Filling the Emptiness
Title: Filling the Emptiness
Author: phoenixfyre13
Ratings and Warnings: PG for some language
Prompts: Day of Deceit, Drama/Gen, Location Prompt 16, Confronting the Faceless
Word Count: 1,700ish
Summary: She wishes for emptiness, while all he wants is to feel again. How a certain metamorphmagus and werewolf found a way to come to terms with each other and themselves.
Author’s Notes: Whew! I made it. I have been stewing over this for about a week, and it finally came in a burst of inspiration. I really do have to get my inspiration to burst a little sooner, because I really wasn’t sure this was going to happen. As I did not have much opportunity to ruminate over this, please forgive typos. Set HBP, and I used 3 of 4 prompts, because Confronting the Faceless? Seriously? Yeah, I am not that creative. We will also assume the line between angst and drama are allowed to be well and truly blurred. ;) Enjoy!
The moonlight shone brightly through the window of the decrepit shack, highlighting the decaying walls and musty furniture with an ethereal shade of blue. Nymphadora Tonks gave a start as the shutters slapped against the cracked windowpane, caused by a sudden gust of wind in the otherwise still June night. She wrapped her black duster around her more tightly, even though she knew the cold that was cutting her to the bone had nothing to do with the weather and everything to do with the events of the past two hours.
Dumbledore was dead, Harry was beyond any level of comfort, Bill was lying in the hospital wing with his face ripped beyond recognition, Severus Snape was on the run, and Voldemort had essentially declared out-and-out war on Muggles and all who protected them. And here she was, waiting in this damned shack like some bloody teenager waiting for her Romeo.
What the hell are you doing out here at this hour, Tonks?
Her inner monologue was doing nothing for her attitude. As if she didn’t know why she was standing here, checking her watch every thirty seconds and starting every time there was a creak or moan from the floorboards of the Shrieking Shack, hoping beyond hope that a tall, shabby figure would appear.
Please come.
That, and a location was all that had been scribbled on the worn little piece of parchment delivered to her room at the Hog’s Head half an hour ago. And she had Apparated faster than you could say “Fizzing Whizbee”, all because of what her heart had done at the sight of that all-too-familiar penmanship.
What had she been thinking? After all these months of pining away for him in the tortured recesses of her brain, trying to make everyone around her think she had gotten over it - over him - and here she was running to him like a schoolgirl after her first crush. Tonight, of all nights. Even after he had once again blown off her advances, and in front of everyone that she respected and admired. They must all think her a fool. Except for Molly, but she had always had quite a romantic streak about her. She was the only one who had known before tonight just how deeply Remus had cut her with his refusals.
Tonks slid down the wall into a crouch, her head in her hands, as she felt the first burning behind the eyelids that always came before a new fresh set of tears. She had thought she was done crying, was sure that all the tears set aside for her lifetime had been spent over the course of the months since Sirius’ death. However, she was in a constant state of surprise at her tears’ endurance. They had continued to produce through blow after blow, rejection after rejection, until she was absolutely certain there could be no more.
Merlin, how she wished she could just be empty.
She felt rather than heard him enter the room, and as she looked into his gaunt face, taking in his decrepit overcoat and moth eaten cardigan underneath, she knew she shouldn’t have come here. For as much as she had been able to hide from everyone else, to deceive the rest of the world into thinking she didn’t care with the enormity that she did, she knew beyond a shadow of a doubt she could never keep it from him.
Don’t let him see what he has done to you.
Don’t let him see you cry.
Please, don’t.
“Tonks.” That one croaked, nearly unrecognizable syllable was nearly her undoing. She sat frozen on the floor, thankful for the wall behind her to keep her from sinking any further to the ground, willing herself to look into his sunken eyes, more haunted than she had ever seen them, even more than when he had looked at her last summer and delivered the most crushing blow of her young life.
Sirius is gone. And I have to go, too.
Had he thought it would have been easier for to hear it all at once, to know that she had lost everything - her past and her future - all in the same moment? And now here he was standing before her, a stranger’s voice in her lover’s body, broken and asking for something. What? What could he possibly want from her?
