Prompt 7 and Prompt 8
Title: Broken Eggs, Broken Heart
Author: Devonwood
Format & Word Count: Ficlet, 812
Rating: PG-13, T
Prompt: Prompt 7 (Broken Eggs), Prompt 8 (Damien Rice lyrics)
Warning: Angst
Summary: It was funny if a first time Apparator did it. It was not funny if a twenty-four year old witch did it. Then, it was just sad.
Author's Note: Sequel to Past and Present, and reading it first is reccommended to get the scenario. And am I the only one who thinks the broken egg on the right looks like a Dark Mark? The yolk is like the snake, and the shell is like the skull…..*shuts up*
I also have no idea where all of this angst is coming from...I'm a romance/humor writer, I swear. :D
The wind tousled her brown hair, making a few strands whip in front of her eyes, but Nymphadora Tonks paid them no attention. She hadn’t really paid proper attention to anything in the last week and a half, not since the incident at the Tower…
…She had refused to cast her Patronus since then, and had to communicate with the Order via owl (a big no-no for safety precautions), or wait to be contacted first. The sight of the wolf bounding out the window had kept her awake each night, and the dark circles under her eyes were nearly impossible to morph away.
Clutching her groceries closer to her chest, she hurried quickly down the street with her eyes downcast. Not Apparating was also a big safety risk, but she didn’t want to attempt it again. One night last week she had been so unfocused that she splinched one of her eyebrows off, as well as landed a few meters away from her destination.
It was funny if a first time Apparator did it.
It was not funny if a twenty-four year old witch did it.
Then, it was just sad.
Sighing deeply, Tonks rounded the corner, her flat nearly in sight. There was just a tiny stretch of woods to pass, and then she would be home.
Just three more blocks.
A half-moon loomed precariously over head, laying low as if it were about to impale itself on one of the trees. A thick fog hid her ankles from view, and Tonks rolled her eyes at the horrible cliché. Is a wolf-man going to come out of the woods and chase me?
Outside she scoffed, but inside she wept as though she had just lost a loved one. And she had, if she thought about it hard enough. If she could think about it hard enough without pain stabbing her in the chest and blinding her vision.
Her thoughts ran with the horror movie cliché scenario for a block and a half, almost imagining the sound of a tortured howl form off in the woods.
But when she heard it a second time, Tonks stopped in her tracks, her ears perking up to hear the tiniest overturned pebble or snapped twig. The sound seemed to be coming from behind her, and she immediately dropped her bags and whipped out her wand in one fluent motion, glad that her reflexes hadn’t taken a hit when her mood did.
A large dog stood in her way, wagging its tail and smiling with a large grin on its face. It looked remarkably wolfish.
Tonks wanted to scream and pull her hair out.
The dog continued to stare at her, and Tonks was sure that Remus was doing this to her as a joke. A sick joke. Even though they were apart, he was going to follow her until the day that she died.
It yipped softly as though trying not to wake the households on the street, and Tonks shot it an evil glare, hoping to scare it away with her gaze.
Not surprisingly, it didn’t work.
The dog stared at her bag of groceries, and it was then that Tonks noticed how skinny he was. Rolling her eyes, as if this day couldn’t get any worse, she opened up a grocery bag and tossed a slice of bread to the dog. It ran to catch it, and gobbled up the piece so quickly that Tonks wondered if the bread had Disapparated before it was eaten. The dog lumbered back.
“Shoo,” she said, waving her hand flippantly as if to point it in the right direction -the opposite direction. “Go home, boy.”
But the dog remained. Anger welling up inside of her, Tonks ripped open the grocery bag and pulled out a handful of eggs, tossing one at the dog. It landed just in front of his paw, the crack resonating through the quiet street. He stared at the mess on the ground and looked back up to Tonks, tilting his head to the side as if to ask “Why the hell did you just throw that?”
Tonks growled in fury, throwing a second egg. It landed square on the dog’s muzzle, and he yelped loudly, shaking the cracked egg from his face. He fixed his large, brown eyes on hers, and ran down the street, tail tucked halfway between his legs.
Tonks cursed at herself as she picked up the small mess she had made, rubbing dust off of her jeans as she stood. The dog’s look was burned into her mind, and she suddenly felt very nauseated. “I shouldn’t have done that.” She mumbled, walking towards her flat with her eyes staring pointedly at the ground in front of her.
“I shouldn’t have done that; it wasn’t his fault. I scared him away.”
I scare everyone away.
What is wrong with me?