/.waning.gibbous.\ (Backdate) {Event: Broadcast Mind}
Pick your monthly malady. No more Moony, just privatus interruptus.
ooc/ I wasn't going to do Broadcast Mind at all this round; give it a break after last time. Then I saw "Deathly Hallows". The unshown is always the most maddening and enticing…
Aw, heck, just call it part of my campaign to make Bella go blind. /ooc
* * *
Lamplight glows the Grimmauld curtains. He's sitting in an armchair by the window, watching the empty street. Rain earlier made the cobbles silver. Mist now mutes everything to lead.
The churning in his stomach isn't about the moon. Dumbledore trusts Severus, and that ought to be good enough for all of us. He shouldn't have yelled at Harry; not when he'd really been yelling at Sirius.
He raises his face from his hand.
The muffled thud is followed by a sheepish, "Sorry." She rights the shifted lampstand, rubs her hip where she knocked it, and comes all the way into the room.
"Wotcher," she said.
"Hullo," he said.
They've barely spoken three words that weren't strictly business. That's two of them.
"I'm sorry I was cross earlier," he said, embarrassed. "I shouldn't have snapped at you, or Harry."
She pulls up a hassock across from his chair (of course there's a fully functional sofa right there) and perches on it with her knees to her chest. "You think that's snapping? You didn't grow up in my extended family."
She doesn't remind him of his students; still, so young and vibrant that it hurts. Her clumsy earnestness had been a source of concern and skepticism at first. As she continues to get the job done, it's becoming more winning. Her pink hair is ghostly in the moonlight.
"A live one, that," said Sirius. "Think she fancies you."
"Don't start," snorted Remus.
"Yeah, no, definitely. I'll set you up."
"Stop. She's too young."
"Fine. I'll get to work for you on McGonagall."
"I did, a bit," he says.
"The good bit," she says.
"Not according to him."
Her grin silences them. Nothing he said, or was ever likely to say, could really warrant a smile that bright.
She says at length, "What're you doing sitting alone in the dark in the middle of the night?"
He answers, "What're you doing coming downstairs in the middle of the night to see me sitting in the dark?"
"I asked you first."
"I can't sleep."
"Me neither."
"Moon's waxing," he said. "What's your excuse?"
Her glance seems astonished or stricken. She doesn't answer.
On his own he would sit there 'til morning. For this wobble-legged colt, he pushes himself out of the armchair. "Hot chocolate?"
"That's caffeinated," she says.
"Not how I make it," he says.
She smiles and holds out her hand.
Uncertainly, he takes it.
She springs to her feet without needing any help at all. But drops his hand quickly to follow to the kitchen.
* * *
She lay in hospital bed like a paper doll: white skin, hair crayoned in, tissuelike robe, bedclothes enveloped up to her breasts, face cut out like a valentine heart. Her eyes flash up, too deeply bright, and shatter the world into three dimensions.
He raises his head from his clasped hands and looks across the room to her.
"When did you get here?" she asks.
He tries to speak but there's a hole in him-near to where he'd held Harry back from the veil.
"I came to tell you," he says at last. "I'm afraid that… I'm sorry, but…"
She sits up in the bed. She's nothing like a paper doll. Wounded from battle, freshly conscious, there's force and vigour in just propping herself up.
He wanted to be the one to tell her-Sirius's family-but he's barely able to speak.
She holds out her hand.
He crosses to her. He kneels beside the bed. He takes her hand in both of his and starts to sob.
He must notice at some point being enfolded; her leaning over to put her other arm about his shoulders, resting her face into the back of his head. Her heart is pounding in his ears. Someone's breathing deafens him. The veil ripped and he'd gone instantly for Harry, grabbed him and held him back, and kept on holding back, until news came that Tonks had finally regained consciousness after the battle and someone had to tell her, and he volunteered and suddenly there was no Harry to care for, no loss equal to or greater than his own…
"I'm sorry," he chokes and is shushed by her. She's crying too. She knows why it's Lupin here. She doesn't need to ask who died.
Both slowly begin to breathe again.
He doesn't know how to move away. Now that it's hit him, how can he go anywhere? The thought Harry may need me finally pries his hand free of hers and he begins to stand.
Her hand convulsively gropes for his again. "Remus please don't leave."
Never heard more magickal words.
The usual hesitations, confirmations and qualifications aren't bothered with. Sirius is dead.
She makes room as he lies down. She turns over. He puts his arms around her. She presses back against him. He closes his eyes into her hair. He doesn't see its shift from limp and colourless to a faint restoration of rose. Their breathing evens, slows, and synchronises. Both sink into the tide.
