Charon's Train
Much gratitude to forest_rose and Merc for their excellent beta.
The train moves with a familiar rhythm, like a heartbeat or a ticking clock, but mostly it reminds her of the Hogwarts Express. If she closes her eyes she can pretend she is a first year again, looking forward to experiences she has heard described to her all her life. It is harder to trick herself when she looks out the window. The train glides trackless over water and sand, under folly bridges and across aqueducts, stopping at isolated platforms and leaving behind shadowy passengers who are met by equally shadowed greeters. Unlike her first year, she has already been Sorted, so to speak. She knows where she is going, and still she knows nothing at all.
The train finally slides into a close replica of Hogsmeade Station, and she sees familiar faces waiting for her. Her father smiles fondly and Sirius waves like a madman.
“Nymphadora Tonks,” announces the conductor, but she has already stood. “Your Orientation brochure and your connecting ticket. Next train departs in half-an-hour.”
Tonks nods, clutching the papers that have been handed to her. Her heart pounds madly, mostly from force of habit. She disembarks from her carriage and is immediately pulled into a smothering hug by her father.
“Dora, my Dora,” Ted whispers, “I missed you so!”
“Wotcher, Tonks!” says Sirius. “Welcome to the Afterlife.”
She is glad to see her father and her cousin, but seeing the latter feels as awkward as she imagined it would. What is the polite thing to say to the dead ex-boyfriend of the man you just left a widower? She doesn’t remember her mother covering this one.
She finally settles on, “Thanks. Can I get a ginger beer around here?”
“It’s your station,” says Ted, hugging her to his side. “You can get your Nutella and cheese sandwich, if you still care for it.”
Sirius makes gagging noises and nudges her shoulder. “Lily was all for herring and pineapple. What is it with you pregnant girls craving the most hideous foods you can think up, and still turning up your noses at a perfectly decent rasher?”
Tonks laughs shakily, “You heard about that, eh?”
“Hell yes!” He glares at Ted. “This lout wouldn’t talk about anything else for weeks. Morning sickness this, and Muggleborn Registry that. James finally sat on him and gagged him with a sock.”
“Not just any sock! It was your sock!” Ted cries. “Hasn’t been washed since Azkaban, I wager.”
Tonks breathes while the others trade insults companionably. Sirius doesn’t hate her, which causes her more relief than she thinks it should. Sirius was dead when she married Remus, it’s not like she needed his permission or anything. But the part of her that adored her cool cousin as a kid occasionally felt a twinge of guilt, just like the part of her that loved Remus resented that she could never take Sirius’ place. Mad thing, this being-alive business. She can understand why one ride is enough for most people.
They walk to the edge of the platform to a snack shack she recalls from a trip to Tilbury. Ted buys them ginger beers and Sirius gets candy floss that changes colours. He pulls off a pumpkin orange clump and feeds it to her.
“How’s Mum?” Ted asks almost casually.
“Misses you. A lot.”
“Hmm. Me too.”
“I feel like shit leaving her alone. And Teddy, but he never really got to know me so he’ll be alright, yeah?” She feels a tightness in her throat and she tries to wash it down. The harsh ginger burns her throat. It’s almost a relief.
“They have each other. They’ll make it through.”
“And they have Remus…” Tonks stops when she sees Ted and Sirius glance at each other. She stammers, “Mum and Remus aren’t on the best of terms right now, I know, but they respect each other and they love Teddy so much…”
“Dora-bird?” says Ted, and Tonks thinks, Oh shit. He called me that when Sirius went to Azkaban, and when Moira was hit by a car, and the day I was marrying Remus. She looks to Sirius, who looks back at her sadly. He has purple candy floss on his nose and he is looking at her with pity.
“Dora, love, Remus is coming,” says her dad.
“He, um, started out about two hours after you,” says Sirius. She thinks, So it wasn’t me you came to see, but then she remembers that he gave her candy floss. Then she realises her husband is dead and their son is an orphan. This time she can’t blame her tears on the ginger.
She is sobbing, grieving everything she lost and everyone she left, and so grateful that she can hug her father again. She feels Sirius rubbing her shoulder awkwardly, and wonders how she will walk away from this.
“Hush now, love,” her father says, “Teddy will be fine. And Remus will be here soon. You’ll see him any minute now.”
