Cruel, Crazy, Beautiful World
Chapter 1: Slipped Away
Suddenly I am awake. Or at least my mind is. My body refuses to move, my eyes won't open. My mind doesn't seem to be working all that well either. I have no idea who I am, much less where I am or what I'm doing there. My thoughts form so slowly it's almost painful. "Nymphadora Tonks, who prefers to be known by her surname only". Right, I'm Tonks, Auror, Metamorphmagus, and a complete klutz. One question down two to go. If only I could open my eyes!
"Miss Tonks, can you hear me?" The voice is unfamiliar and very business like. I open my eyes. Hey, I opened my eyes! Definitely an improvement now let's try the vocal cords. "Yes," I croak. Ha, triumph! Okay so I sound more like a frog than a human, but I can talk.
I look at the woman standing by my bed. She is short and thin with fine pale blond hair and dark blue eyes. She is wearing glasses and lime green robes with a crossed bone and wand emblem on them. Oh, Saint Mungo's. Wait, what am I doing at Saint Mungo's? Suddenly I remember. The battle at the Department of Mysteries… and her, that slimy little snake, Bellatrix. "Your aunt," says a nasty voice in the back of my head. Her voice. You are not my family! Not you and not Narcissa. My family is my parents and Sirius. They don't accept you as family and neither do I! Now get out of my head! Now I remember the others. What happened to them? To Sirius and Remus, to Harry and his friends, Kingsley and Moody? If she has hurt one of them it's all my fault. I never should have looked when Harry yelled. Constant vigilance! I need to know now.
I turn to ask the healer what has happened to the others. Only to discover I can't turn, again! I can't open my mouth either. My eyes widen in panic, or would if they could do anything but blink. The healer seems to understand anyway. "It's just a diagnostic spell, and if the results are positive, I will let your visitor in." She tells me. I want to ask her about my visitor, but I still can't move. "The effects will wear off in about twenty minutes," the healer tells me as she leaves.
I use my time alone to ponder who my visitor might be. I think of my parents first, but no she said visitor not visitors. Sirius? No. Even if the ministry has figured out that he is innocent he couldn't just walk into Saint Mungo's without causing a mass panic. Remus or Molly then. Those two worry way too much. Great the last thing I need is Molly fussing over me. I really hope it's Remus; at least he won't drive me too crazy.
When the effects begin to wear off my cheerfulness returns in full measure. The door opens and in steps Remus Lupin. I am relieved to see him. As sweet as Molly is she can be a little overbearing sometimes. "Wotcher Remus," I exclaim brightly.
"Hello Nymphadora, it's nice to see you awake," his response sounds wrong in my ears. And it didn't have anything to do with the use of my hated name.
I frown at him. "What's the matter?" I ask, remembering my earlier fears. "What happened?" I sit up and can see him properly. He seems fragile, breakable. I know something is very wrong. I move to get up, to make him sit down and tell me what happened. Apparently he doesn't think that's a good idea because he walks forward and makes me sit down with a gentle hand on my shoulder.
"Sit", he commands.
I grab his arm angrily. Stupid, why does he have to be so overprotective? I'm an auror, dam it! "You sit! And tell me what happened right now!" I hiss angrily.
He sighs and pulls a chair up to the side of the bed. He takes a deep breath and, refusing to meet my eyes, says "Sirius…"
Now I'm really confused and even more worried. Surely the ministry hadn't caught him, and even if they had, wouldn't it be obvious that he was innocent? "What about Sirius?" I ask, cautiously.
"Bellatrix…" he manages to say before trailing off again. Then I look at his face and suddenly I understand.
"No," I breathe. No, no, no, the word echoes in my head. My voice rises in pitch and volume, and I reach forward and grab his hand. "No that's impossible." I try to tell him that it couldn't have happened but he just shakes his head helplessly and I see a tear run down his cheek. That's when I know it's true. I know he's gone. Because I have never seen Remus Lupin cry before and I know that there is only one thing that could cause this.
My shoulders begin to shake and I reach for him, needing to feel something other than the pain I feel right now or I'll go mad. And I know however horrible I feel right now, Remus must feel ten times worse. His best friend, the last of his fellow Marauders, is gone. As for me, I have grown close to Sirius over the past year, so close that I find it almost impossible to imagine the world without him. So I sit and hold Remus tightly for what seems like an eternity.
I don't want to believe it. Sirius, he can't be gone… he just… can't. It's not fair. I want to scream and scream and not ever stop, but I find for the third time today that I can't move. I want it all to be a mistake, like before. But before wasn't all a mistake, it still happened. Harry still lost his parent's; Remus still lost the people who saw him for who he was, and not what he was. I am shaking so hard now I feel as though I will shatter.
Remus' silent sobs form a sort of counter melody to my own, a silent lament for the loss of a bright star. Merlin, I can't believe how sappy I sound.
I smile and whisper in Remus' ear, "Can you imagine what Sirius would say if he saw us like this?" I can sense Remus begin to smile weakly too. See, just 'cus I'm sad doesn't mean I can't help people!
"He would probably say something about this being very romantic and tease us about it until we found something to blackmail him with." I laugh shakily. It's a forced laugh. But at the moment Remus needs my help.
"Yeah that would be just like him, making a joke to stop other people from being sad even if only for a little while."
