Prompt 14; Part Two of the Trilogy
Title: One Hard Head
Author: gijane
Format & Word Count: Ficlet (727 words)
Rating: PG
Prompt: Prompt 14: "He's mad that trusts in the tameness of a wolf, a horse's health, a boy's love, or a whore's oath." ~ King Lear (III, vi, 19-21)
Warning: language
Summary: Continuing from Prompt 13; Tonks learns about Lupin and what she is up against.
Author's Note: I can barely get this posted here, please don’t ask do the linky thing to Prompt 13!
Disclaimer: Tonks and Lupin are not mine; they belong to JK Rowling. I just get to play with them. I have to give them back and I never was good at sharing.
“Good luck!” he told her. “Remus had one hard head.”
Sirius’ advice echoed through Tonks’ mind as she made her way to the kitchen, employing all that she had learned in Stealth and Tracking. She made it all the way down the stairs and halfway down the corridor. Then, she heard Remus’ voice and tripped over the edge of the carpet.
Immediately, Mrs Black’s curtains flew open and she began to scream. “You!” She spotted Tonks picking herself up. “You especially befoul the house of my fathers; you half-blood mutant freak of a blood traitor!”
Tonks stuck her tongue out at her aunt. “What gets your knickers more in a twist, Auntie? The fact that I’m a half-blood, a mutant freak, or the daughter of a blood traitor?” She smirked as Mrs Black paused to think.
“Well, I can’t believe you shut her up,” Sirius told Tonks as he came down the stairs. His mother spotted him and began to scream again. Tonks rushed to help her cousin and they managed to force the curtains closed on the portrait.
“No wonder you and my mother left,” Tonks panted. She slumped against the wall next to him.
“You have no idea what it was like growing up in this place,” Sirius said. “Your mother was the only other normal one in the family. And look where that got us, disowned.” Tonks shook her head in disbelief. “Listen, I came down to stop you before you went into the kitchen. Come with me.” Sirius took her arm and led her back up the stairs to the drawing room on the first floor. Closing the door, he continued, “I wasn’t joking about Remus. He really is…stubborn when it comes to his ‘furry little problem’.”
“Furry little problem!” Tonks shrieked. “That’s worse than ‘Moony’. And he calls you his friends?!”
“Shush!!” Sirius warned. “James called it that in company. Now, Remus had six years to build up a defensive wall around his heart. James and I managed to break that down fairly easily when we started school.” Tonks noted that he left Peter out of the Marauders. “When we told him we knew; do you know what he did?” She shook her head mutely. “He skipped morning classes, packed up his trunk, went to McGonagall, and tried to withdraw.” Tonks’ dark eyes filled with tears as she pictured a twelve year old Lupin doing that. “Luckily, James and I came back to the dormitory, realized what Remus was doing, and ran down to McGonagall’s. It took us two hours to convince him that we didn’t care that he was a werewolf.”
“Oh bloody hell,” she muttered, realizing what she was up against.
“Exactly. Remus has had fifteen years to rebuild that wall around his heart. On top of his own personal problems, he lost Lily, James, and Peter. And he thought I killed them.” Tonks raised an eyebrow at Peter’s name. “Regardless of what Peter has done, he was still our friend at school.”
“That is true,” Tonks agreed.
“Now, I wanted you to know this before you went down there. You’re up against one stubborn werewolf. You know he loves you; he adores you. But you’re going to have one tough time breaking down that wall of his. If anyone can do it, it’d be you! You may be half Black, but you’re all Tonks.” He grinned. “You’re dad did not give up on Andromeda, no matter how many times she tried to push him away.”
Tonks grinned as well. “Mum used to make it into a fairy tale for me; the prince who never gave up on his princess, regardless of her evil family.” She smirked. “You were the page that helped the princess eventually escape to be with the prince.”
“A page!” Sirius said in mock horror. “That’s all I was! If I ever see Andromeda again…!”
Tonks giggled. “Wish me luck! I’m off to get my own prince.”
“Good luck. Remember, don’t give up on him. He loves you.”
“And I love him.” She turned to the door and opened it.
“Oh…and Tonks?”
“Yes?”
Sirius came up to her. “Remus is really going to like that shirt.”
“Good.”
“But I don’t!” he added.
“Why?”
“If I stretch just like this,” he craned his neck, “I can see all the way down to your navel.”
“Sirius!” she yelped.