Transfigured Hearts Update: Out of the Ashes (5/6)
Title: Out Of the Ashes (5/6)
Author: MrsTater
Rating: R
Pairing: Remus Lupin/Nymphadora Tonks
Summary: Dumbledore is dead, but as Remus and Tonks learned in the wake of Sirius' death, the most fitting tribute they can pay him is to allow their love to resurrect from the ashes of battle. There are so many pieces to pick up, scattered so far. But after the pain of separation, finding their way back together brings relief even in the midst of such great loss.
Part One | Part Two | Part Three | Part Four
This story follows Then Face To Face in the Transfigured Hearts series, and is set between chapters twenty-nine and thirty of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. Many thanks to Godricgal for her unflagging support, and for her incredibly thoughtful, thorough beta work.
Part Five
"Look alive, Lupin!"
At Mad-Eye's growl from the train compartment door behind him, Remus snapped to alertness, flicked his wand toward the window, and tried to arrange his face into the expression of a man who hadn't been caught brooding when he was supposed to be securing the Hogwarts Express for tomorrow's journey back to King's Cross. But Mad-Eye hadn't become the best Auror of the age because he was easily fooled. His magical eye, bulging from the craggy face, seemed almost to glow as it scrutinised Remus.
"We finished here, then?" Mad-Eye asked.
Remus nodded. Mad-Eye stepped sideways into the aisle, wooden leg clomping on the floor, allowing Remus room to emerge from the compartment.
"Yes," Remus said, and nodded again, trying to clear his mental fog. "We'd best move on to the school. I apologise, Alastor, for this taking longer than I had anticipated. It's my fault. I am..." To avoid that penetrating gaze, he allowed his eyes to drift over Mad-Eye's grizzled head. But he still felt the magical eye locked on him.
"Preoccupied," Mad-Eye supplied the elusive vocabulary.
Remus sighed, and leant back against the compartment wall behind him. "Yes."
For the first time since he'd known Alastor Moody, both eyes glanced down at the floor. The retired Auror looked like an old wizard as he shifted his feet, fingers clutching his walking stick self-consciously.
"I, er..." Mad-Eye looked up suddenly and continued gruffly, "Dumbledore passing's hard on all of us, but for some more than others. I know he meant--"
"It's not Dumbledore," Remus interrupted, and thought that if only he weren't so preoccupied, this really would be a red-letter day; he'd never seen Mad-Eye looked surprised before, either.
He stepped around the older wizard and strode down the aisle toward the front of the train, Mad-Eye hmphing and thumping in a fair imitation of the Weird Sisters' drummer as he followed.
No, it wasn't grief that had hampered Remus' work.
Emerging from the train, Remus turned his head, squinting, and raised a hand against the glaring noon light. His eyes had smarted as sharply last night when, after their bath that had turned into so much more than a soak in the tub, Tonks, wrapped in a towel, had staggered on sluggish limbs to the vanity and flicked on the two lamps either side of the mirror.
She'd studied her face for just a moment, still wearing a sleepy, satisfied grin. From the bathtub, where Remus had not moved a muscle since she disengaged herself from his arms, he admired her skin -- wet and shining in the flickering light from the low burning candles, soft from the steamy water and flushed from their passion. He'd never seen her face more radiant: so young and happy and, for the first time in months, peaceful...
Then, quite suddenly, the glow had been extinguished. Even now, the next day, the image of her face had not faded from Remus' mind's eye. He clearly pictured her pretty features drawn into sharp lines. Her eyebrows sloped, forehead furrowed between them. Dark eyes hardened. Lips pursed. Jaw clinched.
Remus' heart had stopped as he sat up in the tub, and he'd forgotten to breathe. Knuckles had turned white as his fingers clutched the edge, mirroring Tonks' stance at the sink. His muscles had tensed with the same effort Tonks put into morphing.
Or trying to morph. Always before there been that look of concentration when she morphed, that twitch of effort...But last night her taut, white lips had parted to reveal clenched teeth. She'd never tried so hard.
And not a hair on her head had so much as flickered colour.
