Reduction - March - 3/6
Title: Reduction - March (3/6)
Author: jadeddiva
Pairing: Remus Lupin/Nymphadora Tonks
Rating: STRONG PG-13
Summary: She has nothing save a weariness that rests on her shoulders from hours of work and little sleep, and a sour taste in the back of her mouth, a bitterness she has never tasted before. January - June 1997 in the life of Nymphadora Tonks.
January | February | March | April | May | June
there's always a siren
singing you to shipwreck.
(don't reach out, don't reach out)
steer away from these rocks
we'd be a walking disaster.
(don't reach out, don't reach out)
there there
we are accidents
waiting waiting to happen.
- Radiohead, "There There"
One night, limbs lazy and sated after lovemaking, his fingers slowly tracing circles on her ribcage, he said “I never thought I’d be here.”
“Here?” she asked. She wasn’t sure if he meant here, now, in the present or here living and breathing or here in Grimmauld Place, and she was not willing to gamble. Assumptions and gut-reactions were often inadequate for gauging the situation when Remus was involved, she had learned. Instead, she looked at shapes hidden in the wallpaper and waited for his answer.
“Yes,” he said. “Here. In this moment. I never thought I’d be lucky enough to have this, being…what I am, and all.” The last words are a sigh which pulls her closer with the movement of his body.
“This?” she asked, eyes meeting his brown ones before he looked away.
“Here, with you. A woman like you - I never dreamed there would ever be a woman like you in my life.”
“I’m nothing special,” she told him, but he smiled.
“You may not see it, but you are,” he said, lips moving against her cheek. He placed a kiss to her forehead, his hand traveling down to rest on the small of her back. “You have many admirable qualities.”
“How very nice of you to see that,” she said, and he laughed.
“I don’t mean to sound so foolish. I just…I don’t think words can adequately describe how much you mean to me.”
She smiled, her lips echoing the grin on his face. “A woman like me, huh?”
“Yes. Just like you.”
…
She sips some bubby drink that Rowena’s placed in her hand. It takes like lemon and something sweeter and it’s not until she swallows that she can taste the alcohol.
It was Rowena’s idea to go out and chat up some guys. They had the night off, and they were young, and fighting Dementors and patrolling Hogsmeade and Hogwarts was hard, hard work. It’s more than just going out and drinking, though, and Tonks knows it.
“I’m tired of this shit,” Rowena had said earlier, blowing smoke from her fag into the cold air of Hogsmeade. “I’m tired of being here, every day, and knowing that every day may be my last. I mean, I bloody well knew what I was getting into when I joined, but I just - I never thought it would come to this, again.” She paused. “I lost an aunt and uncle in the first war.”
“Everyone lost someone,” Tonks said softly, pulling her cloak tighter around her shoulders as if to ward off the pointed look from Rowena, who seemed to now realize that if anyone was affected by the war, it was definitely Nymphadora Tonks.
She doesn’t remember Regulus that well because, like the rest of the family, he snubbed her mother, and the memories she has of Sirius Before Azkaban are strikingly different than the ones of Sirius After Azkaban. And as for Bellatrix - she doesn’t want to think about her.
She sips her drink, eyes searching the room for a face she knows she won’t find. She doesn’t know why she hopes that maybe, tonight, he’ll be here, because that’s stupid - he’s underground, and they’re at a Muggle bar. Maybe it’s a good thing, she thinks, because she doesn’t know what she’d say anyway (because everything she thinks she wants to tell him she knows won’t come out when she does see him again).
Rowena’s chatting up some cute Muggle, looking happy and flirtatious and Tonks knows she just wants someone to shag tonight. She understands where Rowena’s coming from, though she’s never been one for one night stands. There’s sex and then there’s sex and she’d rather have it with someone who wants to be with her than someone who wants a fuck. The weariness in her shoulders is spreading to the back and numbness drips down across her chest like an ice cube on a hot summer day. She had hoped that coming here, tonight, would ward away the gloom but it’s not working - at least, not yet.
Soon, Rowena pulls her into conversation with two Muggle men, and she finds herself eyeing the one with brown hair and brown eyes and similar features to someone she should not be thinking about and then, he buys her a drink. They do shots, and he calls her Dora and he’s kissing her neck and he looks so much like him that she just wants to give in.
