HP Fic: Guarded
Guarded
Author: gehdra
Fandom: Harry Potter
Pairing: Remus Lupin / Nymphadora Tonks
Rating: PG
Wordcount: 760
Note: Written pre-DH. Sort of songfic to Missy Higgins’ song All For Believing, except I decided to cut the original idea short.
It was a usual Friday night, and the usual take-away boxes created a miniature jungle on Remus’ coffee table: here a rice box stacked on a plateau of leather bound wizard biographies; there a watering hole of sweet-and-sour sauce, the rejected pork pieces like sad boulders beside an empty teacup, and four plastic chopsticks lying like a forgotten bridge as they spanned a chow-mien chasm.
Tonks’ legs spanned the distance between couch and a carefully cleared space of table. It was a game, really, but tonight Remus wasn’t playing. His sour silence was more than his usual reluctance to participate. He never initiated the activity, but contributed with an air of nonchalance. ‘My dad used to do it with me when I was little,’ she told him once. ‘It’s become a habit.’ And Remus had kept a straight face as he repaired the chopstick ‘ladder’, precariously balanced against a box, which had been destroyed when Tonks had scratched one foot with the other.
Tonight, however, was different. He had been uncommunicative and withdrawn all evening, eating little and keeping to the far corner of the couch. Tonks had kept up a steady stream of mostly one-sided conversation, provoking nothing more than short dead-end replies from her companion. She was beginning to get worried.
“Cuppa?” She offered him, the usual after-dinner ritual, and he made a funny movement in reply - a shrug and a nod in one. When she returned from the kitchen she handed him his cup, milk and no sugar, and asked him quietly, “What’s wrong?”
He looked up at her, as if surprised she asked, and then the shutters came down over his eyes again. “Nothing.” He said, taking the saucer and stirring absent mindedly at the tea.
“Something’s wrong. Don’t lie to me, Remus,” Tonks said, not touching her drink. Remus jerkily took a sip from his, and she could see he did it to avoid answering her.
She knew that he was spending his time with the werewolves, with Fenrir Greyback. Kingsley had told her that Greyback was the one who bit her friend. He had a taste for child-flesh, they said, and Remus was one of but many. And Remus couldn’t - wouldn’t - confide in her.
Even as she watched, the saucer began trembling in his hands, and - really worried now - Tonks reached out to take it back from him before he lost his grip. Their hands brushed as she took the drink away, and he jerked away as if burned. She closed her eyes and placed the tea where her feet had sat previously.
She wouldn’t think about his face when he had finally opened the door this evening. ‘Go away, Nymphadora.’ He had yelled through to her, but she had knocked insistently, so that he would let her in even if he thought he didn’t want her company. A kind of mask had been on his face, shutters drawn down over his eyes, but she had smiled and greeted him cheerfully.
She wouldn’t look at the bruise on one cheekbone and the scabbed knuckles of his hands.
She wouldn’t think about the lines of exhaustion around his eyes and on his brow, and how she wished he would let her smooth them away.
Opening her eyes now, she looked over to him again. Remus’ arms were crossed, his brow creased as he stared at his shoes. It couldn’t be clearer that he was closing her out.
Tonks wished for many things he wouldn’t allow her. They had never spoken of it, but little things would happen every so often. Hands brushing together in passing, fingers giving a slight caress before pulling away, shaking. Long laughter that would peter out to a feeling of contentment neither of them could quite keep from their faces, until they recognized it in the other. Then, he would become withdrawn, and she would swallow thickly and look away.
In the beginning, she hadn’t recognized that look in his eye, the slight tremble of his hands, hidden so well. Over time, she saw it for what it truly was and knew that closed look on his face meant he was hiding from her.
Later, when it was time for her to go, Remus walked her to the door, and avoided her searching gaze. He suffered an embrace, and Tonks knew that she had to make him talk to her. Living with the werewolves was tearing him to pieces in front of her eyes and he needed someone to be there for him, whether he knew it or not.
