Open.

[supercilious]

Who: Various. (Arthur, Merlin, Remus, possibly Lust, Shirley, Tonks, whoever else wants a thread...)
Where: The Clinic.
When: Whenever it needs to be? For the Bellatrix plot?
What: Arthur gets a worrying glimpse of bespelled Lupin and, completely undermining the intention of his original message, drags Merlin off to act as deus ex machina and fix

Comments

standing guard

[sonvisage]

[Standing over the bed now. (she'd been sitting for a while, but she'd gotten up to pace) A few steps and she turns, her expression wavering between comfort and anger and things in between that she doesn't have the time nor the desire to try and identify.]

We're back to this again, are we?

[Reading to you isn't going to help this time, I don't think.]

[So she'll stand until she's no longer needed. Until Nymphadora (whatever, she doesn't like her own given name, either.) returns. Until---

---well, until that, too.

It's not as if she needs to sleep.]

not standing anything!

[lumenrelegandus]

[Finite incantatem.

Rennervate.

Finite.

Omnia damnat ad infernum

Wordless, wandless, and motionless countercursing wasn't going to cut it right now.

Wordless magic takes extremely focused concentration; wandless magic takes immense amount of energy; and he has neither.

It's so important to focus on nothing except getting free right now.

It's impossible not to think about why.

Even if he could ask Io for help, would she do it? No, because everyone was trying to protect each other. Sometimes the only way to save is to be willing to sacrifice… dammit just who does everyone think I think I am…? what I was trying to do… Was certainly not this.

Who could unjinx him right now? Tonks-

(explosion of pain behind the eyes)

…Le…

(practically blinded.) This is intolerable. Can't even think the way out and that's all he could do right now.

Merlin. Shirley. Hermione.He thought those names over and over, like a mantra, to wipe out all other thought, try to regain focus through the emotional turmoil, until the right answer struck him; and

[thenobledie]

[ alright, alright. enough with the mantra. it's distracting to actually making a decision about what to do. ...which she still hasn't done. shirley sees the merits of keeping him this way and not, and in the face of detached indecision (her focus is nymphadora and bellatrix, and little else, even someone she cares so much about), it's best to do nothing when others (merlin) will do something.

oh. well. there is her decision, then.

still, shirley is peering over him. hi. ]

I know not the proper magic, Remus.

[ shirley, shut up. or stop being awful. one of those. ]

[pratservant]

[He doesn't know if he made the right decision or just made things worse. It's a feeling that Merlin's been struggling a lot with lately, torn between the logical and the heartfelt. Where Bellatrix was concerned, Remus had spoken to his head, but Tonks was in motion. Merlin could've asked more questions, he could've tried to talk her out of it.

Instead he'd said yes.

Merlin was in the ruins when he first heard Lupin's voice inside his head. If there was hesitation, it was precious little. After Arthur's message, there was none. Fear and the race back to the clinic have stolen almost all of his breath. But Merlin's first glimpse of Lupin through the doorway robs him of what's left.]

What's happened to him!

PERSONAL REF, this is sept fifth and super early/super late.

[thenobledie]

[ and being as it is rather early or rather late, depending on who you ask, shirley shouldn't be in the clinic. it's not her shift, and she's moved on from haunting lupin's little library on a nightly basis. but it is in her opinion that lilly need not know about dealing with bellatrix. safer, anyway. (still deciding on what to do about lupin himself, though.)

so here, she is. currently, transferring an orange liquid to a couple phials. ...it's a potion, ok. ]

[supercilious]

[ Once here there's not exactly a lot Arthur can do, bar wait for Merlin to return from... wherever. He feels like they've been swept up in the situation and though he doesn't mind, not these people, he's impatient to contribute something. ]

[ When he finds Shirley he smiles, a private joke. And there's still a part of him that's young and idiotic and comes to sit on the stool to watch her work, breathe the clean and comforting citrus scent, even as he understands better now what it is she's making, or knows properly that he doesn't understand at all. ]

[ And he kicks his feet, waiting, deeply unhappy in ways he can't express but content with this one moment in time, letting the silence linger. ]

[thenobledie]

[ softly, without turning from her work: ]

It's good to see you well.