The numbness is fading and becoming giggly excitement, his lips managing to thaw some of the coldness and she feels a bit weird but at the same time, it’s nice to just feel something for a change. Before she knows it, she’s in his flat, and they’re, oh, he’s kissing her, and she’s never been the girl for a quick shag before but she keeps thinking it is so nice to feel desired because it’s been so long. But he’s nowhere near as good as him , in fact it’s probably not good because it’s not what she really wants which is him and she feels empty so she bites her lip and fakes it because she’s worried she might cry.
She lies in the bed for ten, twenty, thirty minutes, shivering because the window is open and she’s too sick to move. The man is asleep face down beside her. She steps on the condom as she gets out of bed, and if she wasn’t so disgusted with herself she’d be disgusted more but what’s the use? She’s already dirty. She dresses quickly, wipes away a tear, and sneaks out to Disapparate in the alley.
She’s not sure where to go, because home doesn’t sound inviting and she knows that Arthur’s got to work late tonight for the Order, so Molly should be up. It’s not even one in the morning but her head is throbbing and she could use a cup of tea.
The Burrow glows warm and bright, the lights from inside casting a soothing glow on the snow around the house. She’s shaky from the alcohol and something that might be shock or could just be embarrassment. Molly will ask questions, she realizes suddenly, and she’s not so sure this is what she wants, Molly Weasley acting like a mother after she’s just gone and done something ridiculous and before she knows it the door swings open and she stumbles backwards into the snow.
“Fuck,” she mutters, and there’s a hand reaching down for her. She glances up, then freezes.
“Fuck,” she repeats, pushing herself up and ignoring Remus’ hand. She brushes the snow off, and realizes what a wreck she must look like - large marks on her neck, and she’s fairly sure she reeks of sex, alcohol, and fags and oh, god, her hair and she can't exactly morph it away in front of him...
She raises her eyes to meet his, her body shaking from the shock and the cold and the alcohol.
This is the first time they have seen each other since November, and the circumstances are rather shitty.
He can smell it, or smell something at least, because the small smile he had earlier has curled into a frown, and there’s something in his eyes that she can’t read and doesn’t want to.
“Have fun tonight?” he asks, his voice cold as the snow that’s gotten into her boots.
No. Nononononono he will not pull this shit with her, not now after what he did, what he continues to do. She gathers up her dignity and courage and turns away from him, taking few steps towards the Apparation point.
“What does it matter to you?” she asks, looking over her shoulder and taking a shaky step. “It’s not like you’re in love with me or anything.”
His mouth opens, but she Disapparates before he can speak.
…
She waited two days, after the kitchen discussion with Sirius, to tell Remus that she knew. They were in the library, Remus and a book, her and a wizard crossword puzzles. She had been waiting for the right moment, when his guard was down, and finally it had come.
“So I’m wondering…would it have been hard to tell me yourself?” she asked him. She closed the book and drew her knees into her chest, trying to look casual but sure she was failing miserably.
Remus looked over, confused for only a moment before shrugging his shoulder.
“I don’t know. Somehow, it seemed easier if Sirius told you.” There was tiredness in his face that she had become accustomed to - he seemed to wear it more often these days.
“I already knew.”
“That’s what Sirius said. I had expected that much. You are an Auror, after all.”
“Doesn’t change anything,” she told him.
“Hmm?” He was looking at his books again.
“Doesn’t change how I think about you.”
“May I inquire as to what you think about me?” he asked, eyes not lifting from the page he was staring at.
“You’re a nice man. A good man. Very polite, and always generally caring about others - far more than you should, really.”
“Really now?” he asked, glancing up at her with an amused look on his face.
“Yeah. You don’t owe Dung shit.”
At this he laughed, leaning back into his chair and looking up at the ceiling. “I think you’re right. About Dung, that is. I’m not sure I’m any of those other things.”
“Why do you say that?” she asked. He shook his head.
“I’m polite, I’ll admit that. And I try hard to be nice - don’t want anyone having reason to dislike me. But I’m not entirely sure I’m you’re right on all accounts…” He sighs. “But at least your opinion of me is reasonable, in some respects.”
“You’re very hard on yourself,” she told him. He sighed again, and she watched his shoulders - so prominent through the thin material of his worn jumper - rise and fall as he inhaled and exhaled.
“Someone has to be.” There, that tight smile on his face.
“That makes no sense.”
He smiled and she smiled back, unsure of what she was getting herself into.
“Do you think Sirius would hate us if we told him to cut his hair?” he asked and she laughed, the matter at hand forgotten in light of the shaggy-haired convict inhabiting the Master bedroom, and while she did not forgive him for changing the subject, she learned that things were never easy with Remus John Lupin.
