Like Apples and Curry

By Melpomene

Characters and backstory are not mine. No monies have been earned from this piece of mindless entertainment.

They were like apples and curry, she mused. Sweet and spicy and exotic and comforting. That was how it had been. But then everything changed.

She loved the feel of his embrace, the soft fabric of his patched and shabby robes cushioning her skin. His warmth could chase away all the chilling fears that hid beneath her crown of vibrant spikes. At least it used to be able to. She didn't know anymore. He never touched her anymore. Now his absence was the cause of her chills.

It had begun with the tiniest of things – quite the same way it had started really – so inconsequential that she hardly noticed. A quick sidestep that moved him just outside her casual reach. Hasty departures from dinners she attended. Missions that kept him far away whenever she happened to drop in for the night at number 12 Grimmauld Place. Each of those little incidents could be easily excused – too weary, too preoccupied, too important to the Order.

But by autumn the mountains of excuses were leached of their innocent believability and she had fallen to despair so deep it left her bereft of her natural talents. Spells, even the simplest, were a trial. She looked every bit as pitiful and pathetic as she felt. It was fitting, she decided, except that it created a world of worry around her. It was that worry that had her sitting at the Weasley's kitchen table in the Burrow with Molly fussing over their afternoon tea.

"Have you been to Diagon Alley recently? Fred and George are doing quite well. And Ginny sent an owl just yesterday – all's well at Hogwarts."

Tonks gave Molly only half an ear as she chattered on. Her eyes were focused listlessly on the family "clock" that balanced precariously atop Molly's knitting basket beneath a half-finished jumper. She wondered how many more swipes of the clacking knitting needles the clock would endure before it crashed to the floor. She also wondered if Molly would ever again see her family not relegated to "mortal danger".

"He wouldn't deny me if I were a werewolf," she said softly.

Molly froze in mid-sentence and quickly turned toward the table with wide and worry-filled eyes. "Tonks!" she cried.

Tonks cringed. She hadn't meant to say it aloud, hadn't meant to give her friends anything more to worry about her for. But it was true just the same. He wouldn't.

"You only need to give him time, dear. He'll come round to your way of thinking, you'll see." Molly levitated the tea tray to the table, her face a solemn mask. "Don't speak of such horrible things, even in jest."

"I wasn't jesting," Tonks answered flatly. "I was being honest."

Molly pursed her lips. "He would never forgive himself if he knew where he'd driven your thoughts," she insisted. "Never. You don't want his conscious burdened with such things, do you?"

Tonks shrugged. "It doesn't change that it's the truth, Molly. Too old, too poor, too dangerous: those are his excuses. If I weren't fully human, weren't whole, were dangerous – the other two wouldn't matter anymore." She twisted her napkin so savagely that she rent it in two. "Oi!" As she reached for her wand she bumped the sugar bowl with her elbow and sent it crashing to the floor. With a long-suffering sigh she tapped the napkin. "Reparo."

Molly's brow furrowed. The spell had only half worked and a large tear remained in the center of the linen.

"I'm sorry, Molly."

"Not at all, my dear. Reparo!" She tapped her own wand to the scrap of material and watched as the severed threads wove themselves back together. She also repaired the sugar bowl before Tonks had a chance to remember it was smashed. Goodness only knew what mess would be made out of it with the current state of they young Auror's mind.

"How have you been sleeping, Tonks dear?"

"Sleeping?" Tonks let the word float through her brain a few times. "It's hard sometimes."

"Only sometimes?" Molly gently prodded.

"All of the time," Tonks admitted. "Ever since he went underground."

Molly watched her young friend a while longer before she decided the other woman was so wrapped up in her own misery at the moment that she wasn't aware of what was going on around her. It would be easy enough to slip a sleeping potion into her tea.

She worried for her. While on assignment for the Order, Tonks was just as effective as ever. She was downright morose but at least she could function. Molly could only hope that the same could be said for the time Tonks was working at her Ministry position. It was the private times that worried Molly so thoroughly. When left on her own, she came up with solutions and understandings for her predicament that would do her only harm.

Molly rose from the table and moved as if to stir sugar into Tonks' tea. Arthur had been having trouble enough resting lately that she had taken to keeping a vial of sleeping potion in her apron pocket.

"Drink up, Tonks. You'll feel better if you do."

Half an hour later Molly had moved Tonks to Ginny's bed and cleared away the tea tray. It was time for her to begin preparing for dinner. Arthur would be home soon from the Ministry and Remus had accepted her offer of a home-cooked meal and would be along soon after. With luck, she would be able to talk a little sense into him before Tonks woke up and discovered her deception.