Guilt stabbed at Remus' heart. Had it had been like this for Tonks that first day she discovered she couldn't morph? Had she known the cause? The thought of her alone in her flat, bewildered, frightened...Remus' chest had constricted, and his lungs burned; he'd ached with the need to comfort her, to make up for all the times he'd failed to be there for her. But as he'd tried to push himself into a standing position, his muscles and joints seemed locked in place as Tonks' features were. When he’d tried to say her name, his voice lodged as a hard knot in his throat.
Then, just when Remus had thought they would both collapse under the strain, Tonks' small frame wilted. As though released from Petrificus Totalis, Remus had suddenly snapped into motion.
"Nymphadora," he'd croaked, fumbling to wrap a towel around his waist as he stood.
Blinking at him, Tonks had smiled faintly. "S'okay, Remus. Just been a long day. We should go to bed."
She'd bent then, to rummage through a drawer for some toiletry item, as Remus cast about for some way to re-open the door she'd shut with false reassurance. It had come to him as Tonks, muttering about how she was always losing her bloody hand crème, opened another drawer. Remus, coming to stand behind her, had glanced over her shoulder into it and saw her cauldron, an assortment of phials and jars crammed inside. He'd noticed them the earlier in the night, whilst snooping about for bubble bath and candles, and suspected what they were, but had been too flustered by the strange idea that such things would be kept so familiarly alongside Tonks' hygiene and beauty supplies.
"What are you doing in there?" Tonks asked a pink bottle with a fancy top as she’d plucked it from the collection of medicinal items. "I swear to Merlin, this hand crème's bewitched to switch drawers."
She'd started to shut it, but Remus caught her hand. It wasn't the ideal way to get back to Tonks' morphing issues -- indeed, he had not been sure how it would lead back to it at all -- but at the moment, he'd been at a loss to think of anything else. At least she could be thankful she did not have his affliction, he'd thought, considering the ironic opposition of their shape-shifting issues; his changing body would always be an affliction, and while he knew Tonks loss of control affected her keenly, she'd not lost her fundamental self, as he did each time the moon waxed full.
"Are those the ingredients?" he'd asked, hoarsely, and Tonks had looked at him, askance. "Are those things for...my Wolfsbane Potion?"
"Oh!" Recognition had dawned on Tonks' face then, and suddenly Remus found himself losing control of the discussion as she pushed him back away, setting her hand crème on the countertop, and fished into the cauldron for a phial.
"Yes, these are the Wolfsbane things, and there's stuff like aconite in here, so please, please be careful, Remus. Don't stumble in here at night looking for something for a headache. In fact..."
A flick of her wand had conjured a label for the previously nondescript bottle, emblazoned with bold, red capitals: "DANGER! KEEP OUT OF REACH OF WEREWOLVES!"
Her peals of mirth had echoed off the bathroom walls and tiled floor, and Remus, though he had not meant to distract her with jokes, was unable to stop his laughter from ringing out, mingling with hers, as much with amusement at the joke as with joy to hear her laugh again.
When they'd got into bed, however, cuddling and caressing and kissing had been brief affairs. Before a few minutes passed, Tonks had rolled onto her side, away from him, and Remus had lain on his back, staring up into the dark as his stomach tied itself in knots. Tonks could give him what he needed to face his problem with a smile...but he had not yet found the formula that could put hers to right.
He'd barely slept, for fretting over it; and if Tonks' tossing and turning were any indication, she hadn’t either. But though wakeful, there was no attempt at discussion. What was to be said?
Worse, this morning they'd spoken only of their day's duties, and Tonks left for work without another attempt at morphing.
"Remus." Mad-Eye's gravelly voice beckoned him out of his musing, back to the platform at the Hogsmeade Station.
"It's Tonks," Remus blurted. "We've reconciled, but she still...She has not regained her ability to Metamorphose."
As Mad-Eye regarded him, magical eye boring into him, Remus tried to work out what in Merlin's name had possessed him to bare his soul to Alastor Moody. Was there anything more un-vigilant than airing one's laundry on a job?
Mad-Eye responded, "Always harder to fix things than to break them."
Nodding ruefully, Remus shoved his hands into his trouser pockets and, shoulders hunched, started down the platform toward the road to the school.
"But it's not because you miss that daft hair," Mad-Eye commented, falling into syncopated step with Remus.
