Prompt #12
Title: Jumping the Broom (1/5)
Author: MrsTater
Format & Word Count: WIP, 4111
Rating: PG-13
Prompt: #12: Never-Ending Road, by Loreena McKennitt (lyrics beneath the cut)
Warnings: paganism, language, original character
Summary: Newly engaged to Remus, Tonks finds the path to the altar fraught with more complications than she imagined. Particularly in the way of friends and family...
Author's Note: Another leap into the future in my Caring For Magical Creatures 'verse, but all you really need to know is that it operates under the premise that Remus and Tonks first met during POA, when Tonks was on assignment during her final year of training, and it's been a bumpy ride for them over the years, to put it mildly. Many thanks to Godricgal for beta-reading.
Never-Ending Road, by Loreena McKennitt
The road now leads onward
As far as can be,
Winding lanes
And hedgerows in threes,
By purple mountains
And round every bend,
All roads lead to you
There is no journey's end.
Deep in the winter
Amidst falling snow,
High in the air
Where the bells they all toll,
And now all around me
I feel you still here --
Such is the journey,
No mystery to fear.
The road now leads onward
And I know not where;
I feel in my heart
That you will be there
Whenever a storm comes,
Whatever our fears.
The journey goes on,
As your love ever nears
Here is my heart, I give it to you,
Take me with you across this land;
These are my dreams, so simple, so few --
Dreams we hold in the palm of our hands
1. Crossing the Threshold
"You have got to start asking security questions when people knock on your door," said Tonks, slipping inside the flat from which her housemate had bellowed an unvigilant Come in!
Desdemona, stood in the open plan kitchen heating a tin of beans with her wand, made a show of rolling her wide brown eyes. "You owled me five minutes ago to say you were on your way. I knew it was you."
Tonks rolled her eyes back as she wriggled out of her boots without bothering to undo the laces. "As if Death Eaters don't forge owls."
She stripped off her robes, and when they slipped off the cloak tree, left them lying in a rumpled heap. They'd be packed up in her rucksack soon enough, anyway. Yanking her tie loose, she undid the top button of her collar.
"Why would sodding Death Eaters come after me?" Des asked, for what had to be the millionth time since the war began. "I'm a Zabini, for bleeding Merlin's sake!"
She flicked her wand over her shoulder at the cooker behind her, and two slices of toast flew from the grill onto a plate.
"And why can't you use the damn Floo like a normal person?" Des asked petulantly, also for the millionth time, though in the much shorter time span of the few days since the new regulations had been handed down from the Department of Magical Transportation.
"Normal people don't use the Floo anymore," Tonks said. "Could you do me some toast? I didn't get lunch. Or dinner."
"Bread's out." Des heaped spoonfuls of steaming beans onto her toast and crammed a large bite into her wide, broad-lipped mouth. "What then? Making one of your statements on social equality by refusing to use the Floo since it's no longer available to all magical folk?"
"Something like that."
Grabbing some bread from the flimsy plastic bag, Tonks managed to gouge a slice with her fingernail. She flung the bread under the hot grill and as she watched it brown, tried not to think about how her cessation to travel via Floo represented her -- the Order's -- growing distrust for the Ministry of Magic. Of course she couldn't quite manage not to, given that it was also the perfect segue into something very important she had to say to Des. Which had a lot to do with her less-than-perky mood, as she'd been brooding over it during every minute of the day she'd been able to spare a thought.
Not every minute, said her heart, and she felt the cold, leaden vice that had been clamped onto it sometime in the course of the last year loosen its grip as warmth bubbled up from deep within. How many of your spare thoughts turned to Remus asking you to marry him last night?
At the tug of a smile at the corners of her mouth, everything in Tonks tightened again as she automatically squelched it. As she'd been forced to all day.
"If you're going to be that careless--"
"Defiant," interrupted Des around another mouthful of beans-on-toast, "not careless. Aren't you always saying fear's how those effing terrorists operate? If I change how I live my life, if I can't even answer my own effing front door without asking some effing stupid security question anyone who's done their homework could answer, then they've won, haven't they? I know you're his protégée and all, but if you really want to put these Death Eater bastards in their place, you won't let yourself turn into Mad-Eye Moody, Junior."
Tonks couldn't stop herself smiling, though she did have to bite her tongue to keep from saying Des would make a damn good Order member. Because Des would make a crap Order member. You had to be willing to stick up two fingers not just to the Death Eaters but to the Ministry, as well. Des might talk like a rebel, but she was too thoroughly Hufflepuff to subvert her government. True, in Hogwarts days she'd helped Tonks plan mischief, but Des never did any mischief herself, earning her reputation for an ability to behave and winning the coveted position of prefect. If only Professor Sprout had known what Des claimed to have got up to in the prefects' bathroom with Charlie Weasley...
"Oi," Des' voice, muffled with food, cut into Tonks' musing. "You might like your bread well-done, but I don't want my flat stinking like burnt toast."
"Damn it!" Tonks aimed her wand at the blackening slices of bread on the smoking grill. "Extinguo!"
The blue flame of the cooker went out. She summoned a knife and began to scrape off the charred layer of her toast. Out the corner of her eye she saw Des' mouth open, most likely to scoff at Tonks' waste-not mentality. Before Des could get a word out, Tonks spoke:
"It's just as well, then, since I am quite as paranoid as Mad-Eye, and I can't make toast without burning it, that I'm moving out."