“No,” she says pulling away, and smears the dampness off her cheeks. “I won’t be here.”
“Hey, if it’s awkward with me here, I can wait a bit to see him,” Sirius says. “Sod off a bit, let you two love-birds have a moment, eh?” and she loves him for pretending to be alright with that.
“No,” she says, “I mean, I wont be here.” She pulls out her papers and waves them.
Ted takes the papers from her hand, and Sirius snatches one of them from Ted.
“Dora-bird…” says Ted, and Tonks rolls her eyes. “Dora, you took the Option. Have you thought this through?”
“Can’t you let me make my own decisions now that I’m dead?”
“I’m not trying to make you do anything. I just want to know why you would choose to do something so drastic…”
“Drastic? I’m dead at twenty-four, my son will never know me, my husband is fond of me at best, I was passed over for Order missions because I was inconveniently pregnant, and I’ve never seen a total solar eclipse. Is it drastic that I’d want another shot at…”
“So You Want To Be Reincarnated,” Sirius reads from the pamphlet, “Merlin’s nuts in a sling, you’re allowed to do that?”
“You won’t be able to see us for another however-long you get to live,” Ted says to her, “and we won’t be able to see you. Not me, not Remus, not your mother. You won’t even remember us until you die again. You won’t remember your own son…”
“That’s the bloody point!” she says, “I hope he lives a long long life, but if I stay here I will have to endure that long before I see him again. I took the damned Option so I won’t be moping here alone.”
“You won’t be alone, love. You have me here, and Remus will be here soon.”
“I can’t tag along with you forever, and I figured whenever Remus gets here he will be otherwise engaged,” she bites out and then winces, hoping Sirius is too preoccupied with the pamphlet to catch what she’d just said. “In any case, it’s a done deal. My train will leave, and I will be on it.”
“Reincarnation is offered as an option to souls who have been removed from the Realm of the Living before their appointed time,” Sirius reads, “or are otherwise deemed to have been prevented from attaining their full potential…Hey, what about me? I spent the best years of my life locked up. Think of all the potential I never reached, all the people I never shagged. Why wasn’t I offered an Option?”
“Because you would have turned it down.”
The three turn to the figure who has just joined them. He looks eerily like the conductor on the train that Tonks arrived on, and also like the shopkeeper at the snack shack. Sirius’s candy floss turns white.
“Nymphadora Tonks, your train will leave shortly.”
She nods. Her hands are clammy and she feels like she has been hit by the Jelly-Legs Jinx. “How long do I have?”
“Ten minutes,” he says, and turns away.
Ted hands her back her ticket with a frown. Sirius returns her pamphlet and gives her the rest of his candy floss. It is still the size of a watermelon, a fluffy purple watermelon that tastes of lavender and sugared violets.
“What’s another hundred years, I suppose,” Ted mutters, and Tonks looks at him gratefully.
“Thanks, Dad.”
“Your immortal soul, your business. I can get behind that,” he says. “I am going to get a butterbeer.” He walks in the direction of the snack shack.
Sirius waggles his eyebrows at her. She thinks, This won’t be awkward for more than ten minutes. I can get through ten minutes without making a fool out of myself.
“So,” he says rocking on his toes, “You shagged my boyfriend.”
“Yep,” she says. “Married him, too.”
“And had a kid with him,” he smiles, but his eyes don’t twinkle. The part of her that feels guilty experiences an upswing.
“Should I apologize? Because it wasn’t like I was waiting for you to die before I made my move, and it just happened and then I got pregnant…”
“Idiot, you don’t need to apologize to me!” says Sirius. “I’m glad he wasn’t alone. I’m glad you made him happy.”
Tonks wants to quibble with the last bit but instead she says, “So you don’t hate me?”
“Daft,” he says, and steals a strand of strawberry candy floss. “If I’d been there, I’d have been pissing on his shoes and growling at you. But I wasn’t there. I didn’t see what he went through after I snuffed it, but Ted tells me it was ugly. You hauled his arse off the floor and made him love again. You took care of him when I couldn’t. I’m grateful for that. Ooh! This thing just went tart.”