Neither notices any lapse into sleep. They are extraordinarily aware. Each curve, joint and fit, every corner of warmth, skin ringing like strings. The other's body at once fills and heightens every hollow. She turns in his arms, presses her face into his throat. They never kiss and never move apart.
Sometime before dawn, she shifts free. Half-conscious, he releases her, nerve endings screaming in panic at the loss; but she only moves higher onto the pillow, and propping herself up, takes him back against her. She runs her hands over his neck and through his hair, until he realises why she's doing this: He was crying. He makes himself stop.
He wakes in early daylight. Her hands rest loosely on his ribs. His cheek is creased by her papery gown. Her wrists are imprinted with the tweed of his jacket. Her bare foot nestles tightly into the side of his shoe.
A nurse, checking a chart, turns quickly away as Lupin stirs.
End it now. Don't wait in dread, knowing this is the last time this would ever possibly happen. Terribly gently, he slips free of her arms and away from the bed.
Never never leave someone still sleeping to wake up and find you gone; so he whispers in her ear, "I have to go."
Her eyes flutter open. They meet his. She opens her mouth. He leans over and kisses her cheek. All the air in his lungs stays there with her as he leaves.
* * *
Back from a mission in the middle of the night. Someone should be very cross that no one noticed him come back; no matter that he helped install all the shields and alarms and knows the ways through them. He'll reprimand the watch himself. But for now he goes straight to the sofa and collapses.
Except someone did sense it. On watch duty or on her own, she will never be able to not notice his arrival again. She snuck down the stairs and stared through the rails at him. She stays there for a good long while. When she can't stand it any more, she comes into the room.
He starts upright. Wand en garde, he could well have Petrified her, but she flicks her own wand and whispers, "Expelliarmus." He barely has time to register the wand flying from his hand. She's on the couch with him. …On the couch on him. One of them's kissing the other. His arms go around her. Her legs go around him.
She whispers in his ear, "Welcome back you deserting bastard. You left me alone. Make up for it."
He breaks the kiss, manages to inhale, and pushes her back. "Wait, wait."
She sits back.
"Don't reward me for that night," he said. "That was selfishness. I couldn't go through the night alone."
"Neither could I," she said. "We're even. But I wouldn't have… would you…? It wouldn't have been anyone else."
He repeats, "It wouldn't have been anyone else." It was true. "But-you know that it was more about Sirius than either of-"
"You're lying." Her eyes turned awful. "Don't. You're the one who never lies. Don't you dare lie."
Through the morphing image, with a wrench, he sees her. All at once it's so clear, too clear to be new, but had he-? "No." He suddenly stands. She catches herself gracelessly. He shakes his head hard, to keep himself from looking at her and keep her from moving to him. "This can't… I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."
She opens her mouth.
He had been, and would keep, hounding Death Eaters; infiltrating dens of werewolves; negotiating and fighting; spying, reporting; confronting monsters, conquering wild complex magicks; enduring feats of restraint, isolating journeys and solitary watches. But with Dora, not for the first nor last time, he can't face it. He flees the room.
* * *
She'd grown so sad. Her hair drained of colour along with her face. Her movements lost their vibrancy, even to stumble and knock things about. She was withdrawn. Her spellcasting suffered. Everyone noticed but no one knew why. Only those who noticed that her patronus had changed its shape.
I'm too old for you, too poor… too dangerous…1
I don't care. It doesn't matter. I don't care.
* * *
She came into his bed as he was half asleep. Thinking he was dreaming, he rolled to face her and twined his leg around hers. She slipped free of her robe and pushed him out of his. He dug his fingers through her colour-wheeling hair. Her mouth was warm and felt like flower petals. His lips were torn and brushed her like autumn leaves. His hands ran over her smooth back. Hers explored the raised mottled flesh that covered his torso: so many scars he looks like he'd been burned. She moves to kiss every one. Her hands slip around him, pull them right together. Either they're so fully awake it's overwhelming or they're entirely in a dream.
"I love you," she whispers. "Don't ask me to go. Don't stay away."
He presses his palm up the curve of her spine, cups the back of her neck, makes her gasp with his mouth and hands, never stops holding her against him. He'll make her tremble and jolt and nearly break him with her strength one moment and mould into his strength the next and laugh without breath and go completely limp on an unprecedented plateau and pull him with her over the top of it and have tears leak from her sparkling eyes with their look of indescribable peace. But no. Whether it's for anyone's good or doom, damned if he'll stay away and make her so sad again.