Des gawped in stunned disbelief, but her hand shot out to catch the bite of toast that fell out, sparing the linoleum from a globby mess of beans.
"Sorry," said Des, giving her head a little shake that rattled the beads at the ends of her cornrow plaits. "I thought you just said you were moving out. What'd you really say?"
"That is what I really said."
Popping her beans-on-toast into her mouth and licking off her fingers, Des let out a strangled laugh. She swallowed, then folded her long, dark arms, so striking against the pale turquoise t-shirt across her chest, half-hiding the slogan: The Tutshill Tornados Give Me a Whirl. The whites of her eyes seemed very prominent as they widened, the brown irises focused as they fixed Tonks with a stare.
"Why?"
Tonks hesitated.
Go on, then. You've been going over your story all day. Or some of the day. When you weren't daydreaming about proposals. You lie to people all the time. And this isn't even really a total lie.
But something in Des' sharp eyes and clipped words said that she knew exactly why, and would call Tonks on bending the truth.
Still, Tonks blurted, "I'm too dangerous for you, Des."
Even if the thin, sculpted eyebrow hadn't raised on Des' high, smooth brown forehead, Tonks would have cringed at the absurdity of that phrase coming out her own mouth.
What in Merlin's name possessed you?
"Too bloody dangerous?" Des snorted. "Did Remus lend you that one?"
Something in Tonks' chest tied itself into a thick, tight knot. "As an Auror I'm a target--"
"Bollocks, Tonks! A little respect, please. I might've dropped out of the Healer programme to be a Quidditch Mediwitch, but I'm not a bleeding idiot! You're part of that Phoenix Society lot -- don't you dare try and deny it!"
Though Tonks was perfectly aware of how rampant rumour was these days, had seen her name printed in Daily Prophet columns theorising about the members of Dumbledore's secret society, had even been questioned at work, it still knocked her for six that Des sussed her. Des was so often away from home, travelling with the Tutshill Tornados, that Tonks thought her pattern of extra shifts at "work" would go undetected.
Are you really surprised? Your name did get splashed across the front pages for weeks after the Department of Mysteries battle:
"AUROR NYMPHADORA TONKS INJURED DEULLING DEATH EATERS ALONGSIDE 'INNOCENT' COUSIN SIRIUS BLACK"
"WIZENGAMOT CLEARS AURORS SHACKLEBOLT AND TONKS OF SUSPICIOUS LIASONS CHARGE AT BEHEST OF DUMBLEDORE"
"AURORS ABROAD: SHACKLEBOLT TO GUARD MUGGLE MINISTER, TONKS HOGWARTS -- HONOUR, OR EXILE?"
And those were the polite ones. Point being: anyone who can read would suspect you.
It was just that Tonks had never seen Des read anything but Quidditch Illustrated -- Swimsuit Edition.
Not that Des would have to have read a bloody thing. She'd visited Tonks in hospital, and might well have found the whole thing off. Though she could have fooled Tonks that she'd thought about anything except the fact that Tonks had been secretly seeing Remus for two years whilst leading everyone to believe they'd been through a very messy break-up following his resignation from Hogwarts. Des had been furious -- and hurt. The harsh lines of her face had shifted subtly, so subtly that only a life-long friend would notice, revealing the pain of betrayal.
Just like now.
No wonder Remus suspected Slytherin when he first met you, Tonks, you deceitful, self-protecting little weasel! Some Hufflepuff you are.
Feeling a corresponding pang in her constricted heart, Tonks let out a deep breath and leant back against the larder door.
"Okay," she said. "I'm sorry. I do owe you the truth. But it's the Order of the Phoenix."
"Whatever." Des' frown deepened, eyes narrowing accusatorially. "You're moving in with Remus -- aren't you?"
Tonks stiffened. Remus was not supposed to come into this.
You owe her the truth.
But not this part of the truth.
The whole truth.
"You can't hide that, either," said Des. "I saw you with him at the funeral, holding hands. What the bloody hell happened? Last Christmas we had a proper heart-to-heart and you said you were going to let go of that loser once and for all."
Tonks' neck and shoulders tensed as gritted her teeth in protest of Des talking about Remus like that.
Now, now, Tonks -- let's not add misplaced anger to your list of Wrongs Against Your Best Mate Des. It's a direct quote, after all -- from you. She's the one that skipped out on that posh Christmas party at the Tornados' captain's penthouse to drink the night away with you at the Hog's Head. Because she was too worried about you to party.
Which, from Des, was saying rather a lot.
Even so, Tonks could bring herself to do no more than grudgingly admit, "I was pretty drunk when I said that."
"Drunk's a synonym for wised-up."
"Yeah, but you don't stay drunk, do you?"
"No," said Des. "I reckon not. Though maybe you should've, since you didn't get over him sober. Why not, Tonks? Didn't you try?"
Tonks shook her head. If she were to go into the whys and wherefores for not trying to get over Remus, they wouldn't leave this flat till the landlords threw them out for not paying rent because they'd been holed up here gabbing instead of earning money.
So, Tonks summarised, "Giving up on Remus made as much sense to me as giving up on the war." Throwing back her shoulders, she went on, "Anyway we're Hufflepuffs, right? We don't give up on anything or anyone."
Des straightened up to her full height as her hands found their way to her curvy hips. "We do if we're becoming little sad doormats to toss-pots who don't have the stones to marry us!"
"He has," Tonks whispered.
"He has what?"
"Asked me to marry him."