…
The next morning, she wakes up with a hangover and a horrible case of shame. It’s invisible but there, sleeping on the pillow next to her and resting it’s head on her shoulder when she looks in the mirror, hair limper and darker than usual, and it won’t leave her skin no matter how hard she scrubs. She’s not sure what she’s ashamed of anymore.
“You,” she tells Rowena at breakfast, “are a horrible influence.”
Rowena looks confused, and so Tonks sits down at the table in their tiny kitchen, flicking her wand and pouring herself some tea. “I did something stupid last night.”
“I did something too, except it wasn’t stupid it was brilliant and I am satisfied,” Rowena says with a smile, but Tonks can’t look.
“I stumbled into the ex accidentally,” she says, “on my way home. I think he thinks I’m a slag, now.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Rowena says. “It’s not like you’re still together. You can shag anyone you like.”
“But that’s just it,” Tonks says. “I’m not someone that shags just anyone, and I know he knows that.”
“Like I said,” Rowena repeats, taking a sip of tea, “it’s not like you’re still together. You can do whatever you like now.”
Tonks narrows her eyes, glaring at her tea because while Rowena’s right, she’s also very wrong. Remus left her, but that doesn’t mean he’s not still there, somewhere, in her heart. She had thought she was getting better but, coming face to face with him and seeing something that had to be disappointment in his eyes, she knows she’s worse off than she was before. Then, she could hate him for using her and love him for being a foolish martyr, but now, she’s not sure if she hates herself more than she hates him for the mess he has made, if it will linger or fade. Shame and confusion grow with each inhalation.
Rowena is reading a book, turning the pages and immediately she sees another hand, this once lightly caressing the pages and bending the corners over gently because they are not his and he does not treat the property of others carelessly. She squeezes her eyes shut and concludes she is not hungover but in fact still drunk. Either that, or going slowly crazy.
An owl lands on the windowsill, a Hogwarts owl by the look of it, and Tonks isn’t at all surprised to see her name, and an invitation to tea from McGonagall. It is a thinly-veiled message which means Dumbledore will be gone tonight, and an Order Member or two should be present to patrol the halls.
She hopes her partner won’t be Remus. She excuses herself, and writes back, saying that she will be there at 8pm sharp. There is no reply. Rowena and the others are out patrolling, and she has an early shift tomorrow, so there is no one to hear her carefully-rehearsed excuses.
…
The halls of Hogwarts are always so imposing, the vaults above her are so strong and adept at holding out the darkness of night but she wonders if they can hold evil at bay, protect the students in their common rooms who are writing last-minute essays and playing Exploding Snap.
She is becoming more and more cynical with each passing day, which is not a good thing when she remembers how bitter Sirius was in the end. Bitterness can lead to madness, something else that runs in the family. She pulls Dumbledore’s Invisibility Cloak around her just a bit tighter around her shoulders. It will not dwell to do on thoughts such as these.
She remembers her days here well, days spent in the company of Charlie and Bill Wealsey and other Gryffindors she doesn’t talk to anymore. She remembers the cruel looks she’d get from the Slytherins, who knew her bloodline better than she and the weird looks she got when she’d accidentally morph in class. She had a good time at Hogwarts, in the years after the war when there wasn’t so much terror as there was rejoicing. She wishes the children attending Hogwarts now had the same luck.
Her mind, despite remembering happier times, cycles back to the look in Remus’ face, the presumption that she had slept with another man and - oh - that ridiculous indiscretion she barely remembers, she was that drunk. It makes her feel worse, not remembering the entirety of what happened though she does remember the man whispering Dora against her neck and she felt like her heart was ripped in two, the places she’d patch together after Remus left bleeding anew in the dark of the strange apartment.
He was here, once. Twice, actually, seven years of school and then that one very bad year. She wonders what he did in those carefree days when he was young, wonders if he smiled more, wonders about the girls that he kissed and his secret dreams in Gryffindor Tower. To think that only years and stone walls separated their childhoods and she knows, most definitely, she did not dream of him or men like him when she was young, but wonders if he dreamed of girls like her and decides that yes, maybe, maybe not. It’s all useless wondering, aimless nostalgia right now, thoughts designed to remind her of the shame she’s feeling like some bizarre form of penance.
She can’t handle it anymore, and leans against the wall, the cloak slipping from her grip and balling at her feet. She hates herself more and more with each passing second, and she wants to run and tell Remus that it was all a mistake, she was drunk but then she’ll get that look again and why does it matter? She is nothing to him, nothing but a shag anyway and fuck, she hears footsteps. She turns and raises her wand.