* * *
Oh god. We shouldn't have done that.
Oh yes we absofucking should.
Yes I love you. I'm sorry. For everything.
Apologise for trying not to. Not for admitting you do.
…I am. I do.
* * *
The ceiling of their attic room in the Burrow was so low he had to stoop on entering. This time it was she who sat up at the sound of him knocking something over.
"Remus?" she whispered.
He set his wand on the adjacent nightstand and slipped into bed beside her, under the covers which she held up for him.
"Your hands are freezing," she yelped, and stuck them under her arms to warm them.
"Kingsley traded watch shifts with me," he murmured, wriggling his hands appreciatively and making her cheep. "He seemed quite insistent."
She snugged his hands tighter and settled into his shoulder. Her unbraced hand started unbuttoning his shirt. "Perhaps he thinks it's not good for you to spend all your time worried and on the alert."
Without recrimination, "Might he have had any help in thinking that?"
"I guess Molly might have said something… after I said something…"
He kisses her thoroughly. She slides still closer against him. Yes, there's a war on... all the more reason to grab the moments that make it worth fighting. And she's right: he'll be less useful to everyone if he doesn't… refresh. Parting for breath, he murmurs, "Well, it means our rest time overlaps by about two hours."
She does something probably irreversible to his defenseless buttons. "Well. We all know how restful you find me."
He speaks into her neck, in response to how loudly they're both breathing now, "The kids are right below us."
She knows it would be full stop if she went with, So teach them something. Instead, wrestles him out of his clothes and intones vaguely toward the door (probably the most soundproof part of the thin-walled and -floored room), "Imperturbatus."
She can never manage total silence. He's good at knowing when to stop her lips.
He's capable of staying silent. She's good at forcing him not to be.
* * *
She'd come out of nowhere, shouting him a warning
and though she succeeded in throwing herself between
him and the killing curse that had been aimed at his back
and deflecting it, they fought back to back for only an instant,
their minds crashing together knowing it was their last chance
- teddydamnyourunilove -
The curse that hit him in the shoulder and face spun him around and forced him to his knees; only to catch her in his arms with the cruciatus that left her convulsing and crying his name; and the white flashes turned suddenly green and she-
made him hurt in places he didn't know he had. From the very beginning. And past the end.
1JKR, Half Blood Prince
Dora Tonks Lupin
ooc/ I wasn't going to do Broadcast Mind at all this round; give it a break after last time. Then I saw "Deathly Hallows". The unshown is always the most maddening and enticing…
Aw, heck, just call it part of my campaign to make Bella go blind. /ooc
* * *
Lamplight glows the Grimmauld curtains. He's sitting in an armchair by the window, watching the empty street. Rain earlier made the cobbles silver. Mist now mutes everything to lead.
The churning in his stomach isn't about the moon. Dumbledore trusts Severus, and that ought to be good enough for all of us. He shouldn't have yelled at Harry; not when he'd really been yelling at Sirius.
He raises his face from his hand.
The muffled thud is followed by a sheepish, "Sorry." She rights the shifted lampstand, rubs her hip where she knocked it, and comes all the way into the room.
"Wotcher," she said.
"Hullo," he said.
They've barely spoken three words that weren't strictly business. That's two of them.
"I'm sorry I was cross earlier," he said, embarrassed. "I shouldn't have snapped at you, or Harry."
She pulls up a hassock across from his chair (of course there's a fully functional sofa right there) and perches on it with her knees to her chest. "You think that's snapping? You didn't grow up in my extended family."
She doesn't remind him of his students; still, so young and vibrant that it hurts. Her clumsy earnestness had been a source of concern and skepticism at first. As she continues to get the job done, it's becoming more winning. Her pink hair is ghostly in the moonlight.
"A live one, that," said Sirius. "Think she fancies you."
"Don't start," snorted Remus.
"Yeah, no, definitely. I'll set you up."
"Stop. She's too young."
"Fine. I'll get to work for you on McGonagall."
"I did, a bit," he says.
"The good bit," she says.
"Not according to him."
Her grin silences them. Nothing he said, or was ever likely to say, could really warrant a smile that bright.
She says at length, "What're you doing sitting alone in the dark in the middle of the night?"
He answers, "What're you doing coming downstairs in the middle of the night to see me sitting in the dark?"
"I asked you first."
"I can't sleep."
"Me neither."
"Moon's waxing," he said. "What's your excuse?"
Her glance seems astonished or stricken. She doesn't answer.