“What is it, Remus?” She knew how tired those words sounded, with the anger and grief and fear and hurt stripped away, leaving nothing but the weariness.
She was just so bloody tired.
She lifted her chin a notch, an unconscious response to her own metal fragility. She would be damned if he saw that. He may be able to see through her sullenness and apathy to the torment of pain and grief that lurked under the surface, but she would be damned if he saw what was really there, fighting for control with every passing day, with every moment that he continued to feed her too old, too poor, too dangerous. It was so much easier to be angry at him, to still grieve for her lost cousin, to be afraid of what the future held for her and all wizardkind, than to submit to those things and know there was nothing left but her, naked and beaten, lying in the recesses of her mind. And that was the most frightening image of all.
The only way to erase it was to deny it. And the only way to deny it was to keep beating it back with lie after lie - to herself, to those around her - about how all of these things made her feel. How did she feel? Like curling up right here in this dingy shack and letting the world slip away.
She’d be damned if she let him see that. If she let herself see that as the only way.
And so she stood, her back straight and chin held high in defiance of him, of that image of herself she wanted so badly to never exist, and faced the fires of fear and anger and hurt.
Because she knew, without a doubt, to feel these things was better than to have nothing left to feel. And for the first time in a very long time, she let him see the tears fall.
_________________________________________________________________________________
She looks so tired.
It was the first thought Remus could formulate when he walked in the door of the Shrieking Shack, the events of the night still fresh wounds on his heart. And now here she was, looking so small and vulnerable on the floor, head in her hands and shoulders slumped in a demonstration of defeat.
The thought terrified him beyond reason, and it took everything in him not to scoop her up from the ground, shake her senseless, anything to evoke anger. Because, Merlin help him, anything would be more bearable for him to see in her face than the devastation of weariness etched across her features as she looked up into his face.
“Tonks.” He hardly recognized his own voice, the rasp of it foreign and frightening to him. It was the first time he had really listened to himself in the past year, and his own desperation projected through just that one word made him realize just how numb he had become to his own feelings.
With the pack, it was so much easier to give up. To lay down night after night, the smell of sweat and worse things pungent in the air of the cramped cave they were calling home, and not see her face every time he closed his eyes. Because when he saw her the same way he did that last day, broken and confused and hurt beyond measure, he wanted nothing more than to flee back to London, to the comfort of her arms, instead of doing the work Dumbledore had asked of him. So he emptied himself of the anger and fear and love for her until all he was left with was a shell of himself, tired and alone.
Merlin, how he wished he could just feel again.
But she, she….she wasn’t supposed to become tired, to become empty. She, who was all fire and emotion. She, who had all the love in the world to give to someone who wasn’t too old, too poor and too dangerous, was never supposed to lose that neverending capacity to care.
“What is it, Remus?”
And with those words, his world fell apart even further. Because that caring - for herself, for others - was, for the first time, completely absent from her voice, her face, her eyes. He had broken her, and that knowledge was nearly his undoing. As he stared at her, trying to swallow back the fear that threatened to encroach upon his blessed and cursed numbness, he saw a tear make it’s way down her cheek and land unnoticed on her hand.
Remus’ heart twisted. In all those long twelve months, through the screaming and begging and fighting that always ended in her standing alone and determined as he ran away, it was the first time he had seen her cry. And suddenly, the numbness surrendered completely to the fear, and the floodgates opened. How could he have been such an utter fool? Here she was, waiting for him to come to her, all the while never believing it could happen. And all those things he was terrified of - the love, the fear, the anguish of caring so deeply - rushed through him in an onslaught of emotion. The woman - yes, woman -- he loved was sitting right in front of him, and finally the numbness was leaving and being replaced by everything he had denied himself in the past year. Fear dominated all the rest, because he was absolutely terrified he had begun to late.
That his beginning was her end.
And so he said the only thing he could think to say, the only thing that mattered for her to hear at that moment, infinitely more urgent than apologies or explanations.
“I love you. And I want to come home. To you.”
As the shutters continued their clacking and the floorboards their groaning, they became the lone witnesses to the primitive magic of two souls fulfilling each other, and themselves.