Ginny Weasely is coming down the hall, carrying a pile of books. She stops, mid-step, then says “What’s that thing you can do with your nose?”
Tonks laughs, and then starts to morph her nose so that it’s long and beaklike, then short and scrunched-up like a pig’s, and Ginny’s posture relaxes.
“What did I teach you last summer?” Tonks asks.
“That throwing dungbomb’s at the door would let me know about Imperturable charms,” Ginny answers. She smiles and draws closer. “What are you doing here? Order work?”
Tonks nods, looking around. “I should be invisible -” she holds up the cloak that McGonagall gave her earlier - “but…how’s it going, Ginny?”
She’d feel guilty about betraying Dumbledore’s directive that she remain hidden, but she’s beyond giving a shit what he thinks anymore, most of the time at least. Were it not for the fact that McGonagall expects much of her, she doesn’t think she’d be here tonight (she would never let her former Head-of-House down).
Ginny sighs. “Shit, actually. It’s almost curfew, isn’t it?”
Tonks has totally forgotten the time, but she assumes it has to be that late and says “We better get you back.”
They fall into step and while it’s nice to see Ginny, Tonks can almost feel the tension coming in waves off the teenager like a botched spell and asks, “Shit, huh?”
Ginny nods. “Can I ask you something?”
“Ask away,” Tonks replies, looking ahead for other students and danger.
“Did you ever have this friend - a boy, who’s a friend - and one day you realized that things weren’t as easy as you thought and that you might like him?” She kicks the floor with the toe of her shoes, and looks six, not sixteen, just for a moment.
Tonks’ stomach clenches. Yes, that’s happened before.
“Yes,” Tonks says. “It’s happened to me once or twice.”
“Did you do anything about it?”
“I’m shit with men, Ginny,” Tonks says, a bit angrily and then recovers. “Aren’t you dating some kid named Dean or something like that?”
Ginny pauses for a moment, glancing over at her. “I take it Fred and George told everyone.”
“Bill told me,” Tonks says with a smile, and Ginny frowns, just a bit.
“Yeah, I’m dating Dean but…there’s this other boy, and I like him. We’ve been friends for a while and now, it’s just…I think he’s looking at me differently. And I want him to keep doing that for.”
She can remember exactly when the look in Remus’ eyes changed to something else entirely, the way his body would arch away from her and yet lean forward, shoulders tense and straight but neck bending towards her. She remembers it clearly because she, like Ginny, spent nights dissecting it, wondering if his actions had secret meanings and if his words were really coded and saying I want you. She remembers it well, when things were easier and she didn’t feel so old and sad, when there was nothing but smiles and the feeling of happiness wrapping itself around your bones.
She wonders if Ginny’s talking about Harry, remembers the conversations in Grimmauld Place about Ginny’s childhood crush, and Sirius later saying that Potters always love the redheads (allegedly James Potter’s mom had auburn hair) and hopes that maybe it’s true, because Harry could use something nice in his life right now.
“The question, Ginny,” Tonks says, “is whether or not Harry feels the same way about you.”
“I think he might fancy me,” Ginny says, then stops. “Oh. Good one, Tonks.”
“I learned from the best,” she says. “Your brother Charlie. That’s how he found out stuff about me.” She misses her friend now, and wishes that she could see him, for there is much to tell and he always had a shoulder to cry on, just for her.
“Thinking about Sirius again?” she asks, catching Tonks off guard.
“What? Sirius?” Tonks asks and Ginny’s confused as well.
“Harry said you miss Sirius…” Ginny says and Tonks shrugs. Harry said something similar to her during her last patrol, and she realizes she must be the popular topic at the dinner table here.
“Not really,” Tonks admits. “I mean, no more than anyone else.” It’s the truth - she’s sad Sirius is dead, but one year back doesn’t replace all the years absent. There’s been too much loss for all the sadness and anger to be channeled on one person.
“Oh,” Ginny says, and Tonks watches her process this information carefully.
“I better leave you here,” Tonks says at the staircases. Ginny nods. “And…just give it time. Men are especially messed-up creatures and it’s no use pushing them.” She’s learned this the hard way, and feels like she might as well spare Ginny some of the bruises and pain.
Ginny nods again, and says “Thanks. I miss your pink hair,” before running up the stairs, a blur of red darting between the changing staircases.
“So do I,” Tonks replies. She slips her cloak back on, realizing she has three more hours of patrol and three more hours to wander these halls with nothing to think about but how much of a fuck-up she is.
