At a Point in Time
Summary: A collection of short stories that focuses on the different characters at a point in time of their lives.
Disclaimer: Harry Potter and all its relevant characters are the intellectual property of J.K. Rowling published by Bloomsbury (London).
Nymphadora Tonks
Tonks bit her lip as she read through the question again and again. She had been at it for nearly two hours, and now when she was so close to the end, it seemed that her homework would refuse to give her up and let her go and have a good time downstairs. She let out a frustrated sigh when the laughter from downstairs drifted up into her room.
"Merlin, help me!" She groaned and let her head fall on the table. Her eyes narrowed at her Transfiguration book, Transfiguration Through the Ages, A New Perspective. She honestly could not see anything new about Transfiguration. It had been the same mumble jumble for hundreds of years. Only now, it was here to torture her.
Tonks wanted to be downstairs with her parents and their friends. She wanted to laugh with them and listen to their exciting stories. Some of them were working for the ministry after all, and they always had the best stories to tell about hexes going haywire and muggles stumbling upon things they should not even have been able to see. But most of all, she wanted to see him.
She lifted an eyebrow as her hair slowly fell down in front of her eyes. The bright pink she had come to love and her mother loathed, very evident against the brown dull textbook.
She wanted to see him. She wanted to hear his laugh and see his smile. She loved it when he smiled at her, and he smiled at her often. His smile was warm and caring, although a little weatherworn. She knew why his smile was so shy and slightly beaten, and she loved it.
Tonks bit her lip once more.
"It can't be that bad, now can it?" Tonks jumped at the familiar voice and sat bolt up. His kind eyes smiled along with his face at her.
"Yes it can." She groaned and let her head fall onto the table once more.
"Let me have a look then." She watched him conjure up a chair before sitting down next to her. She handed him the parchment with the set questions and her textbook.
"The last question."
"Ah, I see Professor McGonagall has been her usual self."
"The Wicked Witch of the West, you mean." His light-hearted laughter filled her ears and slowly drifted through her body into her bloodstream; straight to her heart. She could suddenly feel her heart rate increase rapidly. She didn't know why he had this effect on her, but she didn't mind it at all. It was a feeling she had come to recognise and cherish, it was a feeling only he could manage to conjure up in her. It was a feeling she would never be able to tell him about.
"Ah! This is rather simple actually, you just have to read it the right way."
"What? How can it be simple? I've been through it five times!"
His laughter filled her once more and she had to keep herself from taking a deep breath and letting it out in a contented sigh. "See here…" He pointed to the question in the textbook. "She doesn't want you to refer to it directly. She wants you to look into it, to see beyond what is there. Transfiguration is not about just changing the appearance of the object or subject, it is also about what is changing inside of it."
"Huh?"
"Look at it this way. If you were to colour your hair blue right now, would I still be talking to Nymphadora or would I be talking to someone else?" Tonks had to bite her tongue to not lash out at him for using her hated name. She frowned up at his steady smile.
"I would still be me."
"Exactly, because your outside changed but not your inside. But with Transfiguration you can't only change the outside, you need to change it inside too."
"Oh… Oh! I get it."
"Good." She watched him stand up. His tall frame towered over her as she sat in her chair. She had always known he was tall. He was tall, fair, and so beautiful… She bit her lip, wondering if she would be allowed to ask him the question that suddenly popped into her mind.
"Remus…" He paused at her door and his eyes watched her expectantly. Inside, her mind screamed at her. Ask him, don't ask him… She could not decide. Should she ask him about his 'condition'? Should she tell him that she… That for the past three years… Should she tell him that she liked him? That she liked him more than just a friend?
She didn't know how long he stood watching her, how he watched every bottled emotion cross her face for a brief moment before disappearing. Then, her face turned back to the normal controlled expression he had come to expect from her. "Thank you."
Remus Lupin smiled at her before drifting out of the room towards the stairs. "It's my pleasure, love."