Author: phoenixfyre13
Ratings and Warnings: PG for some language
Prompts: Day of Deceit, Drama/Gen, Location Prompt 16, Confronting the Faceless
Word Count: 1,700ish
Summary: She wishes for emptiness, while all he wants is to feel again. How a certain metamorphmagus and werewolf found a way to come to terms with each other and themselves.
Author’s Notes: Whew! I made it. I have been stewing over this for about a week, and it finally came in a burst of inspiration. I really do have to get my inspiration to burst a little sooner, because I really wasn’t sure this was going to happen. As I did not have much opportunity to ruminate over this, please forgive typos. Set HBP, and I used 3 of 4 prompts, because Confronting the Faceless? Seriously? Yeah, I am not that creative. We will also assume the line between angst and drama are allowed to be well and truly blurred. ;) Enjoy!
The moonlight shone brightly through the window of the decrepit shack, highlighting the decaying walls and musty furniture with an ethereal shade of blue. Nymphadora Tonks gave a start as the shutters slapped against the cracked windowpane, caused by a sudden gust of wind in the otherwise still June night. She wrapped her black duster around her more tightly, even though she knew the cold that was cutting her to the bone had nothing to do with the weather and everything to do with the events of the past two hours.
Dumbledore was dead, Harry was beyond any level of comfort, Bill was lying in the hospital wing with his face ripped beyond recognition, Severus Snape was on the run, and Voldemort had essentially declared out-and-out war on Muggles and all who protected them. And here she was, waiting in this damned shack like some bloody teenager waiting for her Romeo.
What the hell are you doing out here at this hour, Tonks?
Her inner monologue was doing nothing for her attitude. As if she didn’t know why she was standing here, checking her watch every thirty seconds and starting every time there was a creak or moan from the floorboards of the Shrieking Shack, hoping beyond hope that a tall, shabby figure would appear.
Please come.
That, and a location was all that had been scribbled on the worn little piece of parchment delivered to her room at the Hog’s Head half an hour ago. And she had Apparated faster than you could say “Fizzing Whizbee”, all because of what her heart had done at the sight of that all-too-familiar penmanship.
What had she been thinking? After all these months of pining away for him in the tortured recesses of her brain, trying to make everyone around her think she had gotten over it - over him - and here she was running to him like a schoolgirl after her first crush. Tonight, of all nights. Even after he had once again blown off her advances, and in front of everyone that she respected and admired. They must all think her a fool. Except for Molly, but she had always had quite a romantic streak about her. She was the only one who had known before tonight just how deeply Remus had cut her with his refusals.
Tonks slid down the wall into a crouch, her head in her hands, as she felt the first burning behind the eyelids that always came before a new fresh set of tears. She had thought she was done crying, was sure that all the tears set aside for her lifetime had been spent over the course of the months since Sirius’ death. However, she was in a constant state of surprise at her tears’ endurance. They had continued to produce through blow after blow, rejection after rejection, until she was absolutely certain there could be no more.
Merlin, how she wished she could just be empty.
She felt rather than heard him enter the room, and as she looked into his gaunt face, taking in his decrepit overcoat and moth eaten cardigan underneath, she knew she shouldn’t have come here. For as much as she had been able to hide from everyone else, to deceive the rest of the world into thinking she didn’t care with the enormity that she did, she knew beyond a shadow of a doubt she could never keep it from him.
Don’t let him see what he has done to you.
Don’t let him see you cry.
Please, don’t.
“Tonks.” That one croaked, nearly unrecognizable syllable was nearly her undoing. She sat frozen on the floor, thankful for the wall behind her to keep her from sinking any further to the ground, willing herself to look into his sunken eyes, more haunted than she had ever seen them, even more than when he had looked at her last summer and delivered the most crushing blow of her young life.
Sirius is gone. And I have to go, too.
Had he thought it would have been easier for to hear it all at once, to know that she had lost everything - her past and her future - all in the same moment? And now here he was standing before her, a stranger’s voice in her lover’s body, broken and asking for something. What? What could he possibly want from her?
