Jack o'Lantern
The roads to Heaven and Hell
both pass through pain,
but only one doth pass through it to Love.
- attributed to St. Mungo (1560 – 1659)
Her frantic thoughts pounded in rhythm with her racing feet. 'This cannot be happening. I've just got him back. I almost lost him this last year. And by Merlin, I am not going to lose him again!'
She skidded to a halt on the slick groundcover ... and screamed.
The red jet blasted into the wall mere inches from Nymphadora Tonks' face, sending chunks of the facade raining down. She ducked deeper into the alleyway, trying to spot Remus Lupin's whereabouts out of the corner of her eye. When the Death Eaters had ambushed them, they had become separated in the initial attack and she couldn't help but worry, despite the comforting fact that in some ways he was a more accomplished combatant than she was, even given her Auror training and experience.
One of the masked figures dashed into her line of sight, and she fired off an Impediment Jinx that barely missed its target. Seemed there was a lot of that going around today...
Sprinting to the other end of the alley, kicking potentially foot-tangling loose rubbish out of her path, Tonks peered around the corner to see her missing partner pinned down behind a trio of dustbins on the pavement. He was in the process of exchanging wand-fire – some of that literal, as she noted at least one Incendio - with a pair of Death Eaters. That made five, by her count. If was almost as if they'd been alerted to expect her arrival well in advance...
The Death Eaters ducked into crouching positions and charged together across the street towards Remus' makeshift barricade, but he rose in a flash as they nearly reached him – and so did the bins, which rocketed towards his opponents with predictable results.
She cleared the gap between them in strides and automatically took his back.
"Fancy meeting you here," he said dryly.
"Always did enjoy running into the man I fancy," she shot back smoothly.
The dustbins piled in the street clattered noisily. "Remus!" she yelled, only just catching his shouted, "— viosa!" before she felt herself hurtling skyward.
She made a grab for the top of the building as she drew level with it, wrenching herself onto the roof and rolling away from the edge, landing heavily on her left shoulder, then sprawling flat on her belly in a puddle of scarlet Auror robes. Inching forward to peer down at the street, she saw no sign of Remus – Disapparated, most likely – and scorch marks scoring the very spot where she had been standing mere seconds earlier. By protecting her in this fashion, he had also graced her with a superb vantage point.
In the ensuing silence, she reflected ironically that they had certainly fallen back into old habits with astonishing ease. Lobbing quips at one another while under fire did take less effort than struggling to come to full terms with the death of Albus Dumbledore less than thirty-six hours ago, let alone grappling with the fine points of where their relationship now stood.
Gawain Robards had unexpectedly called her to London yesterday afternoon and had sent her to investigate alleged Death Eater sightings in Wolverhampton, of all places. ("No rest for the wicked cool, eh?" she had cracked. Robards had not been amused, and she had spent the rest of the day sporting demure six-inch lime-green banana curls in tribute to his astounding sense of humour.)
Remus had been waiting for her outside the entrance to the Ministry of Magic as if that had been the arrangement all along, quietly falling into step beside her, not even asking where they were bound. Naturally, she had taken this as a positive sign, but there had been precious little time for anything resembling deep conversation, let alone a clear reconciliation between them, since that moment. Then again, it could simply be his Gryffindor sense of honour that was motivating his actions. Whatever else he now considered her, she was still his fellow soldier in the war against You-Know-Who, and that counted for a lot with him.
Remus rounded the corner again, casting rapid-fire spells over his shoulder at the three Death Eaters in hot pursuit.
Over the general din of shouts, running footsteps and the crashing and smashing of innocent inanimate objects meeting their untimely ends - victims of one deflected curse or another - Tonks heard a feminine shriek that sounded oddly like, "Ve haff unfinished business!"
The smallest masked figure aimed its wand, and before she could shout a warning, loudly intoned, "Ignis Fatuus!" A gush of what looked like grey smoke shot out of the tip and struck Remus in the chest just as he was whirling to face his attacker. As Tonks grimly fired a Banishing Charm, slamming the witch into a nearby building with a satisfying thud, she noted with considerable alarm that the smoky rope was now coiling around Remus' wand-arm. He shook it wildly, and the smoke simply vanished as though he had manually dispersed it.