"I do miss it," Remus retorted, a defensive edge creeping into his voice as his insides clenched at the criticism of his favourite coif. "It's unconventional, but pink suits her." But his conviction was carried away when as a bitter wave of realisation struck that the last time Tonks had been unwaveringly pink had been the night they'd talked about getting married.
Mad-Eye grunted. "You don't think she completely trusts you."
"I thought sorting things..." Remus caught himself. He'd known it couldn't be so simple. He'd known it would take time. He heaved a great sigh, and shook his head. "How can she? After an entire year of my--"
"She will," Mad-Eye interrupted, catching Remus' shoulder as he halted on the top step of the platform. "You're a trustworthy man. Always have been."
Even as Remus squelched an odd desire to laugh at the absurdity of Mad-Eye encouraging him about his love life, everything inside Remus loosened, and his mind cleared. He thanked the wizened Auror, then said, "Let's get those Hogwarts grounds secure, shall we?"
"Lead on, Lupin," Mad-Eye said, clomping down the steps behind him.
Shortly after Remus and Mad-Eye set to work casting extra security spells around the lakeside area designated as the funeral grounds, they were startled to hear an unexpected greeting.
"Wotcher, gents!"
Turning, they saw Tonks striding purposely toward them between the two sections of chairs, scarlet Auror robes sweeping proudly behind like a flag unfurling. She carried something in both hands; as she neared, Remus identified them as two bottles of pumpkin juice.
"You're not on duty here today," Mad-Eye said.
"Very well, thanks, and how do you do?" Tonks deadpanned, cutting gleeful eyes up at Remus -- which loosened one of his anxious knots of worry over the awkward, quiet morning. "I requested Robards to send me here for the afternoon. You know, because it's a hot day and I thought you pair could use a cool drink -- and so there'll be a professional here making sure things get done properly."
Her cheeky grin became a wild-eyed look as she caught her foot on the front corner chair and went sprawling. She crashed to the ground, knees punching into the grass, too quickly for Remus to make a leap to catch her and before the Cushioning Charm Mad-Eye shouted could take effect. With her hands occupied and not able to catch her, she landed off-balance and pitched forward. As Remus braced himself for the inevitable sound of crunching glass, he was hit with a strange sense of déjà vu as Tonks somehow managed to cradle them so that they remained intact.
His train of thought careened back in time to the day it had all begun.
The dreary back garden of number twelve, Grimmauld Place...A blur of pink hair and purple t-shirt as Tonks clattered down the porch steps...Banter over Butterbeer... "I've got a feeling you fancy me," her sweet voice whispered in his mind. "Ask me for a date...Just one date. You'll never know how it would be if you don't try."
Blinking back to the here and now, Remus grinned down at Tonks, splayed on the grass. "A professional what?" he asked, reaching down for the bottles, then handed them to Mad-Eye as he thumped up behind. "Circus--"
"If you end that with clown," Tonks interrupted, scowling, yet accepting Remus' hand up, "I'll hex you to next week."
"--performer," Remus finished. "I was going to say performer. Which would include acrobats."
"Crap acrobats, if they're doing what I just did."
"Been a fair few months since you did what you just did," Mad-Eye observed, magical eye roving over Tonks, settling on her hand that Remus was still holding. Remus caught her other hand and turned them palms up to inspect them for scratches. They were only streaked with dirt and grass stains.
"That's because Remus was away for a fair few months," she replied. "He throws my equilibrium right off." Tonks pulled her hands from his grasp and wiped her palms on the legs of her jeans. "Bugger it," she muttered, when she spied a small tear in the denim.
"But I thought ripped jeans were in?" Remus said. She shot him a totally unconvincing glare that told him she knew exactly what memory he referred to. Lips twitching against a smile, he said, "Now, Nymphadora--"
"Don't call me Nymphadora, Remus!"
"--just because you were looking at me," he went on, pleasantly, "and not at where you were walking, does not mean your acrobatic feats are my fault."
"Of course not," Tonks said huffily. "That's giving you far too much credit when the problem is simply that I lack acrobatic feet."
Mad-Eye made a raspy sound in his throat that might have been a laugh. "Glad to see you getting back to normal," he said to the young Auror -- but his eyes were on Remus.