Never before had Tonks seen a jaw in such real danger of hitting the floor. One of Des' hands slid off her hip, and hung like a weight at her side; the other found the workspace, and she leant heavily against it.
"Remus..." Des began but then, drawing in a sharp breath, shut her mouth again, pinching her lips tightly together.
"Asked me to marry him."
Tonks heart pounding with mingled dread and delight. Mostly delight. It had happened late last night, a whisper between soft post-coital kisses beneath the sheets, which had led to another round of celebratory love-making that spent the last of their energy. An early call in to work hadn't given her the chance to tell anyone.
Not that there are many people you can tell.
"D'you have a ring?" Des asked, round eyes darting down to Tonks' left hand.
But before Des could glimpse the bare fourth finger, she shook her head, barrelled the single stride across the kitchen, and grabbed Tonks by the shoulders with a pincer-like grip.
"Have you gone completely mental, Tonks? You can't marry him, he's a bloody werewolf!"
"I noticed," Tonks said, surprising herself with how calm she felt. Course you've had a lot of practice, haven't you, what with him saying the same thing for a year and a half. "And I don't care."
"No, I mean you can't," Des argued, long, curved fuchsia fingernails digging into Tonks' arms. "The Ministry won't allow it. Haven't you paid attention to how anti-werewolf they've been since Fenrir Greyback killed that kid last March?"
Had she bloody paid attention? Tonks doubted the Werewolf Capture Unit were as informed about the Ministry's anti-werewolf sentiments as she was. In fact, she'd been terrified that Remus would be arrested at Dumbledore's funeral as an accomplice to Greyback in the Death Eaters' break-in to the school. She hadn't breathed a word of that fear to him, of course, and she sure as hell wasn't going to say so to Des.
"The Ministry aren't going to be party to it," she said, chin jutting defiantly as she folded her arms across her chest. "Now will you please let go of me?"
Des did as she was bidden, but continued to look at Tonks with her eyebrow arched in scepticism of Tonks' sanity.
"What do your parents think?"
"Doesn't matter."
"You haven't told them."
Bristling at the accusation that laced Des' tone and narrowed her eyes, Tonks shot back, "No, and you'd better keep your big mouth shut."
Something flickered, subtly, on Des' face, which made Tonks wish her words unsaid.
That's not fair. Des Flooed your parents about you last spring with your best interests at heart. Even if the very last thing you needed then was an earful from your mum and your dad being one more factor on your list of reasons why you were bloody terrified for Remus' life. If you'd just kept in touch with them yourself, Des wouldn't have gone and mucked things up.
"I'm sorry," Tonks said. "I just...want to tell them myself. I'm going to. We're going over there tomorrow."
"Are you going to have his babies?"
Tonks' mouth opened in a hot retort, but no words came out. Not because she was too shocked too answer. Because she didn't bloody have one.
Isn't that the sort of question you're supposed to be able to answer when you're getting married?
It all happened so fast, she argued with herself. There hasn't been time to talk about babies...You've only just begun to work things out between you...You need this -- marriage. He said you did.
"We're in the middle of a war," said Tonks. "It's hardly the time to pop out babies, is it?"
Des, apparently, didn't find that a satisfactory answer.
"We might have kids, yeah."
"Will they be...werepups?"
Again Tonks' hesitated, and rested one hand on the counter as she felt more off-balance than she had in a long time. Much like in her first Transfiguration class, in fact, when she'd discovered not all shapes were as easy to shift as her face.
Since she'd learnt Remus was a werewolf, she'd devoured every book on lycanthropy she could get her hands on. Not till now had it dawned on her that not one of them had mentioned werewolf offspring.
That has to be a good thing, though, hasn't it?
"I think werewolves are made, not born," Tonks said.
"You think? You don't know?"
You really ought to know, Tonks, and you know it. Good luck figuring out how to ask Remus without him flaking out.
Not, Tonks thought, squaring her shoulders in defiance of her self-doubt, that it was anything to be worried about for a very long time. And even if it were the case...Well so. bloody. what? She didn't love Remus any less for what he was. She certainly wouldn't love a baby less.
If they had one, that was.
Which they very well might not.
Beyond a few adolescent talks with Des about what sort of lives they would live after Hogwarts, babies had never seriously been the subject of Tonks daydreams. If she was the sort of witch to have them, wouldn't she have done? Years ago? And named them, as well?
She wondered if it wasn't because there were so few women in her line of work, and even fewer who were married. Alice Longbottom was the only one in donkey's years who'd had a husband -- much less a baby.
Since joining the Auror programme, Tonks had always known that, like Alice, she wouldn't be able to put her work aside for a family -- and that was before she'd had an inkling of Voldemort returning and being thrown into a war. Now, more than ever, the job was too important. Certainly not more important than a child -- but wasn't it the ultimate expression of a child's importance to a mother that she do everything in her power to ensure he had a safe world to live in? Surely that was why Frank and Alice had continued to serve the Auror department, as well as the Order of the Phoenix, after their son was born?
As much as she understood that line of thinking, would make the same choice herself if put to it, Tonks wasn't keen to put herself in that position.
Not with the likes of dear Auntie Bella at large and Crucioing everything that breathes.
And she knew without talking to Remus that he would agree.
"I reckon," Tonks said, "I'll find out if it happens."
"What if it kills you to find out? I mean literally, werewolf transformation in the womb--"
"Des!"