Author: jadeddiva
Pairing: Remus Lupin/Nymphadora Tonks
Rating: STRONG PG-13
Summary: She has nothing save a weariness that rests on her shoulders from hours of work and little sleep, and a sour taste in the back of her mouth, a bitterness she has never tasted before. January - June 1997 in the life of Nymphadora Tonks.
January | February | March | April | May | June
there's always a siren
singing you to shipwreck.
(don't reach out, don't reach out)
steer away from these rocks
we'd be a walking disaster.
(don't reach out, don't reach out)
there there
we are accidents
waiting waiting to happen.
- Radiohead, "There There"
One night, limbs lazy and sated after lovemaking, his fingers slowly tracing circles on her ribcage, he said “I never thought I’d be here.”
“Here?” she asked. She wasn’t sure if he meant here, now, in the present or here living and breathing or here in Grimmauld Place, and she was not willing to gamble. Assumptions and gut-reactions were often inadequate for gauging the situation when Remus was involved, she had learned. Instead, she looked at shapes hidden in the wallpaper and waited for his answer.
“Yes,” he said. “Here. In this moment. I never thought I’d be lucky enough to have this, being…what I am, and all.” The last words are a sigh which pulls her closer with the movement of his body.
“This?” she asked, eyes meeting his brown ones before he looked away.
“Here, with you. A woman like you - I never dreamed there would ever be a woman like you in my life.”
“I’m nothing special,” she told him, but he smiled.
“You may not see it, but you are,” he said, lips moving against her cheek. He placed a kiss to her forehead, his hand traveling down to rest on the small of her back. “You have many admirable qualities.”
“How very nice of you to see that,” she said, and he laughed.
“I don’t mean to sound so foolish. I just…I don’t think words can adequately describe how much you mean to me.”
She smiled, her lips echoing the grin on his face. “A woman like me, huh?”
“Yes. Just like you.”
…
She sips some bubby drink that Rowena’s placed in her hand. It takes like lemon and something sweeter and it’s not until she swallows that she can taste the alcohol.
It was Rowena’s idea to go out and chat up some guys. They had the night off, and they were young, and fighting Dementors and patrolling Hogsmeade and Hogwarts was hard, hard work. It’s more than just going out and drinking, though, and Tonks knows it.
“I’m tired of this shit,” Rowena had said earlier, blowing smoke from her fag into the cold air of Hogsmeade. “I’m tired of being here, every day, and knowing that every day may be my last. I mean, I bloody well knew what I was getting into when I joined, but I just - I never thought it would come to this, again.” She paused. “I lost an aunt and uncle in the first war.”
“Everyone lost someone,” Tonks said softly, pulling her cloak tighter around her shoulders as if to ward off the pointed look from Rowena, who seemed to now realize that if anyone was affected by the war, it was definitely Nymphadora Tonks.
She doesn’t remember Regulus that well because, like the rest of the family, he snubbed her mother, and the memories she has of Sirius Before Azkaban are strikingly different than the ones of Sirius After Azkaban. And as for Bellatrix - she doesn’t want to think about her.
She sips her drink, eyes searching the room for a face she knows she won’t find. She doesn’t know why she hopes that maybe, tonight, he’ll be here, because that’s stupid - he’s underground, and they’re at a Muggle bar. Maybe it’s a good thing, she thinks, because she doesn’t know what she’d say anyway (because everything she thinks she wants to tell him she knows won’t come out when she does see him again).
Rowena’s chatting up some cute Muggle, looking happy and flirtatious and Tonks knows she just wants someone to shag tonight. She understands where Rowena’s coming from, though she’s never been one for one night stands. There’s sex and then there’s sex and she’d rather have it with someone who wants to be with her than someone who wants a fuck. The weariness in her shoulders is spreading to the back and numbness drips down across her chest like an ice cube on a hot summer day. She had hoped that coming here, tonight, would ward away the gloom but it’s not working - at least, not yet.
Soon, Rowena pulls her into conversation with two Muggle men, and she finds herself eyeing the one with brown hair and brown eyes and similar features to someone she should not be thinking about and then, he buys her a drink. They do shots, and he calls her Dora and he’s kissing her neck and he looks so much like him that she just wants to give in.
The numbness is fading and becoming giggly excitement, his lips managing to thaw some of the coldness and she feels a bit weird but at the same time, it’s nice to just feel something for a change. Before she knows it, she’s in his flat, and they’re, oh, he’s kissing her, and she’s never been the girl for a quick shag before but she keeps thinking it is so nice to feel desired because it’s been so long. But he’s nowhere near as good as him , in fact it’s probably not good because it’s not what she really wants which is him and she feels empty so she bites her lip and fakes it because she’s worried she might cry.