“Sorry,” says Tonks and shakes the funny green candy floss. “I think it turned lime. You’re reading too much into what my Dad said. I love Remus, but it wasn’t the same for him. He liked me, and I made him laugh, but I don’t think he was in love with me. Not like it was for you.”
Sirius is quiet for a moment. Then he says, “I’m sorry. That must have sucked.”
“Thank you,” says Tonks.
They watch the ground for a moment.
“So…tell me about this son of yours,” Sirius says, and the twinkle is back in his eye.
Tonks grins, “Not much to say. After nine months of gestation and eight hours of labor, they gave me a gnome and told me to breast-feed it. I didn’t believe it was mine until its hair changed colour.”
Sirius laughs, “The poor kid! It missed out on the Black family looks? That’s our only redeeming feature!”
“He looked better after a few days, when the swelling went down. He has Mum’s eyes, but the nose is pure Lupin.”
“Are you talking about my grandson?” Ted rejoins them with a bottle of butterbeer and a bag of greasy chips. “Why did you name him after me? Don’t get me wrong, I’m utterly flattered. But didn’t you say you wanted him to have his own identity and whatnot?”
“Remus had to think of something on short notice,” says Tonks. “I was conked out, and it was the only name he could think of that would keep Mum from naming our son something hideous…”
“Say no more!” Ted shudders. “When you were born she wanted to name you Nympha. I offered Theodora and we came to a compromise.”
“She was always like that,” adds Sirius. “When my brother was born, she insisted on calling him Fomalhaut for months. She thought Regulus was too common.”
“To Theodore,” Ted raises his bottle, “The fallback name of choice in the House of Tonks.” Sirius clinks his empty ginger beer bottle and Tonks taps it with her immortal candy floss.
A train whistle pierces the air. Ted and Sirius both wince but Tonks, somehow, isn’t frightened anymore. Nervous, certainly, but in a good way.
“That’s that, then.” She hugs her father, trying to memorise the scent of his cologne, which is much the same on this side of the veil.
“Look after yourself, my Dora,” he says softly. “We will be here when you return.”
She wants to comfort him, but all she can think of is meaningless reassurances. “I’ll be back before you know it. You’ll see.” Ted smiles as if he believes her.
She turns to Sirius, “Look after Remus, would you? And tell him…tell him I’m sorry I missed him, and I’m sorry I left Teddy…”
Sirius pulls her to him and she feels his chin resting on top of her head. “I’ll give him your love. And you didn’t abandon your son, so stop blaming yourself.”
She grins at him, “Sirius Black. When did you become so thoughtful?”
“After spending two years in a rut when I thought I’d abandoned Harry. James and Lily pulled me out of that one,” he scratched his ear. “It’s quite the pastime here, whinging about the ones we left behind and getting our arses kicked by people who’ve gotten over their own whinging.”
“I was a quick study,” her dad says smugly.
“Yes, I believe they’re going to make the James Potter Sock Treatment a standard part of the orientation process.”
They are at the door of her carriage. She finds her seat and looks out the window, smiling fiercely so her father will keep smiling back at her. His expression falters for a bit, but Sirius says something to him and he bends over laughing.
“Your ticket, Nymphadora Tonks,” The conductor stands in the aisle and takes the slip from her hand. He punches a hole in it and gives it back.
“Tea service is in two hours. You will arrive at your destination during the night but you will not notice. Please enjoy your journey.”
She turns back to the window. The platform has begun to fade at the edges, and the expressions on Ted’s and Sirius’s faces are harder to decipher. The train lurches into motion, and they raise their hands to wave to her. She waves back until the train leaves the platform behind in the mist.
The thrum of the wheels measures out the passage of time, the rhythm of her unborn heart. It lulls her into a deep lassitude, and she feels a warmth and comfort that she recognizes from before her earliest memories. She wonders if her son felt this way before he made his way into the living world.
They give her gingerbread with her tea, the good sort with bits of crystallised ginger and a drizzle of lemon cream. She still has her candy floss. She savours the meal, knowing she won’t have any solid food for another year at least.
Night falls gently, enveloping the train in a tunnel of blackness. The lights inside the train are the only illumination for hundreds of miles, and they too grow dim. The soul known as Nymphadora Tonks drifts into sleep. When the sky lightens, it will be reborn.
Read the sequel, Terminus.