"What if he kills you?" Des flung her arms wide, and her focused voice echoed through the high-ceilinged flat as it rose in pitch. "I mean I'm sure you're very careful and all, but all those full moons...It just seems like pushing your luck a bit. A lot. Doesn't it scare you? It scares me for you."
Her voice had tapered off, and with a shudder, Des wrapped her arms around herself, and ducked her head.
For a moment, Tonks didn't know what to do, or what to say. Part of her felt it couldn't be her that Des was talking about, as if she were a character from some scary story warning little girls away from the Big Bad Wolf. Another part of her felt like she ought to be angry that people could talk about her like that, imagine such horrible things about her and the man she was going to marry -- but she wasn't angry. Because Des didn't know. Just as Tonks herself had just admitted that she didn't know.
And just as she'd learnt last year, and the year before that, and all the years she'd been with Remus now, frustrated by the way he shut her out from so many parts of his life:
You couldn't fault a person for caring about you that much.
She stepped toward Des and touched her arm.
"Don't be. I'm not."
Des' eyes flicked up to meet hers. "I dunno if that makes you incredibly brave or really effing stupid."
Tonks smiled. "Why does everyone think Gryffindors have the monopoly on courage?"
Des laughed a little, and relaxed slightly, leaning back against the cupboards.
"It's not just the werewolf killing stuff," she said, heaving a sigh. "Remus put you through a hell of a lot last year. It wasn't good for you. Your morphing--"
"Good as new." Tonks scrunched up her face and changed her nose to a pig snout.
"I'll never forget when you did that during the school song our first year," said Des, through another bout of laughter.
"You've never let me forget it, either," said Tonks, moving to stand beside her. "Or that it was probably the chief reason for my nonexistent love-life."
Des gave an uncharacteristically quiet chuckle.
"That's how I knew Remus was the one, you know. He doesn't bat an eye when I do weird stuff like that."
"Oh Gawd!" Des pulled a face and sidled away from Tonks. "Do me a favour and spare me the nitty gritty of your freaky Metamorphmagus-werewolf sex life, okay?"
Tonks picked up a cold remnant of beans-on-toast and threw it at Des. "You'd be disappointed, wouldn't you, if I told you we're a boring missionary couple?"
"I don't even want to know about your non-freaky Metamorphmagus-werewolf sex life."
Wrinkling her nose, Des flicked the soggy mess off her shoulder, at Tonks, but it fell short.
"I'm not invited to the wedding, am I?"
Unexpectedly, Tonks' eyes welled. Silvery blurred images swam in her memory, as if she were looking into a Pensieve: of her and Des lying on Tonks' bed in their dormitory, staring up at the heavy brocade curtains, dreaming up their Wizards Charming and planning their lavish weddings; of poring over Witch Weekly - Bridal Edition when Des' older sister was engaged; of actually going to Madam Malkin's one day, morphed and Polyjuiced, to try on wedding gowns.
You promised each other you'd be each other's bridesmaids. You promised each other your husbands would be best mates, as well, and your lives would be non-stop married couple fun together. You promised each other -- well, her more than you -- that when you got tired of that you'd think about maybe having kids, but of course you'd have them at the same time so they could go to Hogwarts together...
Now Tonks' best mate was afraid of the man she was going to marry...Des wouldn't even be able to attend the wedding, much less be a bridesmaid...And if, by some trick of fate, Tonks and Remus did have kids, who knew if Hogwarts would be in the picture?
Is this really what you want Tonks? A future that's not at all like you imagined and, apart from Remus, remains such a mystery? You don't even know the when or the where or the how of the wedding...
But she did know the who.
In all those girlish dreams with Des, there had never been a face to her Wizard Charming. No boy at school, no rock star, definitely no one from the Auror squad. Now, she realised, there was no church, no Ministry office, no gown, no cake, no guests, nothing at all except...
She saw a wood, with many paths winding through the close-growing trees -- one leading to the Ministry of Magic, another to her parents' house, a third to this flat with Des, still another to Grimmauld Place, and more yet leading Merlin knew where -- till they joined into one road, at the end of which stood Remus.
Absolutely, he is what you want.
"It's got to be very quiet," said Tonks.
Des nodded, sniffling, and Tonks was, too, as they hugged.
"I wish you could be my bridesmaid," Tonks said. "You can come see us any time in Brockenhurst. There're some great pubs."
Abruptly, Des pulled back from Tonks, and wiped her watery eyes on the back of her hand.
"Yeah. Well, you know I'm always on the road with the team. Travel's a right bitch these days, with Flooing out for non-Ministry officials -- which is why I'm pissed off at you for your damn principles, you know -- and Portkeys so heavily regulated, and you know athletes aren't big on Apparating internationally, in case of splinching."
She's babbling, Tonks thought as Des went on. Des babbles when she's feeling awkward.
Tonks hadn't even realised she'd begun to hope maybe her best mate would support her despite not really getting it, till her heart gave a twinge of disappointment. Des wouldn't have stood up with her at this wedding....She wasn't going to come see her at her husband's home...
On second thought, it wasn't a twinge of disappointment so much as a great sharp pang in her heart.
"Right," said Des, crisply. "D'you need help packing?"
This is goodbye.
But Tonks was willing to say it.
Disappointment did not outweigh her certainty of what lay ahead for her, nor did it sap the joy that had, and would be, bought with such pain. This was her path: the Order, Remus. She would walk it, and not look back.
"Ta," she said, "but I can get it on my own."
She was ready to get on with her new life as Mrs. Remus Lupin.