This time her "Impedimenta!" winged one of the Death Eaters remaining on the street, causing him to stagger as he and his companion began to flee, awareness dawning that a rooftop sniper had joined the fray.
Tonks hiked up her robes, exposing the legs of her jeans, then wrapped her calves around a drainpipe and slid with exaggerated care to the ground below once again. Remus met her at the bottom.
"Are you all right?"
"As far as I can determine."
"What was that spell?"
"I don't know. I reckon it failed, though." He looked thoughtful. "The invocation did sound familiar, but I can't place it at the moment."
She glanced in the direction of the witch still lying crumpled on the ground, abandoned by her comrades. "Here's to the legendary loyalty of the Death Eaters."
Tonks stood guard, wand at the ready, as Remus knelt to feel for a pulse at the throat of the still form. "Dead," he said curtly.
"Well, then," she responded, trying to remain professional in her demeanour despite the twist in her guts at the thought of 'My first kill' running through her mind. "Let's see who she was."
Still peering about furtively as she sank to her knees, she pulled off the Death Eater mask. The lifeless face beneath it was marked by faint age lines but otherwise flawless and nearly beautiful enough to take one's breath away, creamy white with Nordic features and topped by downy white-gold hair. She would be willing to wager that the shuttered eyes were blue. The only mar on the image was a small trickle of blood in the corner of her rosebud mouth. "I don't recognize her."
"I do."
Startled, she glanced at Remus, who had settled onto the balls of his feet and was staring reflectively at the Veela-like vision.
"Her name was Ylva Schnee. I first met her on the continent during some … errand-running for Dumbledore, oh, round about ten years ago now, I'd estimate. She owned an herbalist shop. Even took Muggle customers, as I recall, although I never quite felt I could trust her, despite Dumbledore's endorsement of her services. Oh, and the reason he knew her in the first place was that she had been a distant colleague of his long ago. She taught at Dürmstrang for a number of years." He gazed at the body again. "I'd no idea she was back in Britain."
"Back?"
"Yes. The next time we crossed paths, you see, was when we found ourselves rivals for appointment to the Defence Against the Dark Arts post at Hogwarts."
Tonks felt her eyebrows rising towards her hairline. "But you told me you were Dumbledore's only option that year. "
"So we had both believed, and I had just arrived to formalize the arrangement with Albus, when the door to his office opened, and there was Fräulein Schnee, who froze at the sight of me. Say what you will about her allegiances, but the woman was no fool. She seemed to recognize immediately that I was a dead cert for the position and she had been wasting her time in interview. She looked daggers at me, hissed, "This iss not ofer betveen us," and stormed down the hallway before I could even say hello."
"And obviously she was a fanatic about holding grudges," Tonks mused, regaining her feet, Remus following suit. "Are you sure you're still feeling all right?"
"Positive."
"Then we had best see about moving the body. It can't just stay here for any passing Muggle to discover."
"I believe that decision may have been taken out of our hands, Tonks." Remus gestured towards the ground at their feet.
Ylva Schnee had crumbled into dust.
Distant pops abruptly filled the air. "Sounds like they've brought reinforcements," Tonks said.
"Agreed. Side-along then?"
She trusted his skills implicitly.
"Then hold on tight!" They each flung an arm round the other's torso, and Remus Disapparated.
They rematerialized in a wooded area, Tonks marvelling, not for the first time, at Remus' pin-point precision. She herself would probably have banged into a tree, if not splinched herself into a dozen pieces during the hurried transition.
"Where are we?" she asked him in a whisper.
"You'll see. It's not far."
After a three minute walk down a noticeable slope, a clearing parted the trees before them to reveal the back of a modest stone dwelling. As they approached cautiously from the rear, slicing through knee-high ribbons of mist, Tonks spotted a tiny plot of tilled earth. She cast an inquisitive glance in Remus' direction.
"Welcome to Moorcroft."
It really had been a crofter's cottage once, lying situated in a hollow on the borders of Dartmoor, but now long abandoned by its original owners.
"It's not much, I admit, but it does keep off the rain and the chill, mostly. I'm fortunate to have discovered even a place like this one over which I can claim squatter's rights."