She lies in the bed for ten, twenty, thirty minutes, shivering because the window is open and she’s too sick to move. The man is asleep face down beside her. She steps on the condom as she gets out of bed, and if she wasn’t so disgusted with herself she’d be disgusted more but what’s the use? She’s already dirty. She dresses quickly, wipes away a tear, and sneaks out to Disapparate in the alley.
She’s not sure where to go, because home doesn’t sound inviting and she knows that Arthur’s got to work late tonight for the Order, so Molly should be up. It’s not even one in the morning but her head is throbbing and she could use a cup of tea.
The Burrow glows warm and bright, the lights from inside casting a soothing glow on the snow around the house. She’s shaky from the alcohol and something that might be shock or could just be embarrassment. Molly will ask questions, she realizes suddenly, and she’s not so sure this is what she wants, Molly Weasley acting like a mother after she’s just gone and done something ridiculous and before she knows it the door swings open and she stumbles backwards into the snow.
“Fuck,” she mutters, and there’s a hand reaching down for her. She glances up, then freezes.
“Fuck,” she repeats, pushing herself up and ignoring Remus’ hand. She brushes the snow off, and realizes what a wreck she must look like - large marks on her neck, and she’s fairly sure she reeks of sex, alcohol, and fags and oh, god, her hair and she can't exactly morph it away in front of him...
She raises her eyes to meet his, her body shaking from the shock and the cold and the alcohol.
This is the first time they have seen each other since November, and the circumstances are rather shitty.
He can smell it, or smell something at least, because the small smile he had earlier has curled into a frown, and there’s something in his eyes that she can’t read and doesn’t want to.
“Have fun tonight?” he asks, his voice cold as the snow that’s gotten into her boots.
No. Nononononono he will not pull this shit with her, not now after what he did, what he continues to do. She gathers up her dignity and courage and turns away from him, taking few steps towards the Apparation point.
“What does it matter to you?” she asks, looking over her shoulder and taking a shaky step. “It’s not like you’re in love with me or anything.”
His mouth opens, but she Disapparates before he can speak.
…
She waited two days, after the kitchen discussion with Sirius, to tell Remus that she knew. They were in the library, Remus and a book, her and a wizard crossword puzzles. She had been waiting for the right moment, when his guard was down, and finally it had come.
“So I’m wondering…would it have been hard to tell me yourself?” she asked him. She closed the book and drew her knees into her chest, trying to look casual but sure she was failing miserably.
Remus looked over, confused for only a moment before shrugging his shoulder.
“I don’t know. Somehow, it seemed easier if Sirius told you.” There was tiredness in his face that she had become accustomed to - he seemed to wear it more often these days.
“I already knew.”
“That’s what Sirius said. I had expected that much. You are an Auror, after all.”
“Doesn’t change anything,” she told him.
“Hmm?” He was looking at his books again.
“Doesn’t change how I think about you.”
“May I inquire as to what you think about me?” he asked, eyes not lifting from the page he was staring at.
“You’re a nice man. A good man. Very polite, and always generally caring about others - far more than you should, really.”
“Really now?” he asked, glancing up at her with an amused look on his face.
“Yeah. You don’t owe Dung shit.”
At this he laughed, leaning back into his chair and looking up at the ceiling. “I think you’re right. About Dung, that is. I’m not sure I’m any of those other things.”
“Why do you say that?” she asked. He shook his head.
“I’m polite, I’ll admit that. And I try hard to be nice - don’t want anyone having reason to dislike me. But I’m not entirely sure I’m you’re right on all accounts…” He sighs. “But at least your opinion of me is reasonable, in some respects.”
“You’re very hard on yourself,” she told him. He sighed again, and she watched his shoulders - so prominent through the thin material of his worn jumper - rise and fall as he inhaled and exhaled.
“Someone has to be.” There, that tight smile on his face.
“That makes no sense.”
He smiled and she smiled back, unsure of what she was getting herself into.
“Do you think Sirius would hate us if we told him to cut his hair?” he asked and she laughed, the matter at hand forgotten in light of the shaggy-haired convict inhabiting the Master bedroom, and while she did not forgive him for changing the subject, she learned that things were never easy with Remus John Lupin.