Chapter 2
Author: MrsTater
Format & Word Count: WIP, 4111
Rating: PG-13
Prompt: #12: Never-Ending Road, by Loreena McKennitt (lyrics beneath the cut)
Warnings: paganism, language, original character
Summary: Newly engaged to Remus, Tonks finds the path to the altar fraught with more complications than she imagined. Particularly in the way of friends and family...
Author's Note: Another leap into the future in my Caring For Magical Creatures 'verse, but all you really need to know is that it operates under the premise that Remus and Tonks first met during POA, when Tonks was on assignment during her final year of training, and it's been a bumpy ride for them over the years, to put it mildly. Many thanks to Godricgal for beta-reading.
Never-Ending Road, by Loreena McKennitt
The road now leads onward
As far as can be,
Winding lanes
And hedgerows in threes,
By purple mountains
And round every bend,
All roads lead to you
There is no journey's end.
Deep in the winter
Amidst falling snow,
High in the air
Where the bells they all toll,
And now all around me
I feel you still here --
Such is the journey,
No mystery to fear.
The road now leads onward
And I know not where;
I feel in my heart
That you will be there
Whenever a storm comes,
Whatever our fears.
The journey goes on,
As your love ever nears
Here is my heart, I give it to you,
Take me with you across this land;
These are my dreams, so simple, so few --
Dreams we hold in the palm of our hands
1. Crossing the Threshold
"You have got to start asking security questions when people knock on your door," said Tonks, slipping inside the flat from which her housemate had bellowed an unvigilant Come in!
Desdemona, stood in the open plan kitchen heating a tin of beans with her wand, made a show of rolling her wide brown eyes. "You owled me five minutes ago to say you were on your way. I knew it was you."
Tonks rolled her eyes back as she wriggled out of her boots without bothering to undo the laces. "As if Death Eaters don't forge owls."
She stripped off her robes, and when they slipped off the cloak tree, left them lying in a rumpled heap. They'd be packed up in her rucksack soon enough, anyway. Yanking her tie loose, she undid the top button of her collar.
"Why would sodding Death Eaters come after me?" Des asked, for what had to be the millionth time since the war began. "I'm a Zabini, for bleeding Merlin's sake!"
She flicked her wand over her shoulder at the cooker behind her, and two slices of toast flew from the grill onto a plate.
"And why can't you use the damn Floo like a normal person?" Des asked petulantly, also for the millionth time, though in the much shorter time span of the few days since the new regulations had been handed down from the Department of Magical Transportation.
"Normal people don't use the Floo anymore," Tonks said. "Could you do me some toast? I didn't get lunch. Or dinner."
"Bread's out." Des heaped spoonfuls of steaming beans onto her toast and crammed a large bite into her wide, broad-lipped mouth. "What then? Making one of your statements on social equality by refusing to use the Floo since it's no longer available to all magical folk?"
"Something like that."
Grabbing some bread from the flimsy plastic bag, Tonks managed to gouge a slice with her fingernail. She flung the bread under the hot grill and as she watched it brown, tried not to think about how her cessation to travel via Floo represented her -- the Order's -- growing distrust for the Ministry of Magic. Of course she couldn't quite manage not to, given that it was also the perfect segue into something very important she had to say to Des. Which had a lot to do with her less-than-perky mood, as she'd been brooding over it during every minute of the day she'd been able to spare a thought.
Not every minute, said her heart, and she felt the cold, leaden vice that had been clamped onto it sometime in the course of the last year loosen its grip as warmth bubbled up from deep within. How many of your spare thoughts turned to Remus asking you to marry him last night?
At the tug of a smile at the corners of her mouth, everything in Tonks tightened again as she automatically squelched it. As she'd been forced to all day.
"If you're going to be that careless--"
"Defiant," interrupted Des around another mouthful of beans-on-toast, "not careless. Aren't you always saying fear's how those effing terrorists operate? If I change how I live my life, if I can't even answer my own effing front door without asking some effing stupid security question anyone who's done their homework could answer, then they've won, haven't they? I know you're his protégée and all, but if you really want to put these Death Eater bastards in their place, you won't let yourself turn into Mad-Eye Moody, Junior."
Tonks couldn't stop herself smiling, though she did have to bite her tongue to keep from saying Des would make a damn good Order member. Because Des would make a crap Order member. You had to be willing to stick up two fingers not just to the Death Eaters but to the Ministry, as well. Des might talk like a rebel, but she was too thoroughly Hufflepuff to subvert her government. True, in Hogwarts days she'd helped Tonks plan mischief, but Des never did any mischief herself, earning her reputation for an ability to behave and winning the coveted position of prefect. If only Professor Sprout had known what Des claimed to have got up to in the prefects' bathroom with Charlie Weasley...
"Oi," Des' voice, muffled with food, cut into Tonks' musing. "You might like your bread well-done, but I don't want my flat stinking like burnt toast."
"Damn it!" Tonks aimed her wand at the blackening slices of bread on the smoking grill. "Extinguo!"
The blue flame of the cooker went out. She summoned a knife and began to scrape off the charred layer of her toast. Out the corner of her eye she saw Des' mouth open, most likely to scoff at Tonks' waste-not mentality. Before Des could get a word out, Tonks spoke:
"It's just as well, then, since I am quite as paranoid as Mad-Eye, and I can't make toast without burning it, that I'm moving out."