Image Credit: Miyazaki's Spirited Away (2001)
The train moves with a familiar rhythm, like a heartbeat or a ticking clock, but mostly it reminds her of the Hogwarts Express. If she closes her eyes she can pretend she is a first year again, looking forward to experiences she has heard described to her all her life. It is harder to trick herself when she looks out the window. The train glides trackless over water and sand, under folly bridges and across aqueducts, stopping at isolated platforms and leaving behind shadowy passengers who are met by equally shadowed greeters. Unlike her first year, she has already been Sorted, so to speak. She knows where she is going, and still she knows nothing at all.
The train finally slides into a close replica of Hogsmeade Station, and she sees familiar faces waiting for her. Her father smiles fondly and Sirius waves like a madman.
“Nymphadora Tonks,” announces the conductor, but she has already stood. “Your Orientation brochure and your connecting ticket. Next train departs in half-an-hour.”
Tonks nods, clutching the papers that have been handed to her. Her heart pounds madly, mostly from force of habit. She disembarks from her carriage and is immediately pulled into a smothering hug by her father.
“Dora, my Dora,” Ted whispers, “I missed you so!”
“Wotcher, Tonks!” says Sirius. “Welcome to the Afterlife.”
She is glad to see her father and her cousin, but seeing the latter feels as awkward as she imagined it would. What is the polite thing to say to the dead ex-boyfriend of the man you just left a widower? She doesn’t remember her mother covering this one.
She finally settles on, “Thanks. Can I get a ginger beer around here?”
“It’s your station,” says Ted, hugging her to his side. “You can get your Nutella and cheese sandwich, if you still care for it.”
Sirius makes gagging noises and nudges her shoulder. “Lily was all for herring and pineapple. What is it with you pregnant girls craving the most hideous foods you can think up, and still turning up your noses at a perfectly decent rasher?”
Tonks laughs shakily, “You heard about that, eh?”
“Hell yes!” He glares at Ted. “This lout wouldn’t talk about anything else for weeks. Morning sickness this, and Muggleborn Registry that. James finally sat on him and gagged him with a sock.”
“Not just any sock! It was your sock!” Ted cries. “Hasn’t been washed since Azkaban, I wager.”
Tonks breathes while the others trade insults companionably. Sirius doesn’t hate her, which causes her more relief than she thinks it should. Sirius was dead when she married Remus, it’s not like she needed his permission or anything. But the part of her that adored her cool cousin as a kid occasionally felt a twinge of guilt, just like the part of her that loved Remus resented that she could never take Sirius’ place. Mad thing, this being-alive business. She can understand why one ride is enough for most people.
They walk to the edge of the platform to a snack shack she recalls from a trip to Tilbury. Ted buys them ginger beers and Sirius gets candy floss that changes colours. He pulls off a pumpkin orange clump and feeds it to her.
“How’s Mum?” Ted asks almost casually.
“Misses you. A lot.”
“Hmm. Me too.”
“I feel like shit leaving her alone. And Teddy, but he never really got to know me so he’ll be alright, yeah?” She feels a tightness in her throat and she tries to wash it down. The harsh ginger burns her throat. It’s almost a relief.
“They have each other. They’ll make it through.”
“And they have Remus…” Tonks stops when she sees Ted and Sirius glance at each other. She stammers, “Mum and Remus aren’t on the best of terms right now, I know, but they respect each other and they love Teddy so much…”
“Dora-bird?” says Ted, and Tonks thinks, Oh shit. He called me that when Sirius went to Azkaban, and when Moira was hit by a car, and the day I was marrying Remus. She looks to Sirius, who looks back at her sadly. He has purple candy floss on his nose and he is looking at her with pity.
“Dora, love, Remus is coming,” says her dad.
“He, um, started out about two hours after you,” says Sirius. She thinks, So it wasn’t me you came to see, but then she remembers that he gave her candy floss. Then she realises her husband is dead and their son is an orphan. This time she can’t blame her tears on the ginger.
She is sobbing, grieving everything she lost and everyone she left, and so grateful that she can hug her father again. She feels Sirius rubbing her shoulder awkwardly, and wonders how she will walk away from this.
“Hush now, love,” her father says, “Teddy will be fine. And Remus will be here soon. You’ll see him any minute now.”
