Blossom
Summary: after the war is over, Tonks wonders what to do next. 1000 words. Gen. G.
Blossom
You would think that the ending of the world might come in summer. You might picture a summer evening - one of those long summer evenings with the sun sinking slowly to the horizon of an endless sky, and in the distance the faint sounds of traffic and the village cricket match.
Or you might, instead, expect the ending of the world to take place in winter. You might reasonably expect this. Winters are bitter things, so bitter that even the plants duck under the scarred earth, and the only sound is the ice cracking on the windowpane.
You might expect either of these things. But you would be wrong.
The ending of the world comes on an afternoon in late March, when the cherry trees are bursting with blossom and buds are swelling on the laburnum and the apple. Nymphadora Tonks is meandering along the path by the side of the canal, watching two swans circle each other and trying to make plans for the rest of the day.
It would be a good thing, she thinks, to visit the Weasleys. Ron and Hermione will be back from their honeymoon. There will be food and laughter and a welcome. And there will be fresh flowers from the garden to lay on Bill Weasley’s grave.
She sees that this will become an annual ritual, the visit to the Weasleys on Easter Sunday, the flowers on Bill’s grave. Molly rarely mentions Bill now, and the extra chair at the dinner table has been removed to the loft. But the old wounds remain and sometimes, in an unguarded moment, Tonks can see their scars in Molly’s eyes.
She continues along the path and her heart lifts. It is impossible to stay unhappy on a day like this. Two chaffinches are pulling at the strands of dried grass on the verge and a blackbird looks up as she passes, half a worm in its mouth. She flips a hand at it in greeting and it jumps back in alarm.
It’s been almost a year since the Dark Lord died, and the wizarding world is finally learning how to move on. Every season is a landmark. The first summer. The first winter. The first spring. There will be children born this year who will learn about Voldemort as if he were a figure from the history books. Tonks smiles wryly at that, imagining Binns on the subject. It seems impossible that he could make it as dry and dusty as everything else in History of Magic, but she has no doubt he’ll manage it somehow.
She steps onto the verge and sits down, spreading her robes around her on the grass. There’s a playground nearby and the shrieks of children fill the calm air. Someone has dumped a supermarket trolley in the canal and a shag perches on the handlebars, preening glossy feathers in the sun. She grins. Fancy a shag? An old joke, but somehow Sirius never seemed to get tired of it.
Sirius. Moody. Dumbledore. Snape. Remus. Bill. And countless more. Tonks whispers the names and lets the gentle breeze carry them away. It’s not the first time she’s said goodbye and she knows it won’t be the last. She picks a daisy and tears off the petals absently, dropping the pieces on the green, green grass.
She wonders what on earth she will find to do for the rest of her life, if this sense of isolation will ever completely leave her. It’s difficult to adjust when your whole life has been spent fighting and now the fight is over. What do Aurors do in peacetime? There will still be Death Eaters to round up, and she has spent most of the last year doing just that. She supposes vaguely that there will still be criminals to catch and crimes to solve, and wonders why she feels no excitement at the prospect. Tonks knows she should be happy, and I am I am, she protests. It is only partially untrue. How could anyone be unhappy on a day like this? She wonders how it is possible to be so happy that her heart could burst with joy and to feel at the same time this utter emptiness, this terrible peace.
Get a grip on yourself, Nymphadora Tonks, she admonishes herself. She stands up, spilling daisy petals onto the grass. On impulse she runs at the cherry tree and launches herself into the air to grab at an overhanging branch; at the last moment, inexplicably, she misses and ends up sprawled on the ground, covered in blossom and laughing. Time for the Weasleys. She skips back down the verge and onto the tarmac path, sweeping cherry blossom from her hair and shoulders as she walks until it seems as if the path is strewn with confetti.
Confetti reminds her of Ron and Hermione, and her thoughts turn automatically to Kingsley and his invitation to dinner next week. Tonks wonders how she feels about that. Another thing she doesn’t know. She remembers Charlie Weasley at the wedding last year in his formal robes, and at the Weasleys’ two Sundays ago working in the garden with his sleeves rolled up. It hadn’t really occurred to her what working with dragons really meant until she’d seen the burn scars up and down his arms. She smiles again as she remembers looking up from her weeding to find him watching her, remembers him pretending to chase her round the garden with a pitchfork until they’d both collapsed on a pile of mown grass, howling with laughter and holding their sides the way small children do. She thinks she might be a little bit in love with Charlie Weasley. She isn’t sure about that, either.
It doesn’t matter, she tells herself, and knows that she is happy at last. None of it matters. She can go to dinner with Kingsley. She can fall asleep wondering about Charlie, and in the morning she can go to work and catch Death Eaters. Or fail to catch them - and if she fails to catch them, one of her colleagues will track them down eventually. None of it matters, and all of it matters, because these are the choices she has to make, and it doesn’t matter if she makes them today, or tomorrow, or if she never makes them at all. For someone who has devoted her life to a single purpose, the revelation is astonishing. It’s my life, she thinks, and she wonders what she will do with it, now that all the choices are hers.
--
Notes: I've always been a Tonks fan, and I wondered how a person who had only ever really known war could learn to live with peace. And I get a little melancholic on gorgeous spring days. Posted at genfic_hogwarts on 8 May 2005.