Des gawped in stunned disbelief, but her hand shot out to catch the bite of toast that fell out, sparing the linoleum from a globby mess of beans.
"Sorry," said Des, giving her head a little shake that rattled the beads at the ends of her cornrow plaits. "I thought you just said you were moving out. What'd you really say?"
"That is what I really said."
Popping her beans-on-toast into her mouth and licking off her fingers, Des let out a strangled laugh. She swallowed, then folded her long, dark arms, so striking against the pale turquoise t-shirt across her chest, half-hiding the slogan: The Tutshill Tornados Give Me a Whirl. The whites of her eyes seemed very prominent as they widened, the brown irises focused as they fixed Tonks with a stare.
"Why?"
Tonks hesitated.
Go on, then. You've been going over your story all day. Or some of the day. When you weren't daydreaming about proposals. You lie to people all the time. And this isn't even really a total lie.
But something in Des' sharp eyes and clipped words said that she knew exactly why, and would call Tonks on bending the truth.
Still, Tonks blurted, "I'm too dangerous for you, Des."
Even if the thin, sculpted eyebrow hadn't raised on Des' high, smooth brown forehead, Tonks would have cringed at the absurdity of that phrase coming out her own mouth.
What in Merlin's name possessed you?
"Too bloody dangerous?" Des snorted. "Did Remus lend you that one?"
Something in Tonks' chest tied itself into a thick, tight knot. "As an Auror I'm a target--"
"Bollocks, Tonks! A little respect, please. I might've dropped out of the Healer programme to be a Quidditch Mediwitch, but I'm not a bleeding idiot! You're part of that Phoenix Society lot -- don't you dare try and deny it!"
Though Tonks was perfectly aware of how rampant rumour was these days, had seen her name printed in Daily Prophet columns theorising about the members of Dumbledore's secret society, had even been questioned at work, it still knocked her for six that Des sussed her. Des was so often away from home, travelling with the Tutshill Tornados, that Tonks thought her pattern of extra shifts at "work" would go undetected.
Are you really surprised? Your name did get splashed across the front pages for weeks after the Department of Mysteries battle:
"AUROR NYMPHADORA TONKS INJURED DEULLING DEATH EATERS ALONGSIDE 'INNOCENT' COUSIN SIRIUS BLACK"
"WIZENGAMOT CLEARS AURORS SHACKLEBOLT AND TONKS OF SUSPICIOUS LIASONS CHARGE AT BEHEST OF DUMBLEDORE"
"AURORS ABROAD: SHACKLEBOLT TO GUARD MUGGLE MINISTER, TONKS HOGWARTS -- HONOUR, OR EXILE?"
And those were the polite ones. Point being: anyone who can read would suspect you.
It was just that Tonks had never seen Des read anything but Quidditch Illustrated -- Swimsuit Edition.
Not that Des would have to have read a bloody thing. She'd visited Tonks in hospital, and might well have found the whole thing off. Though she could have fooled Tonks that she'd thought about anything except the fact that Tonks had been secretly seeing Remus for two years whilst leading everyone to believe they'd been through a very messy break-up following his resignation from Hogwarts. Des had been furious -- and hurt. The harsh lines of her face had shifted subtly, so subtly that only a life-long friend would notice, revealing the pain of betrayal.
Just like now.
No wonder Remus suspected Slytherin when he first met you, Tonks, you deceitful, self-protecting little weasel! Some Hufflepuff you are.
Feeling a corresponding pang in her constricted heart, Tonks let out a deep breath and leant back against the larder door.
"Okay," she said. "I'm sorry. I do owe you the truth. But it's the Order of the Phoenix."
"Whatever." Des' frown deepened, eyes narrowing accusatorially. "You're moving in with Remus -- aren't you?"
Tonks stiffened. Remus was not supposed to come into this.
You owe her the truth.
But not this part of the truth.
The whole truth.
"You can't hide that, either," said Des. "I saw you with him at the funeral, holding hands. What the bloody hell happened? Last Christmas we had a proper heart-to-heart and you said you were going to let go of that loser once and for all."
Tonks' neck and shoulders tensed as gritted her teeth in protest of Des talking about Remus like that.
Now, now, Tonks -- let's not add misplaced anger to your list of Wrongs Against Your Best Mate Des. It's a direct quote, after all -- from you. She's the one that skipped out on that posh Christmas party at the Tornados' captain's penthouse to drink the night away with you at the Hog's Head. Because she was too worried about you to party.
Which, from Des, was saying rather a lot.
Even so, Tonks could bring herself to do no more than grudgingly admit, "I was pretty drunk when I said that."
"Drunk's a synonym for wised-up."
"Yeah, but you don't stay drunk, do you?"
"No," said Des. "I reckon not. Though maybe you should've, since you didn't get over him sober. Why not, Tonks? Didn't you try?"
Tonks shook her head. If she were to go into the whys and wherefores for not trying to get over Remus, they wouldn't leave this flat till the landlords threw them out for not paying rent because they'd been holed up here gabbing instead of earning money.
So, Tonks summarised, "Giving up on Remus made as much sense to me as giving up on the war." Throwing back her shoulders, she went on, "Anyway we're Hufflepuffs, right? We don't give up on anything or anyone."
Des straightened up to her full height as her hands found their way to her curvy hips. "We do if we're becoming little sad doormats to toss-pots who don't have the stones to marry us!"
"He has," Tonks whispered.
"He has what?"
"Asked me to marry him."