"Normal bossy, you mean?" Tonks said, with a devilish but a pleased look in her eyes. "Give one of those juices to Remus, Mad-Eye, and drink up, both of you." She clipped her fingers. "Quickly! We've a lot of work to do."
With three of them to set the security spells, they made up for the time Remus and Mad-Eye had lost on the Hogwarts Express. Even so, the sun hung low and large in the horizon, hazy golden beams casting long shadows, by the time they reached the last unprotected section near the tomb. Tonks' and Remus' stomachs seemed to be taking turns doing noisy impersonations of Mad-Eye's grumbling.
"Empty stomach's no good for vigilance," said the retired Auror. "You two go on -- I'll finish up here."
"We can soldier on," Tonks said. "It'll only take us a few minutes."
"Don't need three people on this," Mad-Eye argued, dispassionately, eyes on the tomb. "I..."
Comprehension dawned, and Tonks' professional expression softened to one of compassion and sorrow.
"Need to do this myself," Mad-Eye mumbled.
In a bold move, Remus reached out and laid a hand on Mad-Eye's shoulder, mirroring the older wizard's earlier gesture. For once in his life, Mad-Eye did not flinch, wand at the ready, at another's touch.
"We all loved him," said Remus quietly, "but you knew him far longer than most of us. Grief is great."
Characteristically, Mad-Eye responded with a grunt, then stepped away from Remus, wand poised to cast the final round of security spells. Remus knew in his heart, however -- as he had come to know so many things over the past two days -- that Mad-Eye had felt the words, and taken comfort from them.
If only, Remus thought, letting his gaze wander to Tonks' mousy hair as he took her hand, he could do the same for her.
To be continued...
A/N: Just one more, and I solemnly swear to post before the Thanksgiving holiday!
I very much appreciate all your feedback on this fic. This time, reviewers get their choice of comforting Remus: the one who clasps your shoulder and says just the right sympathetic thing; the one who broods because he can't think of the exactly right thing to say; the one who likes to see the bright side and will make jokes to make you laugh; or the one who kisses and cuddles.
Read Part Six
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Author: MrsTater
Rating: R
Pairing: Remus Lupin/Nymphadora Tonks
Summary: Dumbledore is dead, but as Remus and Tonks learned in the wake of Sirius' death, the most fitting tribute they can pay him is to allow their love to resurrect from the ashes of battle. There are so many pieces to pick up, scattered so far. But after the pain of separation, finding their way back together brings relief even in the midst of such great loss.
Part One | Part Two | Part Three | Part Four
This story follows Then Face To Face in the Transfigured Hearts series, and is set between chapters twenty-nine and thirty of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. Many thanks to Godricgal for her unflagging support, and for her incredibly thoughtful, thorough beta work.
Part Five
"Look alive, Lupin!"
At Mad-Eye's growl from the train compartment door behind him, Remus snapped to alertness, flicked his wand toward the window, and tried to arrange his face into the expression of a man who hadn't been caught brooding when he was supposed to be securing the Hogwarts Express for tomorrow's journey back to King's Cross. But Mad-Eye hadn't become the best Auror of the age because he was easily fooled. His magical eye, bulging from the craggy face, seemed almost to glow as it scrutinised Remus.
"We finished here, then?" Mad-Eye asked.
Remus nodded. Mad-Eye stepped sideways into the aisle, wooden leg clomping on the floor, allowing Remus room to emerge from the compartment.
"Yes," Remus said, and nodded again, trying to clear his mental fog. "We'd best move on to the school. I apologise, Alastor, for this taking longer than I had anticipated. It's my fault. I am..." To avoid that penetrating gaze, he allowed his eyes to drift over Mad-Eye's grizzled head. But he still felt the magical eye locked on him.
"Preoccupied," Mad-Eye supplied the elusive vocabulary.
Remus sighed, and leant back against the compartment wall behind him. "Yes."
For the first time since he'd known Alastor Moody, both eyes glanced down at the floor. The retired Auror looked like an old wizard as he shifted his feet, fingers clutching his walking stick self-consciously.