…
The next morning, she wakes up with a hangover and a horrible case of shame. It’s invisible but there, sleeping on the pillow next to her and resting it’s head on her shoulder when she looks in the mirror, hair limper and darker than usual, and it won’t leave her skin no matter how hard she scrubs. She’s not sure what she’s ashamed of anymore.
“You,” she tells Rowena at breakfast, “are a horrible influence.”
Rowena looks confused, and so Tonks sits down at the table in their tiny kitchen, flicking her wand and pouring herself some tea. “I did something stupid last night.”
“I did something too, except it wasn’t stupid it was brilliant and I am satisfied,” Rowena says with a smile, but Tonks can’t look.
“I stumbled into the ex accidentally,” she says, “on my way home. I think he thinks I’m a slag, now.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Rowena says. “It’s not like you’re still together. You can shag anyone you like.”
“But that’s just it,” Tonks says. “I’m not someone that shags just anyone, and I know he knows that.”
“Like I said,” Rowena repeats, taking a sip of tea, “it’s not like you’re still together. You can do whatever you like now.”
Tonks narrows her eyes, glaring at her tea because while Rowena’s right, she’s also very wrong. Remus left her, but that doesn’t mean he’s not still there, somewhere, in her heart. She had thought she was getting better but, coming face to face with him and seeing something that had to be disappointment in his eyes, she knows she’s worse off than she was before. Then, she could hate him for using her and love him for being a foolish martyr, but now, she’s not sure if she hates herself more than she hates him for the mess he has made, if it will linger or fade. Shame and confusion grow with each inhalation.
Rowena is reading a book, turning the pages and immediately she sees another hand, this once lightly caressing the pages and bending the corners over gently because they are not his and he does not treat the property of others carelessly. She squeezes her eyes shut and concludes she is not hungover but in fact still drunk. Either that, or going slowly crazy.
An owl lands on the windowsill, a Hogwarts owl by the look of it, and Tonks isn’t at all surprised to see her name, and an invitation to tea from McGonagall. It is a thinly-veiled message which means Dumbledore will be gone tonight, and an Order Member or two should be present to patrol the halls.
She hopes her partner won’t be Remus. She excuses herself, and writes back, saying that she will be there at 8pm sharp. There is no reply. Rowena and the others are out patrolling, and she has an early shift tomorrow, so there is no one to hear her carefully-rehearsed excuses.
…
The halls of Hogwarts are always so imposing, the vaults above her are so strong and adept at holding out the darkness of night but she wonders if they can hold evil at bay, protect the students in their common rooms who are writing last-minute essays and playing Exploding Snap.
She is becoming more and more cynical with each passing day, which is not a good thing when she remembers how bitter Sirius was in the end. Bitterness can lead to madness, something else that runs in the family. She pulls Dumbledore’s Invisibility Cloak around her just a bit tighter around her shoulders. It will not dwell to do on thoughts such as these.
She remembers her days here well, days spent in the company of Charlie and Bill Wealsey and other Gryffindors she doesn’t talk to anymore. She remembers the cruel looks she’d get from the Slytherins, who knew her bloodline better than she and the weird looks she got when she’d accidentally morph in class. She had a good time at Hogwarts, in the years after the war when there wasn’t so much terror as there was rejoicing. She wishes the children attending Hogwarts now had the same luck.
Her mind, despite remembering happier times, cycles back to the look in Remus’ face, the presumption that she had slept with another man and - oh - that ridiculous indiscretion she barely remembers, she was that drunk. It makes her feel worse, not remembering the entirety of what happened though she does remember the man whispering Dora against her neck and she felt like her heart was ripped in two, the places she’d patch together after Remus left bleeding anew in the dark of the strange apartment.
He was here, once. Twice, actually, seven years of school and then that one very bad year. She wonders what he did in those carefree days when he was young, wonders if he smiled more, wonders about the girls that he kissed and his secret dreams in Gryffindor Tower. To think that only years and stone walls separated their childhoods and she knows, most definitely, she did not dream of him or men like him when she was young, but wonders if he dreamed of girls like her and decides that yes, maybe, maybe not. It’s all useless wondering, aimless nostalgia right now, thoughts designed to remind her of the shame she’s feeling like some bizarre form of penance.
She can’t handle it anymore, and leans against the wall, the cloak slipping from her grip and balling at her feet. She hates herself more and more with each passing second, and she wants to run and tell Remus that it was all a mistake, she was drunk but then she’ll get that look again and why does it matter? She is nothing to him, nothing but a shag anyway and fuck, she hears footsteps. She turns and raises her wand.