“No,” she says pulling away, and smears the dampness off her cheeks. “I won’t be here.”
“Hey, if it’s awkward with me here, I can wait a bit to see him,” Sirius says. “Sod off a bit, let you two love-birds have a moment, eh?” and she loves him for pretending to be alright with that.
“No,” she says, “I mean, I wont be here.” She pulls out her papers and waves them.
Ted takes the papers from her hand, and Sirius snatches one of them from Ted.
“Dora-bird…” says Ted, and Tonks rolls her eyes. “Dora, you took the Option. Have you thought this through?”
“Can’t you let me make my own decisions now that I’m dead?”
“I’m not trying to make you do anything. I just want to know why you would choose to do something so drastic…”
“Drastic? I’m dead at twenty-four, my son will never know me, my husband is fond of me at best, I was passed over for Order missions because I was inconveniently pregnant, and I’ve never seen a total solar eclipse. Is it drastic that I’d want another shot at…”
“So You Want To Be Reincarnated,” Sirius reads from the pamphlet, “Merlin’s nuts in a sling, you’re allowed to do that?”
“You won’t be able to see us for another however-long you get to live,” Ted says to her, “and we won’t be able to see you. Not me, not Remus, not your mother. You won’t even remember us until you die again. You won’t remember your own son…”
“That’s the bloody point!” she says, “I hope he lives a long long life, but if I stay here I will have to endure that long before I see him again. I took the damned Option so I won’t be moping here alone.”
“You won’t be alone, love. You have me here, and Remus will be here soon.”
“I can’t tag along with you forever, and I figured whenever Remus gets here he will be otherwise engaged,” she bites out and then winces, hoping Sirius is too preoccupied with the pamphlet to catch what she’d just said. “In any case, it’s a done deal. My train will leave, and I will be on it.”
“Reincarnation is offered as an option to souls who have been removed from the Realm of the Living before their appointed time,” Sirius reads, “or are otherwise deemed to have been prevented from attaining their full potential…Hey, what about me? I spent the best years of my life locked up. Think of all the potential I never reached, all the people I never shagged. Why wasn’t I offered an Option?”
“Because you would have turned it down.”
The three turn to the figure who has just joined them. He looks eerily like the conductor on the train that Tonks arrived on, and also like the shopkeeper at the snack shack. Sirius’s candy floss turns white.
“Nymphadora Tonks, your train will leave shortly.”
She nods. Her hands are clammy and she feels like she has been hit by the Jelly-Legs Jinx. “How long do I have?”
“Ten minutes,” he says, and turns away.
Ted hands her back her ticket with a frown. Sirius returns her pamphlet and gives her the rest of his candy floss. It is still the size of a watermelon, a fluffy purple watermelon that tastes of lavender and sugared violets.
“What’s another hundred years, I suppose,” Ted mutters, and Tonks looks at him gratefully.
“Thanks, Dad.”
“Your immortal soul, your business. I can get behind that,” he says. “I am going to get a butterbeer.” He walks in the direction of the snack shack.
Sirius waggles his eyebrows at her. She thinks, This won’t be awkward for more than ten minutes. I can get through ten minutes without making a fool out of myself.
“So,” he says rocking on his toes, “You shagged my boyfriend.”
“Yep,” she says. “Married him, too.”
“And had a kid with him,” he smiles, but his eyes don’t twinkle. The part of her that feels guilty experiences an upswing.
“Should I apologize? Because it wasn’t like I was waiting for you to die before I made my move, and it just happened and then I got pregnant…”
“Idiot, you don’t need to apologize to me!” says Sirius. “I’m glad he wasn’t alone. I’m glad you made him happy.”
Tonks wants to quibble with the last bit but instead she says, “So you don’t hate me?”
“Daft,” he says, and steals a strand of strawberry candy floss. “If I’d been there, I’d have been pissing on his shoes and growling at you. But I wasn’t there. I didn’t see what he went through after I snuffed it, but Ted tells me it was ugly. You hauled his arse off the floor and made him love again. You took care of him when I couldn’t. I’m grateful for that. Ooh! This thing just went tart.”
“Sorry,” says Tonks and shakes the funny green candy floss. “I think it turned lime. You’re reading too much into what my Dad said. I love Remus, but it wasn’t the same for him. He liked me, and I made him laugh, but I don’t think he was in love with me. Not like it was for you.”
