Abandoned
There is pop music echoing out of Dora's room. That, Andromeda reflects worriedly as she goes along the landing towards the source of the noise, ought to be a good sign. Dora has always loved pop music. It is something she inherited from Ted. Andromeda, brought up to believe all pop music, even magical, to be an abomination upon the face of the Earth, has never quite managed to shake that indoctrination and bring herself to like it. But Dora has no such inhibitions. Magic or muggle, the Weird Sisters, the Beatles, the Fwooping Whoopers, the Rolling Stones: Dora's heard them all, sung them all, danced to them all, her hair colours as bright as the music they play.
So, it should be normal that pop music is echoing out of Dora's room. But it isn't. Because this music is different. Oh, it's vibrant enough – on the surface. A bright, brittle vibrancy, in bitterly mocking contrast to the heavy, despairing beat behind it. The beat – and the lyrics.
'Are you going to Scarborough fair,
Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme.
Give my love to one who lives there,
She was once a true love of mine.'
"Dora!" Andromeda calls, rather more sharply than she means to, because she is almost afraid. "Dora! Dinner's ready, darling."
"'m not hungry," says a voice instantly from the other side of the door. The position of the voice indicates that Dora is in fact sitting on the floor, leaning on the door panels – her old childhood spot for a 'shutting the world out' mood. And it's a dull, brown voice, the dull brown voice of someone who can't even manage to morph their face into a smile any more. Andromeda is siezed with a sudden, uncharacteristic, Black-family-like desire to hunt down that – that – that Lupin – and hex him witless. Doing this to their bright Dora!
"But Dora," she protests hastily, struggling to keep her voice steady against the anxiety and the heavy pounding of that music. "You need to eat. For the baby's sake, darling."
There's a long pause. "All right," says the dull voice eventually. "I'll be down when the record's finished."
"...with a sickle of leather..."
The music follows Andromeda all the way downstairs.
"...then she'll be a true love of mine..."
~:~
A/N: Before anyone wonders, I am a passionate R/T shipper, and no gratuitous Remus bashing is intended. But did you ever think how awful Tonks must have felt when Remus walked out?
Ah, and yes, I've never liked 'Scarborough Fair.'