The mission, at least, had not been that important. Remus and Tonks had been asked to survey a street in London where suspected former Death Eaters had been rumored to be seeking out recruits, but Tonks had a feeling that Dumbledore had simply wanted to acquaint her, the newest member of the Order, with the rules and regulations of covert operations.
They had skirted down the nearly unpopulated side street when they had spotted her uncle, Lucius Malfoy, making his way down the road.
"What would he be doing in muggle London?" Tonks asked, her voice uncharacteristically hushed.
Remus looked at her contemplatively. "I don't know," he began slowly, deliberating each word as it passed his lips, "but I doubt it's anything virtuous. We should find a safe place to apparate back; someone with such connections in the Ministry shouldn't see you consorting with anyone like me." Without meeting her eye, the older wizard placed one hand lightly at the small of her back and began to guide her even farther from the bustling London streets.
"Remus," Tonks began, eager to contradict his self-depreciating words, "I couldn't give two flying—" she stopped speaking as he stopped moving, and followed his eyes in search of the reason for his sudden halt.
Near the side of the road, about fifteen feet away from them, lay a small animal, its limbs splayed haphazardly about it. A raccoon, Tonks recognized absentmindedly, or something similar. Whatever it was, she thought, it was very much dead.
But that wasn't why he had stopped, she realized – her heart ached a bit as she saw another raccoon approach it, coming to a stop at its side, lying next to its fallen comrade.
"Oh, Remus," she began, her voice a bit hoarse. He did not look at her, but kept his eyes trained on the two creatures, his brow furrowed in a look of deep pity and something less recognizable. She continued in spite of his misdirected attention, "Don't you think we should . . . I don't know . . . Scare him off or something? I mean, he'll only be hit by another daft muggle in one of those stupid autos!"
Realizing his partner's distress, Remus looked down at her sadly, but did not answer immediately. "No," he said finally, "He won't be scared off anyway. I think . . ." he stopped, let out a soft sigh, and went on cautiously, "I think he'll want to stay there. He knows he'll be hit . . . He knows."
Tonks thought about arguing, but the look on his face stopped her. For some reason, she noticed, he looked at her nearly the same way that he had surveyed the heartbroken animal on the street – with soft pity, regret, and something far more complicated.
He insisted on apparating back to her flat with her, clearly still unnerved by Lucius' appearance during her first assignment with the Order. Back at her apartment, he gently turned down her invitation for tea, seeming to think it insincere. At this, she attempted to complete her earlier sentiments, finding herself to be, for once, nearly at a loss for words.
"I mean what I said earlier, you know. Rather, what I was going to say. What I mean is that, well, I don't really care much. About you, I mean. Or, about your . . . problem," she fumbled, hardly encouraged by his bemused expression. "That was wrong. I do care about you, as much as it's normal to care about anyone you've only just recently met, and I don't care about your, er, affliction, or about what anyone in the Ministry thinks of you, or of me being around you, because I've only known you a month or two and I've already sussed that you're at least twice the men that any of them are."
She paused for a breath, but decided that she had verbally assaulted the poor man enough for one night. Avoiding his searching eyes, she began to assess the damage of her clumsy outburst. He said nothing, but tilted her chin up gently with one calloused hand, brushed his lips lightly against her forehead, and turned to leave. She heard the crack that signified his deapparition, and let herself into the apartment.
Despite the giddy feeling that had come courtesy of his show of affection, the only things she could think about were his sad eyes, the promise of war, and the lasting image of the heartbroken raccoon on the side of the road, waiting patiently to meet the same fate as the creature it mourned.
She hadn't been able to stay home, to stay away from him. The maternal love that she felt for her newly born child wasn't enough to keep her away from the hard-earned love of her husband. She pushed the guilt of deserting the baby to the back of her mind – she had to find Remus.
The war had always been chaos, but never like this. Everywhere she looked was another dead body, another fallen friend. Her heart raced dangerously with every lifeless face she saw; any of them could be him.
When she found him, he looked angry to see her there, but his anger faded as he sensed her relief at finding him alive. She told him that the baby was safe with her mother, told him that she couldn't let him fight alone, told him that she had to see for herself. He fixed her with the look that she had come to loathe – the regret, the sadness, and the gut wrenchingly pained love; as if loving her was the worst thing that he could do to her, and she had proved it by coming to the battle.
He kissed her on the forehead, just like that first night, and then they turned to fight. It had all come down to that final battle, and she was with him; that inevitable feeling settled over her, as though nothing could touch her while he was there.
It was, of course, just a feeling. She wasn't sure how long he lay there before she realized he had been hit; as the Death Eater she had been dueling raced away from her, she turned to find him a few yards away, the life drained from his features.
There didn't seem to be a war anymore, not really – what had she been fighting for? She knelt beside him, her hands tracing his features, her determination deserting her swiftly and mercilessly.
"That woman," she heard a young girl yell from somewhere distant – or was it right behind her? "Someone has to go get that woman, she'll be killed, someone help!"
Wearily detached from herself, Tonks realized that the yells were directed at her, and knew what those who had heard were thinking. Even as she gripped her wand tightly and turned away from the dead form beside her, she knew that she was not really leaving him at all.
I think she'll want to stay there, she recalled his words blindly. She knows.
Note: True to form, I suppose I'll have to write about five stories worth of nonsense before I endeavor to write another chapter for that actual honest-to-god story I started. But hey, if you'd like to check that one out and leave a review, I'm sure it'd go quicker. Review this too, if you'd like, even though it's (more than) a bit of a mess.
I don't know how raccoons became a basis for a story. Just goes to show that anything in the world can turn into an unorganized piece of crap if you give it to a writer.