Author: gehdra
Fandom: Harry Potter
Pairing: Remus Lupin / Nymphadora Tonks
Rating: PG
Wordcount: 760
Note: Written pre-DH. Sort of songfic to Missy Higgins’ song All For Believing, except I decided to cut the original idea short.
It was a usual Friday night, and the usual take-away boxes created a miniature jungle on Remus’ coffee table: here a rice box stacked on a plateau of leather bound wizard biographies; there a watering hole of sweet-and-sour sauce, the rejected pork pieces like sad boulders beside an empty teacup, and four plastic chopsticks lying like a forgotten bridge as they spanned a chow-mien chasm.
Tonks’ legs spanned the distance between couch and a carefully cleared space of table. It was a game, really, but tonight Remus wasn’t playing. His sour silence was more than his usual reluctance to participate. He never initiated the activity, but contributed with an air of nonchalance. ‘My dad used to do it with me when I was little,’ she told him once. ‘It’s become a habit.’ And Remus had kept a straight face as he repaired the chopstick ‘ladder’, precariously balanced against a box, which had been destroyed when Tonks had scratched one foot with the other.
Tonight, however, was different. He had been uncommunicative and withdrawn all evening, eating little and keeping to the far corner of the couch. Tonks had kept up a steady stream of mostly one-sided conversation, provoking nothing more than short dead-end replies from her companion. She was beginning to get worried.
“Cuppa?” She offered him, the usual after-dinner ritual, and he made a funny movement in reply - a shrug and a nod in one. When she returned from the kitchen she handed him his cup, milk and no sugar, and asked him quietly, “What’s wrong?”
He looked up at her, as if surprised she asked, and then the shutters came down over his eyes again. “Nothing.” He said, taking the saucer and stirring absent mindedly at the tea.
“Something’s wrong. Don’t lie to me, Remus,” Tonks said, not touching her drink. Remus jerkily took a sip from his, and she could see he did it to avoid answering her.
She knew that he was spending his time with the werewolves, with Fenrir Greyback. Kingsley had told her that Greyback was the one who bit her friend. He had a taste for child-flesh, they said, and Remus was one of but many. And Remus couldn’t - wouldn’t - confide in her.
Even as she watched, the saucer began trembling in his hands, and - really worried now - Tonks reached out to take it back from him before he lost his grip. Their hands brushed as she took the drink away, and he jerked away as if burned. She closed her eyes and placed the tea where her feet had sat previously.
She wouldn’t think about his face when he had finally opened the door this evening. ‘Go away, Nymphadora.’ He had yelled through to her, but she had knocked insistently, so that he would let her in even if he thought he didn’t want her company. A kind of mask had been on his face, shutters drawn down over his eyes, but she had smiled and greeted him cheerfully.
She wouldn’t look at the bruise on one cheekbone and the scabbed knuckles of his hands.
She wouldn’t think about the lines of exhaustion around his eyes and on his brow, and how she wished he would let her smooth them away.
Opening her eyes now, she looked over to him again. Remus’ arms were crossed, his brow creased as he stared at his shoes. It couldn’t be clearer that he was closing her out.
Tonks wished for many things he wouldn’t allow her. They had never spoken of it, but little things would happen every so often. Hands brushing together in passing, fingers giving a slight caress before pulling away, shaking. Long laughter that would peter out to a feeling of contentment neither of them could quite keep from their faces, until they recognized it in the other. Then, he would become withdrawn, and she would swallow thickly and look away.
In the beginning, she hadn’t recognized that look in his eye, the slight tremble of his hands, hidden so well. Over time, she saw it for what it truly was and knew that closed look on his face meant he was hiding from her.
Later, when it was time for her to go, Remus walked her to the door, and avoided her searching gaze. He suffered an embrace, and Tonks knew that she had to make him talk to her. Living with the werewolves was tearing him to pieces in front of her eyes and he needed someone to be there for him, whether he knew it or not.