Blue Skies, prompt 13 | Invitation (Harry Potter)
Title: Invitation
Author: shimotsuki
Prompt: #13, Viva la Vida (Coldplay)
Fandom: Harry Potter
Character(s)/Pairing(s): Tonks; Remus/Tonks
Rating & Warnings: PG | angst, anger, and mild profanity
Word Count: 326 words
Summary: “Dear, why not come to dinner at the weekend, Remus and Mad-Eye are coming-” (HBP, chapter 5)
Author’s note: This may or may not be the Tonks in my ‘real’ HP ficverse. ;) I’m trying this scene out here because this is an aspect of characterization I've been trying to puzzle out. The problem: If Tonks is still busy racking up her million arguments with Remus, why won't she come to dinner? Feedback on my take on this question is most welcome.
Invitation
Tonks spun on her heel, away from the light spilling out from the Burrow’s kitchen window, away from Harry’s curiosity and Dumbledore’s unwelcome sympathy. The squeeze of Apparition twisted hardest at the lump in her throat, and when she emerged with a soft pop outside the Aurors’ cottage in Hogsmeade, she almost had to blink back tears.
Only almost, though. Nymphadora Tonks did not cry.
Why not come to dinner at the weekend?
She pulled her boots off and flung them down by the door, heedless of the clatter; Proudfoot and Savage were both out on night patrol this week, anyway.
Come to dinner. At the Burrow. With Remus and Mad-Eye and Harry and the whole Weasley clan watching?
She bloody well thought not.
Not that Molly hadn’t been wonderful, these last weeks, always ready with a cup of tea and a sympathetic ear.
But Remus told her again and again that she mustn’t love him-even as he stared after her with an aching desperate hunger when he thought she couldn’t see.
He told her that he needed her friendship, that he didn’t want to lose her over this. And then he mumbled excuses and fled whenever he found himself alone with her.
He told her that his impending mission with Greyback’s pack was nothing more than Order-business-as-usual. But the hollow fear in his eyes that he couldn’t quite hide-not from her, never from her-tore even deeper at her heart than his stubborn needless rejection of her (their) love.
Why not come to dinner at the weekend?
Because.
Because she would not be able to look into those eyes and see loneliness or grief or trepidation or even bloody blankness, or whatever he was letting get through on that particular day, and not want to lob a bowl of turnips at his head-which was hardly the gratitude that Molly’s hospitality deserved-
Or maybe it was because Nymphadora Tonks did not cry.
~ fin ~
Author: shimotsuki
Prompt: #13, Viva la Vida (Coldplay)
Fandom: Harry Potter
Character(s)/Pairing(s): Tonks; Remus/Tonks
Rating & Warnings: PG | angst, anger, and mild profanity
Word Count: 326 words
Summary: “Dear, why not come to dinner at the weekend, Remus and Mad-Eye are coming-” (HBP, chapter 5)
Author’s note: This may or may not be the Tonks in my ‘real’ HP ficverse. ;) I’m trying this scene out here because this is an aspect of characterization I've been trying to puzzle out. The problem: If Tonks is still busy racking up her million arguments with Remus, why won't she come to dinner? Feedback on my take on this question is most welcome.
Invitation
Tonks spun on her heel, away from the light spilling out from the Burrow’s kitchen window, away from Harry’s curiosity and Dumbledore’s unwelcome sympathy. The squeeze of Apparition twisted hardest at the lump in her throat, and when she emerged with a soft pop outside the Aurors’ cottage in Hogsmeade, she almost had to blink back tears.
Only almost, though. Nymphadora Tonks did not cry.
Why not come to dinner at the weekend?
She pulled her boots off and flung them down by the door, heedless of the clatter; Proudfoot and Savage were both out on night patrol this week, anyway.
Come to dinner. At the Burrow. With Remus and Mad-Eye and Harry and the whole Weasley clan watching?
She bloody well thought not.
Not that Molly hadn’t been wonderful, these last weeks, always ready with a cup of tea and a sympathetic ear.
But Remus told her again and again that she mustn’t love him-even as he stared after her with an aching desperate hunger when he thought she couldn’t see.
He told her that he needed her friendship, that he didn’t want to lose her over this. And then he mumbled excuses and fled whenever he found himself alone with her.
He told her that his impending mission with Greyback’s pack was nothing more than Order-business-as-usual. But the hollow fear in his eyes that he couldn’t quite hide-not from her, never from her-tore even deeper at her heart than his stubborn needless rejection of her (their) love.
Why not come to dinner at the weekend?
Because.
Because she would not be able to look into those eyes and see loneliness or grief or trepidation or even bloody blankness, or whatever he was letting get through on that particular day, and not want to lob a bowl of turnips at his head-which was hardly the gratitude that Molly’s hospitality deserved-
Or maybe it was because Nymphadora Tonks did not cry.
~ fin ~