"I, er..." Mad-Eye looked up suddenly and continued gruffly, "Dumbledore passing's hard on all of us, but for some more than others. I know he meant--"
"It's not Dumbledore," Remus interrupted, and thought that if only he weren't so preoccupied, this really would be a red-letter day; he'd never seen Mad-Eye looked surprised before, either.
He stepped around the older wizard and strode down the aisle toward the front of the train, Mad-Eye hmphing and thumping in a fair imitation of the Weird Sisters' drummer as he followed.
No, it wasn't grief that had hampered Remus' work.
Emerging from the train, Remus turned his head, squinting, and raised a hand against the glaring noon light. His eyes had smarted as sharply last night when, after their bath that had turned into so much more than a soak in the tub, Tonks, wrapped in a towel, had staggered on sluggish limbs to the vanity and flicked on the two lamps either side of the mirror.
She'd studied her face for just a moment, still wearing a sleepy, satisfied grin. From the bathtub, where Remus had not moved a muscle since she disengaged herself from his arms, he admired her skin -- wet and shining in the flickering light from the low burning candles, soft from the steamy water and flushed from their passion. He'd never seen her face more radiant: so young and happy and, for the first time in months, peaceful...
Then, quite suddenly, the glow had been extinguished. Even now, the next day, the image of her face had not faded from Remus' mind's eye. He clearly pictured her pretty features drawn into sharp lines. Her eyebrows sloped, forehead furrowed between them. Dark eyes hardened. Lips pursed. Jaw clinched.
Remus' heart had stopped as he sat up in the tub, and he'd forgotten to breathe. Knuckles had turned white as his fingers clutched the edge, mirroring Tonks' stance at the sink. His muscles had tensed with the same effort Tonks put into morphing.
Or trying to morph. Always before there been that look of concentration when she morphed, that twitch of effort...But last night her taut, white lips had parted to reveal clenched teeth. She'd never tried so hard.
And not a hair on her head had so much as flickered colour.
Guilt stabbed at Remus' heart. Had it had been like this for Tonks that first day she discovered she couldn't morph? Had she known the cause? The thought of her alone in her flat, bewildered, frightened...Remus' chest had constricted, and his lungs burned; he'd ached with the need to comfort her, to make up for all the times he'd failed to be there for her. But as he'd tried to push himself into a standing position, his muscles and joints seemed locked in place as Tonks' features were. When he’d tried to say her name, his voice lodged as a hard knot in his throat.
Then, just when Remus had thought they would both collapse under the strain, Tonks' small frame wilted. As though released from Petrificus Totalis, Remus had suddenly snapped into motion.
"Nymphadora," he'd croaked, fumbling to wrap a towel around his waist as he stood.
Blinking at him, Tonks had smiled faintly. "S'okay, Remus. Just been a long day. We should go to bed."
She'd bent then, to rummage through a drawer for some toiletry item, as Remus cast about for some way to re-open the door she'd shut with false reassurance. It had come to him as Tonks, muttering about how she was always losing her bloody hand crème, opened another drawer. Remus, coming to stand behind her, had glanced over her shoulder into it and saw her cauldron, an assortment of phials and jars crammed inside. He'd noticed them the earlier in the night, whilst snooping about for bubble bath and candles, and suspected what they were, but had been too flustered by the strange idea that such things would be kept so familiarly alongside Tonks' hygiene and beauty supplies.
"What are you doing in there?" Tonks asked a pink bottle with a fancy top as she’d plucked it from the collection of medicinal items. "I swear to Merlin, this hand crème's bewitched to switch drawers."
She'd started to shut it, but Remus caught her hand. It wasn't the ideal way to get back to Tonks' morphing issues -- indeed, he had not been sure how it would lead back to it at all -- but at the moment, he'd been at a loss to think of anything else. At least she could be thankful she did not have his affliction, he'd thought, considering the ironic opposition of their shape-shifting issues; his changing body would always be an affliction, and while he knew Tonks loss of control affected her keenly, she'd not lost her fundamental self, as he did each time the moon waxed full.
"Are those the ingredients?" he'd asked, hoarsely, and Tonks had looked at him, askance. "Are those things for...my Wolfsbane Potion?"