Ginny Weasely is coming down the hall, carrying a pile of books. She stops, mid-step, then says “What’s that thing you can do with your nose?”
Tonks laughs, and then starts to morph her nose so that it’s long and beaklike, then short and scrunched-up like a pig’s, and Ginny’s posture relaxes.
“What did I teach you last summer?” Tonks asks.
“That throwing dungbomb’s at the door would let me know about Imperturable charms,” Ginny answers. She smiles and draws closer. “What are you doing here? Order work?”
Tonks nods, looking around. “I should be invisible -” she holds up the cloak that McGonagall gave her earlier - “but…how’s it going, Ginny?”
She’d feel guilty about betraying Dumbledore’s directive that she remain hidden, but she’s beyond giving a shit what he thinks anymore, most of the time at least. Were it not for the fact that McGonagall expects much of her, she doesn’t think she’d be here tonight (she would never let her former Head-of-House down).
Ginny sighs. “Shit, actually. It’s almost curfew, isn’t it?”
Tonks has totally forgotten the time, but she assumes it has to be that late and says “We better get you back.”
They fall into step and while it’s nice to see Ginny, Tonks can almost feel the tension coming in waves off the teenager like a botched spell and asks, “Shit, huh?”
Ginny nods. “Can I ask you something?”
“Ask away,” Tonks replies, looking ahead for other students and danger.
“Did you ever have this friend - a boy, who’s a friend - and one day you realized that things weren’t as easy as you thought and that you might like him?” She kicks the floor with the toe of her shoes, and looks six, not sixteen, just for a moment.
Tonks’ stomach clenches. Yes, that’s happened before.
“Yes,” Tonks says. “It’s happened to me once or twice.”
“Did you do anything about it?”
“I’m shit with men, Ginny,” Tonks says, a bit angrily and then recovers. “Aren’t you dating some kid named Dean or something like that?”
Ginny pauses for a moment, glancing over at her. “I take it Fred and George told everyone.”
“Bill told me,” Tonks says with a smile, and Ginny frowns, just a bit.
“Yeah, I’m dating Dean but…there’s this other boy, and I like him. We’ve been friends for a while and now, it’s just…I think he’s looking at me differently. And I want him to keep doing that for.”
She can remember exactly when the look in Remus’ eyes changed to something else entirely, the way his body would arch away from her and yet lean forward, shoulders tense and straight but neck bending towards her. She remembers it clearly because she, like Ginny, spent nights dissecting it, wondering if his actions had secret meanings and if his words were really coded and saying I want you. She remembers it well, when things were easier and she didn’t feel so old and sad, when there was nothing but smiles and the feeling of happiness wrapping itself around your bones.
She wonders if Ginny’s talking about Harry, remembers the conversations in Grimmauld Place about Ginny’s childhood crush, and Sirius later saying that Potters always love the redheads (allegedly James Potter’s mom had auburn hair) and hopes that maybe it’s true, because Harry could use something nice in his life right now.
“The question, Ginny,” Tonks says, “is whether or not Harry feels the same way about you.”
“I think he might fancy me,” Ginny says, then stops. “Oh. Good one, Tonks.”
“I learned from the best,” she says. “Your brother Charlie. That’s how he found out stuff about me.” She misses her friend now, and wishes that she could see him, for there is much to tell and he always had a shoulder to cry on, just for her.
“Thinking about Sirius again?” she asks, catching Tonks off guard.
“What? Sirius?” Tonks asks and Ginny’s confused as well.
“Harry said you miss Sirius…” Ginny says and Tonks shrugs. Harry said something similar to her during her last patrol, and she realizes she must be the popular topic at the dinner table here.
“Not really,” Tonks admits. “I mean, no more than anyone else.” It’s the truth - she’s sad Sirius is dead, but one year back doesn’t replace all the years absent. There’s been too much loss for all the sadness and anger to be channeled on one person.
“Oh,” Ginny says, and Tonks watches her process this information carefully.
“I better leave you here,” Tonks says at the staircases. Ginny nods. “And…just give it time. Men are especially messed-up creatures and it’s no use pushing them.” She’s learned this the hard way, and feels like she might as well spare Ginny some of the bruises and pain.
Ginny nods again, and says “Thanks. I miss your pink hair,” before running up the stairs, a blur of red darting between the changing staircases.
“So do I,” Tonks replies. She slips her cloak back on, realizing she has three more hours of patrol and three more hours to wander these halls with nothing to think about but how much of a fuck-up she is.