On his own he would sit there 'til morning. For this wobble-legged colt, he pushes himself out of the armchair. "Hot chocolate?"
"That's caffeinated," she says.
"Not how I make it," he says.
She smiles and holds out her hand.
Uncertainly, he takes it.
She springs to her feet without needing any help at all. But drops his hand quickly to follow to the kitchen.
* * *
She lay in hospital bed like a paper doll: white skin, hair crayoned in, tissuelike robe, bedclothes enveloped up to her breasts, face cut out like a valentine heart. Her eyes flash up, too deeply bright, and shatter the world into three dimensions.
He raises his head from his clasped hands and looks across the room to her.
"When did you get here?" she asks.
He tries to speak but there's a hole in him-near to where he'd held Harry back from the veil.
"I came to tell you," he says at last. "I'm afraid that… I'm sorry, but…"
She sits up in the bed. She's nothing like a paper doll. Wounded from battle, freshly conscious, there's force and vigour in just propping herself up.
He wanted to be the one to tell her-Sirius's family-but he's barely able to speak.
She holds out her hand.
He crosses to her. He kneels beside the bed. He takes her hand in both of his and starts to sob.
He must notice at some point being enfolded; her leaning over to put her other arm about his shoulders, resting her face into the back of his head. Her heart is pounding in his ears. Someone's breathing deafens him. The veil ripped and he'd gone instantly for Harry, grabbed him and held him back, and kept on holding back, until news came that Tonks had finally regained consciousness after the battle and someone had to tell her, and he volunteered and suddenly there was no Harry to care for, no loss equal to or greater than his own…
"I'm sorry," he chokes and is shushed by her. She's crying too. She knows why it's Lupin here. She doesn't need to ask who died.
Both slowly begin to breathe again.
He doesn't know how to move away. Now that it's hit him, how can he go anywhere? The thought Harry may need me finally pries his hand free of hers and he begins to stand.
Her hand convulsively gropes for his again. "Remus please don't leave."
Never heard more magickal words.
The usual hesitations, confirmations and qualifications aren't bothered with. Sirius is dead.
She makes room as he lies down. She turns over. He puts his arms around her. She presses back against him. He closes his eyes into her hair. He doesn't see its shift from limp and colourless to a faint restoration of rose. Their breathing evens, slows, and synchronises. Both sink into the tide.
Neither notices any lapse into sleep. They are extraordinarily aware. Each curve, joint and fit, every corner of warmth, skin ringing like strings. The other's body at once fills and heightens every hollow. She turns in his arms, presses her face into his throat. They never kiss and never move apart.
Sometime before dawn, she shifts free. Half-conscious, he releases her, nerve endings screaming in panic at the loss; but she only moves higher onto the pillow, and propping herself up, takes him back against her. She runs her hands over his neck and through his hair, until he realises why she's doing this: He was crying. He makes himself stop.
He wakes in early daylight. Her hands rest loosely on his ribs. His cheek is creased by her papery gown. Her wrists are imprinted with the tweed of his jacket. Her bare foot nestles tightly into the side of his shoe.
A nurse, checking a chart, turns quickly away as Lupin stirs.
End it now. Don't wait in dread, knowing this is the last time this would ever possibly happen. Terribly gently, he slips free of her arms and away from the bed.
Never never leave someone still sleeping to wake up and find you gone; so he whispers in her ear, "I have to go."
Her eyes flutter open. They meet his. She opens her mouth. He leans over and kisses her cheek. All the air in his lungs stays there with her as he leaves.
* * *
Back from a mission in the middle of the night. Someone should be very cross that no one noticed him come back; no matter that he helped install all the shields and alarms and knows the ways through them. He'll reprimand the watch himself. But for now he goes straight to the sofa and collapses.
Except someone did sense it. On watch duty or on her own, she will never be able to not notice his arrival again. She snuck down the stairs and stared through the rails at him. She stays there for a good long while. When she can't stand it any more, she comes into the room.
He starts upright. Wand en garde, he could well have Petrified her, but she flicks her own wand and whispers, "Expelliarmus." He barely has time to register the wand flying from his hand. She's on the couch with him. …On the couch on him. One of them's kissing the other. His arms go around her. Her legs go around him.
She whispers in his ear, "Welcome back you deserting bastard. You left me alone. Make up for it."
He breaks the kiss, manages to inhale, and pushes her back. "Wait, wait."
She sits back.
"Don't reward me for that night," he said. "That was selfishness. I couldn't go through the night alone."
"Neither could I," she said. "We're even. But I wouldn't have… would you…? It wouldn't have been anyone else."