"Oh!" Recognition had dawned on Tonks' face then, and suddenly Remus found himself losing control of the discussion as she pushed him back away, setting her hand crème on the countertop, and fished into the cauldron for a phial.
"Yes, these are the Wolfsbane things, and there's stuff like aconite in here, so please, please be careful, Remus. Don't stumble in here at night looking for something for a headache. In fact..."
A flick of her wand had conjured a label for the previously nondescript bottle, emblazoned with bold, red capitals: "DANGER! KEEP OUT OF REACH OF WEREWOLVES!"
Her peals of mirth had echoed off the bathroom walls and tiled floor, and Remus, though he had not meant to distract her with jokes, was unable to stop his laughter from ringing out, mingling with hers, as much with amusement at the joke as with joy to hear her laugh again.
When they'd got into bed, however, cuddling and caressing and kissing had been brief affairs. Before a few minutes passed, Tonks had rolled onto her side, away from him, and Remus had lain on his back, staring up into the dark as his stomach tied itself in knots. Tonks could give him what he needed to face his problem with a smile...but he had not yet found the formula that could put hers to right.
He'd barely slept, for fretting over it; and if Tonks' tossing and turning were any indication, she hadn’t either. But though wakeful, there was no attempt at discussion. What was to be said?
Worse, this morning they'd spoken only of their day's duties, and Tonks left for work without another attempt at morphing.
"Remus." Mad-Eye's gravelly voice beckoned him out of his musing, back to the platform at the Hogsmeade Station.
"It's Tonks," Remus blurted. "We've reconciled, but she still...She has not regained her ability to Metamorphose."
As Mad-Eye regarded him, magical eye boring into him, Remus tried to work out what in Merlin's name had possessed him to bare his soul to Alastor Moody. Was there anything more un-vigilant than airing one's laundry on a job?
Mad-Eye responded, "Always harder to fix things than to break them."
Nodding ruefully, Remus shoved his hands into his trouser pockets and, shoulders hunched, started down the platform toward the road to the school.
"But it's not because you miss that daft hair," Mad-Eye commented, falling into syncopated step with Remus.
"I do miss it," Remus retorted, a defensive edge creeping into his voice as his insides clenched at the criticism of his favourite coif. "It's unconventional, but pink suits her." But his conviction was carried away when as a bitter wave of realisation struck that the last time Tonks had been unwaveringly pink had been the night they'd talked about getting married.
Mad-Eye grunted. "You don't think she completely trusts you."
"I thought sorting things..." Remus caught himself. He'd known it couldn't be so simple. He'd known it would take time. He heaved a great sigh, and shook his head. "How can she? After an entire year of my--"
"She will," Mad-Eye interrupted, catching Remus' shoulder as he halted on the top step of the platform. "You're a trustworthy man. Always have been."
Even as Remus squelched an odd desire to laugh at the absurdity of Mad-Eye encouraging him about his love life, everything inside Remus loosened, and his mind cleared. He thanked the wizened Auror, then said, "Let's get those Hogwarts grounds secure, shall we?"
"Lead on, Lupin," Mad-Eye said, clomping down the steps behind him.
Shortly after Remus and Mad-Eye set to work casting extra security spells around the lakeside area designated as the funeral grounds, they were startled to hear an unexpected greeting.
"Wotcher, gents!"
Turning, they saw Tonks striding purposely toward them between the two sections of chairs, scarlet Auror robes sweeping proudly behind like a flag unfurling. She carried something in both hands; as she neared, Remus identified them as two bottles of pumpkin juice.
"You're not on duty here today," Mad-Eye said.
"Very well, thanks, and how do you do?" Tonks deadpanned, cutting gleeful eyes up at Remus -- which loosened one of his anxious knots of worry over the awkward, quiet morning. "I requested Robards to send me here for the afternoon. You know, because it's a hot day and I thought you pair could use a cool drink -- and so there'll be a professional here making sure things get done properly."
Her cheeky grin became a wild-eyed look as she caught her foot on the front corner chair and went sprawling. She crashed to the ground, knees punching into the grass, too quickly for Remus to make a leap to catch her and before the Cushioning Charm Mad-Eye shouted could take effect. With her hands occupied and not able to catch her, she landed off-balance and pitched forward. As Remus braced himself for the inevitable sound of crunching glass, he was hit with a strange sense of déjà vu as Tonks somehow managed to cradle them so that they remained intact.