Never before had Tonks seen a jaw in such real danger of hitting the floor. One of Des' hands slid off her hip, and hung like a weight at her side; the other found the workspace, and she leant heavily against it.
"Remus..." Des began but then, drawing in a sharp breath, shut her mouth again, pinching her lips tightly together.
"Asked me to marry him."
Tonks heart pounding with mingled dread and delight. Mostly delight. It had happened late last night, a whisper between soft post-coital kisses beneath the sheets, which had led to another round of celebratory love-making that spent the last of their energy. An early call in to work hadn't given her the chance to tell anyone.
Not that there are many people you can tell.
"D'you have a ring?" Des asked, round eyes darting down to Tonks' left hand.
But before Des could glimpse the bare fourth finger, she shook her head, barrelled the single stride across the kitchen, and grabbed Tonks by the shoulders with a pincer-like grip.
"Have you gone completely mental, Tonks? You can't marry him, he's a bloody werewolf!"
"I noticed," Tonks said, surprising herself with how calm she felt. Course you've had a lot of practice, haven't you, what with him saying the same thing for a year and a half. "And I don't care."
"No, I mean you can't," Des argued, long, curved fuchsia fingernails digging into Tonks' arms. "The Ministry won't allow it. Haven't you paid attention to how anti-werewolf they've been since Fenrir Greyback killed that kid last March?"
Had she bloody paid attention? Tonks doubted the Werewolf Capture Unit were as informed about the Ministry's anti-werewolf sentiments as she was. In fact, she'd been terrified that Remus would be arrested at Dumbledore's funeral as an accomplice to Greyback in the Death Eaters' break-in to the school. She hadn't breathed a word of that fear to him, of course, and she sure as hell wasn't going to say so to Des.
"The Ministry aren't going to be party to it," she said, chin jutting defiantly as she folded her arms across her chest. "Now will you please let go of me?"
Des did as she was bidden, but continued to look at Tonks with her eyebrow arched in scepticism of Tonks' sanity.
"What do your parents think?"
"Doesn't matter."
"You haven't told them."
Bristling at the accusation that laced Des' tone and narrowed her eyes, Tonks shot back, "No, and you'd better keep your big mouth shut."
Something flickered, subtly, on Des' face, which made Tonks wish her words unsaid.
That's not fair. Des Flooed your parents about you last spring with your best interests at heart. Even if the very last thing you needed then was an earful from your mum and your dad being one more factor on your list of reasons why you were bloody terrified for Remus' life. If you'd just kept in touch with them yourself, Des wouldn't have gone and mucked things up.
"I'm sorry," Tonks said. "I just...want to tell them myself. I'm going to. We're going over there tomorrow."
"Are you going to have his babies?"
Tonks' mouth opened in a hot retort, but no words came out. Not because she was too shocked too answer. Because she didn't bloody have one.
Isn't that the sort of question you're supposed to be able to answer when you're getting married?
It all happened so fast, she argued with herself. There hasn't been time to talk about babies...You've only just begun to work things out between you...You need this -- marriage. He said you did.
"We're in the middle of a war," said Tonks. "It's hardly the time to pop out babies, is it?"
Des, apparently, didn't find that a satisfactory answer.
"We might have kids, yeah."
"Will they be...werepups?"
Again Tonks' hesitated, and rested one hand on the counter as she felt more off-balance than she had in a long time. Much like in her first Transfiguration class, in fact, when she'd discovered not all shapes were as easy to shift as her face.
Since she'd learnt Remus was a werewolf, she'd devoured every book on lycanthropy she could get her hands on. Not till now had it dawned on her that not one of them had mentioned werewolf offspring.
That has to be a good thing, though, hasn't it?
"I think werewolves are made, not born," Tonks said.
"You think? You don't know?"
You really ought to know, Tonks, and you know it. Good luck figuring out how to ask Remus without him flaking out.
Not, Tonks thought, squaring her shoulders in defiance of her self-doubt, that it was anything to be worried about for a very long time. And even if it were the case...Well so. bloody. what? She didn't love Remus any less for what he was. She certainly wouldn't love a baby less.
If they had one, that was.
Which they very well might not.
Beyond a few adolescent talks with Des about what sort of lives they would live after Hogwarts, babies had never seriously been the subject of Tonks daydreams. If she was the sort of witch to have them, wouldn't she have done? Years ago? And named them, as well?
She wondered if it wasn't because there were so few women in her line of work, and even fewer who were married. Alice Longbottom was the only one in donkey's years who'd had a husband -- much less a baby.
Since joining the Auror programme, Tonks had always known that, like Alice, she wouldn't be able to put her work aside for a family -- and that was before she'd had an inkling of Voldemort returning and being thrown into a war. Now, more than ever, the job was too important. Certainly not more important than a child -- but wasn't it the ultimate expression of a child's importance to a mother that she do everything in her power to ensure he had a safe world to live in? Surely that was why Frank and Alice had continued to serve the Auror department, as well as the Order of the Phoenix, after their son was born?
As much as she understood that line of thinking, would make the same choice herself if put to it, Tonks wasn't keen to put herself in that position.
Not with the likes of dear Auntie Bella at large and Crucioing everything that breathes.
And she knew without talking to Remus that he would agree.
"I reckon," Tonks said, "I'll find out if it happens."
"What if it kills you to find out? I mean literally, werewolf transformation in the womb--"
"Des!"