“What is it, Remus?” She knew how tired those words sounded, with the anger and grief and fear and hurt stripped away, leaving nothing but the weariness.
She was just so bloody tired.
She lifted her chin a notch, an unconscious response to her own metal fragility. She would be damned if he saw that. He may be able to see through her sullenness and apathy to the torment of pain and grief that lurked under the surface, but she would be damned if he saw what was really there, fighting for control with every passing day, with every moment that he continued to feed her too old, too poor, too dangerous. It was so much easier to be angry at him, to still grieve for her lost cousin, to be afraid of what the future held for her and all wizardkind, than to submit to those things and know there was nothing left but her, naked and beaten, lying in the recesses of her mind. And that was the most frightening image of all.
The only way to erase it was to deny it. And the only way to deny it was to keep beating it back with lie after lie - to herself, to those around her - about how all of these things made her feel. How did she feel? Like curling up right here in this dingy shack and letting the world slip away.
She’d be damned if she let him see that. If she let herself see that as the only way.
And so she stood, her back straight and chin held high in defiance of him, of that image of herself she wanted so badly to never exist, and faced the fires of fear and anger and hurt.
Because she knew, without a doubt, to feel these things was better than to have nothing left to feel. And for the first time in a very long time, she let him see the tears fall.
_________________________________________________________________________________
She looks so tired.
It was the first thought Remus could formulate when he walked in the door of the Shrieking Shack, the events of the night still fresh wounds on his heart. And now here she was, looking so small and vulnerable on the floor, head in her hands and shoulders slumped in a demonstration of defeat.
The thought terrified him beyond reason, and it took everything in him not to scoop her up from the ground, shake her senseless, anything to evoke anger. Because, Merlin help him, anything would be more bearable for him to see in her face than the devastation of weariness etched across her features as she looked up into his face.
“Tonks.” He hardly recognized his own voice, the rasp of it foreign and frightening to him. It was the first time he had really listened to himself in the past year, and his own desperation projected through just that one word made him realize just how numb he had become to his own feelings.
With the pack, it was so much easier to give up. To lay down night after night, the smell of sweat and worse things pungent in the air of the cramped cave they were calling home, and not see her face every time he closed his eyes. Because when he saw her the same way he did that last day, broken and confused and hurt beyond measure, he wanted nothing more than to flee back to London, to the comfort of her arms, instead of doing the work Dumbledore had asked of him. So he emptied himself of the anger and fear and love for her until all he was left with was a shell of himself, tired and alone.
Merlin, how he wished he could just feel again.
But she, she….she wasn’t supposed to become tired, to become empty. She, who was all fire and emotion. She, who had all the love in the world to give to someone who wasn’t too old, too poor and too dangerous, was never supposed to lose that neverending capacity to care.
“What is it, Remus?”
And with those words, his world fell apart even further. Because that caring - for herself, for others - was, for the first time, completely absent from her voice, her face, her eyes. He had broken her, and that knowledge was nearly his undoing. As he stared at her, trying to swallow back the fear that threatened to encroach upon his blessed and cursed numbness, he saw a tear make it’s way down her cheek and land unnoticed on her hand.
Remus’ heart twisted. In all those long twelve months, through the screaming and begging and fighting that always ended in her standing alone and determined as he ran away, it was the first time he had seen her cry. And suddenly, the numbness surrendered completely to the fear, and the floodgates opened. How could he have been such an utter fool? Here she was, waiting for him to come to her, all the while never believing it could happen. And all those things he was terrified of - the love, the fear, the anguish of caring so deeply - rushed through him in an onslaught of emotion. The woman - yes, woman -- he loved was sitting right in front of him, and finally the numbness was leaving and being replaced by everything he had denied himself in the past year. Fear dominated all the rest, because he was absolutely terrified he had begun to late.
That his beginning was her end.
And so he said the only thing he could think to say, the only thing that mattered for her to hear at that moment, infinitely more urgent than apologies or explanations.
“I love you. And I want to come home. To you.”
As the shutters continued their clacking and the floorboards their groaning, they became the lone witnesses to the primitive magic of two souls fulfilling each other, and themselves.