He repeats, "It wouldn't have been anyone else." It was true. "But-you know that it was more about Sirius than either of-"
"You're lying." Her eyes turned awful. "Don't. You're the one who never lies. Don't you dare lie."
Through the morphing image, with a wrench, he sees her. All at once it's so clear, too clear to be new, but had he-? "No." He suddenly stands. She catches herself gracelessly. He shakes his head hard, to keep himself from looking at her and keep her from moving to him. "This can't… I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."
She opens her mouth.
He had been, and would keep, hounding Death Eaters; infiltrating dens of werewolves; negotiating and fighting; spying, reporting; confronting monsters, conquering wild complex magicks; enduring feats of restraint, isolating journeys and solitary watches. But with Dora, not for the first nor last time, he can't face it. He flees the room.
* * *
She'd grown so sad. Her hair drained of colour along with her face. Her movements lost their vibrancy, even to stumble and knock things about. She was withdrawn. Her spellcasting suffered. Everyone noticed but no one knew why. Only those who noticed that her patronus had changed its shape.
I'm too old for you, too poor… too dangerous…1
I don't care. It doesn't matter. I don't care.
* * *
She came into his bed as he was half asleep. Thinking he was dreaming, he rolled to face her and twined his leg around hers. She slipped free of her robe and pushed him out of his. He dug his fingers through her colour-wheeling hair. Her mouth was warm and felt like flower petals. His lips were torn and brushed her like autumn leaves. His hands ran over her smooth back. Hers explored the raised mottled flesh that covered his torso: so many scars he looks like he'd been burned. She moves to kiss every one. Her hands slip around him, pull them right together. Either they're so fully awake it's overwhelming or they're entirely in a dream.
"I love you," she whispers. "Don't ask me to go. Don't stay away."
He presses his palm up the curve of her spine, cups the back of her neck, makes her gasp with his mouth and hands, never stops holding her against him. He'll make her tremble and jolt and nearly break him with her strength one moment and mould into his strength the next and laugh without breath and go completely limp on an unprecedented plateau and pull him with her over the top of it and have tears leak from her sparkling eyes with their look of indescribable peace. But no. Whether it's for anyone's good or doom, damned if he'll stay away and make her so sad again.
* * *
Oh god. We shouldn't have done that.
Oh yes we absofucking should.
Yes I love you. I'm sorry. For everything.
Apologise for trying not to. Not for admitting you do.
…I am. I do.
* * *
The ceiling of their attic room in the Burrow was so low he had to stoop on entering. This time it was she who sat up at the sound of him knocking something over.
"Remus?" she whispered.
He set his wand on the adjacent nightstand and slipped into bed beside her, under the covers which she held up for him.
"Your hands are freezing," she yelped, and stuck them under her arms to warm them.
"Kingsley traded watch shifts with me," he murmured, wriggling his hands appreciatively and making her cheep. "He seemed quite insistent."
She snugged his hands tighter and settled into his shoulder. Her unbraced hand started unbuttoning his shirt. "Perhaps he thinks it's not good for you to spend all your time worried and on the alert."
Without recrimination, "Might he have had any help in thinking that?"
"I guess Molly might have said something… after I said something…"
He kisses her thoroughly. She slides still closer against him. Yes, there's a war on... all the more reason to grab the moments that make it worth fighting. And she's right: he'll be less useful to everyone if he doesn't… refresh. Parting for breath, he murmurs, "Well, it means our rest time overlaps by about two hours."
She does something probably irreversible to his defenseless buttons. "Well. We all know how restful you find me."
He speaks into her neck, in response to how loudly they're both breathing now, "The kids are right below us."
She knows it would be full stop if she went with, So teach them something. Instead, wrestles him out of his clothes and intones vaguely toward the door (probably the most soundproof part of the thin-walled and -floored room), "Imperturbatus."
She can never manage total silence. He's good at knowing when to stop her lips.
He's capable of staying silent. She's good at forcing him not to be.
* * *
She'd come out of nowhere, shouting him a warning
and though she succeeded in throwing herself between
him and the killing curse that had been aimed at his back
and deflecting it, they fought back to back for only an instant,
their minds crashing together knowing it was their last chance
- teddydamnyourunilove -
The curse that hit him in the shoulder and face spun him around and forced him to his knees; only to catch her in his arms with the cruciatus that left her convulsing and crying his name; and the white flashes turned suddenly green and she-
made him hurt in places he didn't know he had. From the very beginning. And past the end.
1JKR, Half Blood Prince
Dora Tonks Lupin