"What if he kills you?" Des flung her arms wide, and her focused voice echoed through the high-ceilinged flat as it rose in pitch. "I mean I'm sure you're very careful and all, but all those full moons...It just seems like pushing your luck a bit. A lot. Doesn't it scare you? It scares me for you."
Her voice had tapered off, and with a shudder, Des wrapped her arms around herself, and ducked her head.
For a moment, Tonks didn't know what to do, or what to say. Part of her felt it couldn't be her that Des was talking about, as if she were a character from some scary story warning little girls away from the Big Bad Wolf. Another part of her felt like she ought to be angry that people could talk about her like that, imagine such horrible things about her and the man she was going to marry -- but she wasn't angry. Because Des didn't know. Just as Tonks herself had just admitted that she didn't know.
And just as she'd learnt last year, and the year before that, and all the years she'd been with Remus now, frustrated by the way he shut her out from so many parts of his life:
You couldn't fault a person for caring about you that much.
She stepped toward Des and touched her arm.
"Don't be. I'm not."
Des' eyes flicked up to meet hers. "I dunno if that makes you incredibly brave or really effing stupid."
Tonks smiled. "Why does everyone think Gryffindors have the monopoly on courage?"
Des laughed a little, and relaxed slightly, leaning back against the cupboards.
"It's not just the werewolf killing stuff," she said, heaving a sigh. "Remus put you through a hell of a lot last year. It wasn't good for you. Your morphing--"
"Good as new." Tonks scrunched up her face and changed her nose to a pig snout.
"I'll never forget when you did that during the school song our first year," said Des, through another bout of laughter.
"You've never let me forget it, either," said Tonks, moving to stand beside her. "Or that it was probably the chief reason for my nonexistent love-life."
Des gave an uncharacteristically quiet chuckle.
"That's how I knew Remus was the one, you know. He doesn't bat an eye when I do weird stuff like that."
"Oh Gawd!" Des pulled a face and sidled away from Tonks. "Do me a favour and spare me the nitty gritty of your freaky Metamorphmagus-werewolf sex life, okay?"
Tonks picked up a cold remnant of beans-on-toast and threw it at Des. "You'd be disappointed, wouldn't you, if I told you we're a boring missionary couple?"
"I don't even want to know about your non-freaky Metamorphmagus-werewolf sex life."
Wrinkling her nose, Des flicked the soggy mess off her shoulder, at Tonks, but it fell short.
"I'm not invited to the wedding, am I?"
Unexpectedly, Tonks' eyes welled. Silvery blurred images swam in her memory, as if she were looking into a Pensieve: of her and Des lying on Tonks' bed in their dormitory, staring up at the heavy brocade curtains, dreaming up their Wizards Charming and planning their lavish weddings; of poring over Witch Weekly - Bridal Edition when Des' older sister was engaged; of actually going to Madam Malkin's one day, morphed and Polyjuiced, to try on wedding gowns.
You promised each other you'd be each other's bridesmaids. You promised each other your husbands would be best mates, as well, and your lives would be non-stop married couple fun together. You promised each other -- well, her more than you -- that when you got tired of that you'd think about maybe having kids, but of course you'd have them at the same time so they could go to Hogwarts together...
Now Tonks' best mate was afraid of the man she was going to marry...Des wouldn't even be able to attend the wedding, much less be a bridesmaid...And if, by some trick of fate, Tonks and Remus did have kids, who knew if Hogwarts would be in the picture?
Is this really what you want Tonks? A future that's not at all like you imagined and, apart from Remus, remains such a mystery? You don't even know the when or the where or the how of the wedding...
But she did know the who.
In all those girlish dreams with Des, there had never been a face to her Wizard Charming. No boy at school, no rock star, definitely no one from the Auror squad. Now, she realised, there was no church, no Ministry office, no gown, no cake, no guests, nothing at all except...
She saw a wood, with many paths winding through the close-growing trees -- one leading to the Ministry of Magic, another to her parents' house, a third to this flat with Des, still another to Grimmauld Place, and more yet leading Merlin knew where -- till they joined into one road, at the end of which stood Remus.
Absolutely, he is what you want.
"It's got to be very quiet," said Tonks.
Des nodded, sniffling, and Tonks was, too, as they hugged.
"I wish you could be my bridesmaid," Tonks said. "You can come see us any time in Brockenhurst. There're some great pubs."
Abruptly, Des pulled back from Tonks, and wiped her watery eyes on the back of her hand.
"Yeah. Well, you know I'm always on the road with the team. Travel's a right bitch these days, with Flooing out for non-Ministry officials -- which is why I'm pissed off at you for your damn principles, you know -- and Portkeys so heavily regulated, and you know athletes aren't big on Apparating internationally, in case of splinching."
She's babbling, Tonks thought as Des went on. Des babbles when she's feeling awkward.
Tonks hadn't even realised she'd begun to hope maybe her best mate would support her despite not really getting it, till her heart gave a twinge of disappointment. Des wouldn't have stood up with her at this wedding....She wasn't going to come see her at her husband's home...
On second thought, it wasn't a twinge of disappointment so much as a great sharp pang in her heart.
"Right," said Des, crisply. "D'you need help packing?"
This is goodbye.
But Tonks was willing to say it.
Disappointment did not outweigh her certainty of what lay ahead for her, nor did it sap the joy that had, and would be, bought with such pain. This was her path: the Order, Remus. She would walk it, and not look back.
"Ta," she said, "but I can get it on my own."
She was ready to get on with her new life as Mrs. Remus Lupin.
Chapter 2