HP Drabble: The Brightest and Best (Remus/Tonks)
Title: The Brightest and Best
Author: mrstater
Fandom: Harry Potter
Characters & Pairings: Andromeda Tonks, Nymphadora Tonks, Teddy Lupin, Remus/Tonks
Rating & Warnings: rated PG
Format & Word Count: drabble, 362 words
Summary: Tonks and her mother understand each other--for the first, and last, time.
Author's Note: Written for merryb87 for International Women's Day 2011.
The silvery filaments of Remus' Patronus have yet to vanish from where it appeared the living room when Andromeda, voices her disagreement with its message.
"What can he be thinking, asking you to go? You can't, Nymphadora."
No, she can't, Tonks mentally agrees, and she, too, is surprised The Noble One has summoned her to battle.
But she tears her eyes from the beautifully pudgy slumbering face of the baby boy asleep in her arms and holds the swaddled bundle out to her mother--who, for the first time since Teddy's birth, recoils from her grandson, refusing to take him.
"But I must. This is it, Mum…" She doesn't say the end. "Voldemort's at Hogwarts, and there are so many Death Eaters, and so few people to fight them…" Even to her own ears, Tonks sounds so weary. "And I'm one of our most highly trained soldiers."
She braces herself, as if for an offensive spell, against her mother's inevitable argument that Tonks' training doesn't matter when she's charging into battle a scant few weeks after giving birth, but the blow never comes. Nor does the pleading to reconsider.
Andromeda steps toward her, holds her arms out to receive Teddy.
"I want the Wizarding world's brightest and best fighting for my grandson's future."
Up until this point, Tonks has lived her life certain that she and her mother would never see eye-to-eye about many things, her career choice not least among them. But she does. Perhaps it's a knowledge acquired only during this terrible year of sacrifice and loss, though there isn't time now to consider the whenever and however, just as there's no time to apologise for all the times she huffed and puffed in misjudgment of this woman who would, without hesitation, lay down her life for her daughter as the daughter would lay down her life for her son.
Clearly, Tonks comes by it honestly.
Gasping back tears, Tonks kisses Teddy, and then relinquishes him into Andromeda's arms, forcing herself not to think about how she can do this.
"Thank you," she says, because goodbye is too painful.
Her mother's reply is lost in the crack as Tonks Disapparates.
Author: mrstater
Fandom: Harry Potter
Characters & Pairings: Andromeda Tonks, Nymphadora Tonks, Teddy Lupin, Remus/Tonks
Rating & Warnings: rated PG
Format & Word Count: drabble, 362 words
Summary: Tonks and her mother understand each other--for the first, and last, time.
Author's Note: Written for merryb87 for International Women's Day 2011.
The silvery filaments of Remus' Patronus have yet to vanish from where it appeared the living room when Andromeda, voices her disagreement with its message.
"What can he be thinking, asking you to go? You can't, Nymphadora."
No, she can't, Tonks mentally agrees, and she, too, is surprised The Noble One has summoned her to battle.
But she tears her eyes from the beautifully pudgy slumbering face of the baby boy asleep in her arms and holds the swaddled bundle out to her mother--who, for the first time since Teddy's birth, recoils from her grandson, refusing to take him.
"But I must. This is it, Mum…" She doesn't say the end. "Voldemort's at Hogwarts, and there are so many Death Eaters, and so few people to fight them…" Even to her own ears, Tonks sounds so weary. "And I'm one of our most highly trained soldiers."
She braces herself, as if for an offensive spell, against her mother's inevitable argument that Tonks' training doesn't matter when she's charging into battle a scant few weeks after giving birth, but the blow never comes. Nor does the pleading to reconsider.
Andromeda steps toward her, holds her arms out to receive Teddy.
"I want the Wizarding world's brightest and best fighting for my grandson's future."
Up until this point, Tonks has lived her life certain that she and her mother would never see eye-to-eye about many things, her career choice not least among them. But she does. Perhaps it's a knowledge acquired only during this terrible year of sacrifice and loss, though there isn't time now to consider the whenever and however, just as there's no time to apologise for all the times she huffed and puffed in misjudgment of this woman who would, without hesitation, lay down her life for her daughter as the daughter would lay down her life for her son.
Clearly, Tonks comes by it honestly.
Gasping back tears, Tonks kisses Teddy, and then relinquishes him into Andromeda's arms, forcing herself not to think about how she can do this.
"Thank you," she says, because goodbye is too painful.
Her mother's reply is lost in the crack as Tonks Disapparates.