His train of thought careened back in time to the day it had all begun.
The dreary back garden of number twelve, Grimmauld Place...A blur of pink hair and purple t-shirt as Tonks clattered down the porch steps...Banter over Butterbeer... "I've got a feeling you fancy me," her sweet voice whispered in his mind. "Ask me for a date...Just one date. You'll never know how it would be if you don't try."
Blinking back to the here and now, Remus grinned down at Tonks, splayed on the grass. "A professional what?" he asked, reaching down for the bottles, then handed them to Mad-Eye as he thumped up behind. "Circus--"
"If you end that with clown," Tonks interrupted, scowling, yet accepting Remus' hand up, "I'll hex you to next week."
"--performer," Remus finished. "I was going to say performer. Which would include acrobats."
"Crap acrobats, if they're doing what I just did."
"Been a fair few months since you did what you just did," Mad-Eye observed, magical eye roving over Tonks, settling on her hand that Remus was still holding. Remus caught her other hand and turned them palms up to inspect them for scratches. They were only streaked with dirt and grass stains.
"That's because Remus was away for a fair few months," she replied. "He throws my equilibrium right off." Tonks pulled her hands from his grasp and wiped her palms on the legs of her jeans. "Bugger it," she muttered, when she spied a small tear in the denim.
"But I thought ripped jeans were in?" Remus said. She shot him a totally unconvincing glare that told him she knew exactly what memory he referred to. Lips twitching against a smile, he said, "Now, Nymphadora--"
"Don't call me Nymphadora, Remus!"
"--just because you were looking at me," he went on, pleasantly, "and not at where you were walking, does not mean your acrobatic feats are my fault."
"Of course not," Tonks said huffily. "That's giving you far too much credit when the problem is simply that I lack acrobatic feet."
Mad-Eye made a raspy sound in his throat that might have been a laugh. "Glad to see you getting back to normal," he said to the young Auror -- but his eyes were on Remus.
"Normal bossy, you mean?" Tonks said, with a devilish but a pleased look in her eyes. "Give one of those juices to Remus, Mad-Eye, and drink up, both of you." She clipped her fingers. "Quickly! We've a lot of work to do."
With three of them to set the security spells, they made up for the time Remus and Mad-Eye had lost on the Hogwarts Express. Even so, the sun hung low and large in the horizon, hazy golden beams casting long shadows, by the time they reached the last unprotected section near the tomb. Tonks' and Remus' stomachs seemed to be taking turns doing noisy impersonations of Mad-Eye's grumbling.
"Empty stomach's no good for vigilance," said the retired Auror. "You two go on -- I'll finish up here."
"We can soldier on," Tonks said. "It'll only take us a few minutes."
"Don't need three people on this," Mad-Eye argued, dispassionately, eyes on the tomb. "I..."
Comprehension dawned, and Tonks' professional expression softened to one of compassion and sorrow.
"Need to do this myself," Mad-Eye mumbled.
In a bold move, Remus reached out and laid a hand on Mad-Eye's shoulder, mirroring the older wizard's earlier gesture. For once in his life, Mad-Eye did not flinch, wand at the ready, at another's touch.
"We all loved him," said Remus quietly, "but you knew him far longer than most of us. Grief is great."
Characteristically, Mad-Eye responded with a grunt, then stepped away from Remus, wand poised to cast the final round of security spells. Remus knew in his heart, however -- as he had come to know so many things over the past two days -- that Mad-Eye had felt the words, and taken comfort from them.
If only, Remus thought, letting his gaze wander to Tonks' mousy hair as he took her hand, he could do the same for her.
To be continued...
A/N: Just one more, and I solemnly swear to post before the Thanksgiving holiday!
I very much appreciate all your feedback on this fic. This time, reviewers get their choice of comforting Remus: the one who clasps your shoulder and says just the right sympathetic thing; the one who broods because he can't think of the exactly right thing to say; the one who likes to see the bright side and will make jokes to make you laugh; or the one who kisses and cuddles.
Read Part Six
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