Sirius is quiet for a moment. Then he says, “I’m sorry. That must have sucked.”
“Thank you,” says Tonks.
They watch the ground for a moment.
“So…tell me about this son of yours,” Sirius says, and the twinkle is back in his eye.
Tonks grins, “Not much to say. After nine months of gestation and eight hours of labor, they gave me a gnome and told me to breast-feed it. I didn’t believe it was mine until its hair changed colour.”
Sirius laughs, “The poor kid! It missed out on the Black family looks? That’s our only redeeming feature!”
“He looked better after a few days, when the swelling went down. He has Mum’s eyes, but the nose is pure Lupin.”
“Are you talking about my grandson?” Ted rejoins them with a bottle of butterbeer and a bag of greasy chips. “Why did you name him after me? Don’t get me wrong, I’m utterly flattered. But didn’t you say you wanted him to have his own identity and whatnot?”
“Remus had to think of something on short notice,” says Tonks. “I was conked out, and it was the only name he could think of that would keep Mum from naming our son something hideous…”
“Say no more!” Ted shudders. “When you were born she wanted to name you Nympha. I offered Theodora and we came to a compromise.”
“She was always like that,” adds Sirius. “When my brother was born, she insisted on calling him Fomalhaut for months. She thought Regulus was too common.”
“To Theodore,” Ted raises his bottle, “The fallback name of choice in the House of Tonks.” Sirius clinks his empty ginger beer bottle and Tonks taps it with her immortal candy floss.
A train whistle pierces the air. Ted and Sirius both wince but Tonks, somehow, isn’t frightened anymore. Nervous, certainly, but in a good way.
“That’s that, then.” She hugs her father, trying to memorise the scent of his cologne, which is much the same on this side of the veil.
“Look after yourself, my Dora,” he says softly. “We will be here when you return.”
She wants to comfort him, but all she can think of is meaningless reassurances. “I’ll be back before you know it. You’ll see.” Ted smiles as if he believes her.
She turns to Sirius, “Look after Remus, would you? And tell him…tell him I’m sorry I missed him, and I’m sorry I left Teddy…”
Sirius pulls her to him and she feels his chin resting on top of her head. “I’ll give him your love. And you didn’t abandon your son, so stop blaming yourself.”
She grins at him, “Sirius Black. When did you become so thoughtful?”
“After spending two years in a rut when I thought I’d abandoned Harry. James and Lily pulled me out of that one,” he scratched his ear. “It’s quite the pastime here, whinging about the ones we left behind and getting our arses kicked by people who’ve gotten over their own whinging.”
“I was a quick study,” her dad says smugly.
“Yes, I believe they’re going to make the James Potter Sock Treatment a standard part of the orientation process.”
They are at the door of her carriage. She finds her seat and looks out the window, smiling fiercely so her father will keep smiling back at her. His expression falters for a bit, but Sirius says something to him and he bends over laughing.
“Your ticket, Nymphadora Tonks,” The conductor stands in the aisle and takes the slip from her hand. He punches a hole in it and gives it back.
“Tea service is in two hours. You will arrive at your destination during the night but you will not notice. Please enjoy your journey.”
She turns back to the window. The platform has begun to fade at the edges, and the expressions on Ted’s and Sirius’s faces are harder to decipher. The train lurches into motion, and they raise their hands to wave to her. She waves back until the train leaves the platform behind in the mist.
The thrum of the wheels measures out the passage of time, the rhythm of her unborn heart. It lulls her into a deep lassitude, and she feels a warmth and comfort that she recognizes from before her earliest memories. She wonders if her son felt this way before he made his way into the living world.
They give her gingerbread with her tea, the good sort with bits of crystallised ginger and a drizzle of lemon cream. She still has her candy floss. She savours the meal, knowing she won’t have any solid food for another year at least.
Night falls gently, enveloping the train in a tunnel of blackness. The lights inside the train are the only illumination for hundreds of miles, and they too grow dim. The soul known as Nymphadora Tonks drifts into sleep. When the sky lightens, it will be reborn.
Read the sequel, Terminus.
Image Credit: Miyazaki's Spirited Away (2001)