Blossom
You would think that the ending of the world might come in summer. You might picture a summer evening - one of those long summer evenings with the sun sinking slowly to the horizon of an endless sky, and in the distance the faint sounds of traffic and the village cricket match.
Or you might, instead, expect the ending of the world to take place in winter. You might reasonably expect this. Winters are bitter things, so bitter that even the plants duck under the scarred earth, and the only sound is the ice cracking on the windowpane.
You might expect either of these things. But you would be wrong.
The ending of the world comes on an afternoon in late March, when the cherry trees are bursting with blossom and buds are swelling on the laburnum and the apple. Nymphadora Tonks is meandering along the path by the side of the canal, watching two swans circle each other and trying to make plans for the rest of the day.
It would be a good thing, she thinks, to visit the Weasleys. Ron and Hermione will be back from their honeymoon. There will be food and laughter and a welcome. And there will be fresh flowers from the garden to lay on Bill Weasley’s grave.
She sees that this will become an annual ritual, the visit to the Weasleys on Easter Sunday, the flowers on Bill’s grave. Molly rarely mentions Bill now, and the extra chair at the dinner table has been removed to the loft. But the old wounds remain and sometimes, in an unguarded moment, Tonks can see their scars in Molly’s eyes.
She continues along the path and her heart lifts. It is impossible to stay unhappy on a day like this. Two chaffinches are pulling at the strands of dried grass on the verge and a blackbird looks up as she passes, half a worm in its mouth. She flips a hand at it in greeting and it jumps back in alarm.
It’s been almost a year since the Dark Lord died, and the wizarding world is finally learning how to move on. Every season is a landmark. The first summer. The first winter. The first spring. There will be children born this year who will learn about Voldemort as if he were a figure from the history books. Tonks smiles wryly at that, imagining Binns on the subject. It seems impossible that he could make it as dry and dusty as everything else in History of Magic, but she has no doubt he’ll manage it somehow.
She steps onto the verge and sits down, spreading her robes around her on the grass. There’s a playground nearby and the shrieks of children fill the calm air. Someone has dumped a supermarket trolley in the canal and a shag perches on the handlebars, preening glossy feathers in the sun. She grins. Fancy a shag? An old joke, but somehow Sirius never seemed to get tired of it.
Sirius. Moody. Dumbledore. Snape. Remus. Bill. And countless more. Tonks whispers the names and lets the gentle breeze carry them away. It’s not the first time she’s said goodbye and she knows it won’t be the last. She picks a daisy and tears off the petals absently, dropping the pieces on the green, green grass.
She wonders what on earth she will find to do for the rest of her life, if this sense of isolation will ever completely leave her. It’s difficult to adjust when your whole life has been spent fighting and now the fight is over. What do Aurors do in peacetime? There will still be Death Eaters to round up, and she has spent most of the last year doing just that. She supposes vaguely that there will still be criminals to catch and crimes to solve, and wonders why she feels no excitement at the prospect. Tonks knows she should be happy, and I am I am, she protests. It is only partially untrue. How could anyone be unhappy on a day like this? She wonders how it is possible to be so happy that her heart could burst with joy and to feel at the same time this utter emptiness, this terrible peace.
Get a grip on yourself, Nymphadora Tonks, she admonishes herself. She stands up, spilling daisy petals onto the grass. On impulse she runs at the cherry tree and launches herself into the air to grab at an overhanging branch; at the last moment, inexplicably, she misses and ends up sprawled on the ground, covered in blossom and laughing. Time for the Weasleys. She skips back down the verge and onto the tarmac path, sweeping cherry blossom from her hair and shoulders as she walks until it seems as if the path is strewn with confetti.
Confetti reminds her of Ron and Hermione, and her thoughts turn automatically to Kingsley and his invitation to dinner next week. Tonks wonders how she feels about that. Another thing she doesn’t know. She remembers Charlie Weasley at the wedding last year in his formal robes, and at the Weasleys’ two Sundays ago working in the garden with his sleeves rolled up. It hadn’t really occurred to her what working with dragons really meant until she’d seen the burn scars up and down his arms. She smiles again as she remembers looking up from her weeding to find him watching her, remembers him pretending to chase her round the garden with a pitchfork until they’d both collapsed on a pile of mown grass, howling with laughter and holding their sides the way small children do. She thinks she might be a little bit in love with Charlie Weasley. She isn’t sure about that, either.
It doesn’t matter, she tells herself, and knows that she is happy at last. None of it matters. She can go to dinner with Kingsley. She can fall asleep wondering about Charlie, and in the morning she can go to work and catch Death Eaters. Or fail to catch them - and if she fails to catch them, one of her colleagues will track them down eventually. None of it matters, and all of it matters, because these are the choices she has to make, and it doesn’t matter if she makes them today, or tomorrow, or if she never makes them at all. For someone who has devoted her life to a single purpose, the revelation is astonishing. It’s my life, she thinks, and she wonders what she will do with it, now that all the choices are hers.
--
Notes: I've always been a Tonks fan, and I wondered how a person who had only ever really known war could learn to live with peace. And I get a little melancholic on gorgeous spring days. Posted at genfic_hogwarts on 8 May 2005.