person in class or the hallways, but aware, as a woman assesses a potential mate. A potential mate who caused her to picture cottages with kitchens, and flower gardens, and... bedrooms.

"It's just the potion that makes me want to..." What was the word?

"To make love to me now and for the rest of your life?"

"That's not it."

But wasn't that exactly it? Thanks to the dreams they shared almost every night, she could almost tell what it would be like, sometimes shagging each other madly, sometimes holding each other tenderly. If she had to pick one single way of doing things for their one moment together, she would miss the rest of the experience.

He kissed her, and it was as wonderful as the time he did in Hogsmeade. Andromeda felt many things racing through her. Foremost in her mind was a desire to press as close to him as possible. He held her so tight, but in a nice way, not like the others who tried to grope her. His arms were bliss, and his body promised hers a passion beyond her imagination.

He stopped kissing her and pressed his forehead to hers. She looked up at him, hoping with all her heart that he would say yes. She needed release from the potions, and her body wanted release as well. Suddenly he pulled away and shook his head.

"I can't do it."

"But we have to! You said so!"

"Not like this, Dromeda, never like this. You want a meaningless shag. You want the effects of the potions to go away and to go on with your life like a woman who doesn't care who she's with. I don't want to be some meaningless moment in your life."

"You can't possibly leave me like this. You need it as much as I do."

"I've taught myself to wait, Andromeda. I want everything, and I may not get it, but I won't settle for what you're offering." He kissed her forehead as if she was a disobedient child and left.

She sat by herself as the fire in that office burned down to nothing. Her mind reached for his, but he somehow ignored her. She had offended him. She didn't understand how she could feel so hurt by it. Bellatrix could curse, insult, or slap people without feeling the least remorse. Andromeda felt as though she had done something that jabbed tiny pins into her own heart.

"I can't stop myself," he said as he started kissing her. The kisses seemed particularly wet until she realized he was crying. "I'm so sorry," she said, tears springing into her own eyes. She kissed him back, hoping that he would understand that she would rather do anything than hurt him. She rubbed his shoulders and held him tight, trying to find some way to comfort him. As always happened in these dreams, their clothing melted away. Their bodies merged as never before. "I love you, Dromeda," he said as warmth spread everywhere through her body. "I love you too," was in her mind as he pulled away.

Then she was all alone again, and the wetness was on her own cheeks.

A/N: Thank you to Kyria of Delphi and Pennfana for their help beta reading!