[ and from shirley, it is utterly honest. she doesn't think he needs protection - one of the few with a head on properly, in her opinion, and he was a young man in her mind, first. but she is fond of him, and it feels distinctly young in a way she can't place. ]

[supercilious]

[ He watches her hands. ]

And you.

[ Two people who know how to give their platitudes some real weight. ]

Remus. You can't...?

[ A hand, circled, in the air beside his head. These days that's Arthur for magic. Can't or won't, but they're synonymous at the moment, as he wouldn't bother to try to convince her. If she could, if she would, she'd be there. But the question is akin to pointing at a branching road, and saying, this path? Shall we? (Shirley has the only map.) ]

Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering fearing,

[wotchesyou]

[ September 5 - 5:33am ]

[ Tonks is herself again.

However, exhaustion at this point is a slight understatement. Tonks feels tired. She feels it down into her bones but she cannot rest, not yet. Confession must be made, Tonks has to tell the truth of what she did.

With this is mind, she leaves the Ruins. ]

Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before;

[lumenrelegandus]

[What he'd said to the others, what he'd meant to say all along, had he quite realised it: he was done trying to protect or be protected. It was too late to keep anyone from the full horror of the situation, or their enmeshment-even complicity-in it. It was no help to keep trying to stop one another. It was time to help one another. If something dreadful was to be done-and it was. It simply was.-it would be done with consent and collaboration. Planning. A better chance of success. And meting shares of blame.

He didn't even know what was to be told yet, but the words were in his mind: Why didn't you tell me.

But so were the words: Of course it's only fair.

Even he couldn't really feel guilty about this, try to imagine his secrecy had caused this. Ridiculous. Nor could he take the credit of imagining he'd provoked. Possibly forced her hand-the look in her eyes, the sense of the spellcasting, the fact she'd done it, like that, to him… He could hardly conceive of anything intelligible but he had a fair sense of what may have happened,

[wotchesyou]

[ After Bella's execution, it had been Tonks intent to return straight away to the Clinic. There are things she needs to do there. Remus. Possibly Shirley. And then she can rest.

Then she had found Merlin outside. That had changed things. She's not ready for who else might be inside the Clinic.

No, she would not return there. So, Tonks returns to her fort. It is the only place she has.

She has her wand out to undo some of the wards when she can sense another presence approach her.

She turns her head in that direction. ]

Who's there?

[ Her voice is soft, as if the words drain her further. ]

[lumenrelegandus]

[A good part of Defense is pure instinct. He doesn't know what's happened, doesn't know what's relevant-how Lestrange had once impersonated to him, what the Mist had once impersonated to Lestrange-only feels somehow that simply calling out is insufficient. What's appropriate is shared proof:]

They always run away, usually in horror and usually very fast, when I tell them I fancy them; why aren't you?

MUCH LATER. post Lupin unjinxing.

[pratservant]

[He should go home. He's done all that he can do. But Merlin lingers outside the clinic, his thoughts a jumble. Most of them have a question mark at the end.]

[Merlin crouches down and stares into the darkness, not expecting to see anyone. Anyone would have to be crazy to be out this late. He hugs his arms around his legs. The nights are getting cooler, bit by bit. Soon he's going to need a thicker coat.]

on her way to her fort...

[wotchesyou]

[ Her first intention had been to return to the Clinic. She has unfinished business. Tonks has things she must say. Then there is Remus. She must confess to him first, after she undoes the body bind.

A figure dressed in black approaches Merlin. The hood is down, it's just Tonks.

She stops when she sees him. ]

Merlin. What are you doing here?

(( OOC: I assumed open? ))

[pratservant]

[Merlin stands again, and his first thought is that someone must be hurt or sick. But then he hears her voice...]

Tonks...

[Her name comes out like a breath that he's been holding. He might have some explaining of his own to do, but first things first.]

Are you all right?

((OOC: You bet! :D ))

[wotchesyou]

No, but now I think I can be.

[ She doesn't mean to sound so cryptic. Tonks is usually uncomfortably blunt. ]

Why are you here?