THE HAPPIEST DAY

"You arrived here pretty quickly, Nymphadora."
She was already quite sad to find herself dead, in the netherworld and alone. Jokes were not allowed.
"Whoever you are, don't call me Nymphadora!"

She knew that voice, however. And she knew that place, though she was denying that to herself.
"Show yourself, at least! Or are good manners not in fashion here?"
He laughed. "Huuuh. Good manners... not my forte when I was alive. I wasn't like your Remus or Kingsley, at all..."
A name rose to her lips. She was at the point of speaking it out, when he showed himself and she thought to be wrong. The man standing before her was young, quite good-looking, two-legged and two-eyed. She frowned and looked at him more carefully. Well, in fact, the build was the same...

"A-Alastor?"
"Very remarkable of you, I didn't think you would have caught it. Pretty good here, isn't it?"
Suddenly she realized where she was and was surprised she had not recognized it before. They were on the second level of the Ministry. Auror Headquarters.
"Were you like this when you were young? And why can I see this appearance instead of that one I know?"
"Just because I want you to see me so. And because we have both come back to the place and time where we have been most happy."
"The day I became an Auror!" Tonks was surprised, but she quickly turned dark. "Was this really the most exciting thing in my life? Not my wedding day? Not when Teddy was born? I just cannot understand."

Moody smiled bitterly. "No, it's this. You weren't really happy when you got married, admit that."
He was right... because Remus was still full of doubts then.
"And you gave birth to your son knowing there were no chances of seeing him growing up..."
True, also. Those last months... an uncertainty spoiled everything.
"This day, on the other hand... you really felt it was the first of a new life, it was the day. It was the same for me, many years before you, at the beginning of my career. This is because you can see me so young. I've also kept the same happy memory as you, and we are both come back here to live our eternity."

Tonks realized she was no longer able to cry.
"What's Remus' happy memory, then? If that's not me, oh, well, I couldn't expect it to... but where is he now?"
Moody shrugged his shoulders. "You were his woman-of-a-lifetime, this is sure. But now that's all changed, do you understand?"
Now that life is over, we belong to each other no more.
"But you can give a look at him, if you want to..."

Gryffindor dormitory. Remus, James and Sirius, wearing pajamas, throwing pillows to one another, jumping on their beds. Three carefree fifteen-year-old boys laughing and laughing...

The image faded off, and Tonks found herself before Moody again.
"Well, then? Which waiting room did he choose?"
"Nothing to be jealous about," she whispered.
"Uhm... it is good anyway. Regrets are not allowed. After all, if you are here, it means you've chosen to go ahead, haven't you?"

To go ahead where? How long? And does time exist, here?

"Were you serious, when you said we'll stay here forever?"
"Ah, ah! Of course not!" he said, and he looked dreadfully amused. "I was joking. This is just a point of departure."
So, not even Remus will eternally stay with his friends, she thought. "And then?"
"And then, we shall see. I've decided to wait for you here, so far. Of course I hoped to wait fifty years at least, but..."
Said like that, it sounded strange, but okay, it was his way to make her understand he was sorry she had died so soon.
"Were you waiting for me? It must be boring here, then, you must have had nothing to do."
"Nothing better, you said it. There's nothing better than you," he agreed.
That was good, but hey... she had always accounted that man as a father!

"That's another joke, okay?" she laughed. "But what, Mad-Eye, you're not going make me believe you've been in... in... love with me all these years!"
Moody's look was severe. "Don't call me Mad-Eye, girl! My eyes are both at their proper place, now, as you can see!"
She was a little frightened because of his overreaction, but then he smiled to her.
"Tit for tat, my dear Nymphadora."
"Don't call me..."
"Nymphadora, Nymphadora, Nymphadora!" he said over and over again as he tickled her.
She couldn't weep, but she could feel that: maybe it was true, only sadness was not allowed in that world.
"You're an idiot, Mad-Eye!"

He stopped mocking at her, and his hands stopped too.
"Why should I kid you about my feelings, which are so precious? I've always cared for you, since you were in training. You were so awkward, but so feisty too, and I liked you so much. But, oh! It would have been a crime to approach you, then, I knew I was too old for you, old and... ugly..."

She agreed that, actually, he was not her kind of guy.
But you were my kind of Auror, oh yes. I wanted to become just the way you were.
"I ask you to believe me when I say that I was glad to see you with Lupin. You couldn't have chosen a better man."
She nodded. "But now... how did you put it? Everything has changed."

She didn't know how to act, which way to turn... she started to walk around the level. The rooms of the Ministry were empty, noiseless. This was the fictional reality were she had chosen to begin her path in the netherworld. The waiting room. She was twenty-one again, then, and Fudge was in his place, and so was Dirk Cresswell... and outside? Was there an "outside"?

Curiosity drove her to get into an elevator, but it didn't work. She tried with another, and another...
"Stop, Tonks, for Merlin's sake!" Moody was running towards her. "If you leave alone, we cannot..."
She tried to get off, but the grilles were closing, and the elevator began to go down...
It was her personal key to go ahead: once left the Atrium, she would have found what eternity had in store for her...

Our eternity!

"Stop!" she screamed. "I want to stop!"
She could not part from Moody. He was the one she could rely on in that new existence.

The elevator stopped, went up to the second level again, and the grilles opened.
The black-eyed, rugged young man was still there. She stretched her hand and he held it as he got in. They both closed their eyes while they were going down.

"You've caught it, did you, if you went off here alone... it would have meant to tell me goodbye?"
Tonks put her arms around him. "I don't want to tell you goodbye, Alastor! I'm going nowhere without you!"

The Atrium was deserted; they could palpably feel a trembling silence. There was a wide, shining world beyond the golden gate... and slowly, hand in hand, they began to walk through that light.