"Like you?" he says quietly. He pulls away and looks at me. His stare is intense as though he is seeing me for the first time. "You're trying to cheer me up aren't you?" He sounds suspicious, like this is a crime. I guess he thinks it his job to cheer people up, I mean he is always taking care of everyone, he made sure Sirius was safe for the last year. And at Hogwarts, he was probably the one to make sure his friends didn't do anything too stupid. He obviously didn't succeed all the time.
Remembering Sirius, I feel a tear run down my cheek. He can't be dead. That word echoes through my head too, over and over. Dead, dead, dead. "I don't want to believe it" I hear myself whisper. "I just can't, I still remember when I was a little kid and he would come and play with me. He would actually listen to what I had to say, and treated everything I said like it was just as important as anything anyone else had to say." Maybe he's still there like last time. Maybe if I just refuse to believe he's gone, like when I was a kid, he won't be gone, he'll come back. I know that's not going to work, at least in my head, but in my heart, I seem to know it will work. It will work because it has to, because this hurts too much.
"Pain is part of life Nymphadora." Remus says as he rushes out of the room. I think I made him feel worse instead of better. So much for the "infectious cheerfulness" of Tonks.
Angry, I call after him, "Don't call me Nymphadora!"
A week later
"I feel horrible. Every time the healers do something I know Sirius would find funny or would love to ridicule, I think "I'll tell him after the next meeting." and then I realize he won't be there and it starts all over again," I tell Remus. He sits on the foot of my bed and it's the most comforting feeling I've had all day. I start to cry, really cry. Not dry sobs like when he was last hear, but heart felt sobs accompanied by tears. I reach for Remus again and he leans forward to hold me and just let me cry because he knows that I need someone to help me through all this. And as usually he is trying to take care of me. Then I feel his shoulders begin to shake ever so slightly. Or maybe he needs this just as much as I do. He is always hiding what he feels so he can help the others. Maybe I am helping him because with me he can be himself, he doesn't have to pretend because of the time we spent just hanging around Grimmauld Place with Sirius. I see him as a friend and I can see past the werewolf, that is why he can see me as a friend. Or maybe more? No, he's just a friend. But he could be more. No, he couldn't he is … what exactly is Remus to me? He's a friend, sure. I'm not sure this is the best time to be considering this. And it's definitely not the right place, well wrong position. "Very romantic" says a voice in my head. I realize it's Sirius voice and the tears roll down my cheeks in greater number than ever. I've been like this all day, as soon as I start to cheer up I remember.
Slowly the tears stop and Remus and I pull apart. "How have you been doing?" I ask him.
"I'm fine" he responds refusing to meet my eye.
"Don't I'm fine me Remus I can tell you are not at all fine," I glare and he looks up, tentatively. "You are even more pale than usual and you look as though you haven't eaten since the Department of Mysteries."
He looks like he's going to protest but then he seems to melt. He looks down at his hands and says. "You're right I'm not fine. I… I just really miss him. And I'm worried about Harry and …you."
"Well your not the only one who's worried. I've been worried sick since you were here last. I was afraid I made you feel worse. I was trying to help and when you left like that I was worried that I had made you feel worse." I had been worried and he was the reason why. Wasn't that one of the symptoms of being in love? Ugh more romance, what would Sirius think. Oh no not again. I will not cry, I will not cry, I will not cry. I look at Remus and see he has this strange look in his eye, like he doesn't know what to think of me. I don't know what to think of him either. I am confused and a little scared. I hadn't seen Remus for a week, not since I first woke up but I had been thinking about him almost obsessively since then. I'm not sure why. At first I thought I was just relieved he was okay. Then I thought that maybe it was because I was worried when he didn't show up the day after I woke up. Then Molly told me he was busy at the Ministry, they where trying to find out about the fight. But after that I still kept thinking about him. I remembered all the times we spent with Sirius and I thought about what he was doing at that moment. Would he still be facing interrogation at the ministry? Was he eating dinner now? He hadn't been doing much of the latter from the look of him.
Suddenly Remus disturbs my thoughts. "Nymphadora the healers say you can go home tomorrow, but Dumbledore doesn't think you should go anywhere unaccompanied for a while, so I'll come pick you up and we will take the muggle bus."
"But Remus tomorrow is the day the train from Hogwarts gets in. Molly has been here every day and so have Moody and Kingsley. Don't try and tell me that you won't be there. They told me all about it and I'm going. I'm sick of this hospital and of being treated like a child. I'm an auror not a child. I'm going to be there and I'm going to help you, Harry doesn't deserve to be treated like those relatives of his treat him. We can't stop them entirely but we can make it better." I couldn't stand to be left out of one more thing.
Remus sighs. "I guess I didn't think you would care. I mean you haven't known Harry the way we do. I guess I should of known you care too much about everyone to be like that. But I honestly wasn't trying to hide anything from you."
"All right then. You will come tomorrow afternoon and we will go to Kings Cross and meet the train." I'm happier than I've been in days. I know why too. It's him; it's because of the man sitting on the foot of my bed. I think I'm in love, and I don't mean a crush or anything like that.
Remus suddenly looks startled. "Umm… Nymphadora you're hair just turned the brightest shade of pink I've ever seen."
Oh so that's what's wrong. "Sorry," I giggle. "I'm just really happy." Remus smiles and shakes his head.
"Some things never change." he says and then gets up. "I'll see you tomorrow." He leaves and I'm still smiling. I have a feeling I'll be smiling like this for a while. I'm in love. Now I just have to figure out what to do about it. What if he doesn't feel the same? Well no point in worrying about "what ifs". Anyway, I bet he does feel something. Why else would he have come? However, he might not know it. At least not yet.