Tonks planted her booted feet and crossed her arms, shooting him a look of mock defiance. "Well, from that description, you've convinced me already that it's perfect." She nodded in the direction of the garden. "And don't tell me you're not playing the gentleman farmer here either, Squire Lupin."
He chuckled. "Take a closer look and you'll find that delusion even more easily dispelled."
She trotted ahead of him, oohing and ahhing over the plants. "And pumpkins too, I see. Out of season, I'm impressed."
He snorted softly. "Tonks, please. It's a simple enough Herbology spell, and they're not a patch on Hagrid's up at Hogwarts. Just a matter of making do with what meagre magical gardening skills I poss..."
Tonks looked up from where she had bent to examine one of the pumpkins more closely.
Remus was staring at it, a strange expression on his face, the corners of his mouth beginning to curl upwards.
"Remus?"
He started, blinked at her, and stammered, "S-sorry, I, erm, felt dizzy for a moment. But it's passed now." He raised a hand to his temple, smiling almost apologetically.
"It's been a rough few days, hasn't it?" She nodded sympathetically, stifling the impulse to amend that to, "It's been a rough last year, hasn't it?" She allowed herself to touch Remus' arm briefly but not possessively. 'Not time yet,' she warned herself. "Let's go inside."
Remus suggested Disillusioning the house first, unlikely though it was that they had been tracked this far this quickly by their enemies, and Tonks readily agreed with the sensible precaution.
"I will be needing to contact Kingsley about our little adventure this afternoon, though. I'm reluctant to send my Patronus, since I'm not even sure whom we can trust in the Auror department any more, Robards included."
"And on that account, I think there's someone you ought to meet."
Remus may not have owned much, by his own admission, but he did own a barn owl whom he had ironically named Romulus but rarely employed as a messenger. The pale bird perched on the back of Tonks' chair at the kitchen table, his heart-shaped face bent forward as though he were reading over her shoulder whilst she scribbled a note to Kingsley Shacklebolt inquiring as to what details he could discover regarding the late Ylva Schnee:
Slew a She-Wolf in the Snow.
Wondering now, what made her go?
Wincing at the awkward rhyme, and feeling relieved that she had not spattered ink all over the message, she rolled the parchment, set two Charms on it to ensure that only her departmental superior could read it and tied the note to Romulus' extended leg.
Upon his departure, she rubbed her hands together, sat back gingerly in the chair and declared, "That's that. And now we wait."
Remus nodded. "It would have been more expeditious to use the Floo network, but the fireplace here isn't connected. Rather for the best now, I should think. Fewer unexpected visitors dropping by for tea that way."
"The sofa is bearable, if you avoid these two small lumps." Remus indicated the offending blemishes. "I have an old quilt that's quite comfortable, so at least you should be warm here."
"Or I could sleep in your bed."
"By all means, if you think it would be more to your liking, although I must warn you that one of the springs does tend to squeak."
He fell silent.
An image of his face floated before her mind's eye, his expression stricken with grief that was rapidly dissolving into embarrassment as he averted his eyes to the floor whilst she railed at him in front of half the Order of the Phoenix and several former pupils, shaking his robes.
She drew a breath. "Remus. I'm not asking for anything more than companionship tonight, all right? Just think of us as two comrades-in-arms bivouacking together, okay?"
"Okay." Despite the simple response, he sounded affable rather than reserved, and for the first time in days, she felt hope beginning to stir inside.
He had stepped over the threshold into the dark, cramped herbalist's shop, after confirming that Ylva Schnee, Proprietess, greeted prospective customers from the sign swinging overhead. She glanced up from behind her counter, an expression of complete non-surprise crossing her exquisite Nordic features. "Vell, vell, if it isn't the verevolf who alvays smiles, so polite," she drawled blandly, although his incisive ability to read most people did not fail to detect a note of scorn underlying the superficially pleasant words.
"And vhat unfinished business hass Dumbledore's young protégé to conduct vith me today, hmm?" A sly smile blossomed over her beautiful face.
He felt an abrupt gaseous whoosh spurt from the floor at his feet and looked down to see a cloud of grey smoke surging towards his face, overwhelming him….
Remus jerked convulsively in his sleep, but his muscles grew lax again almost immediately.
He had entered Paradise.
The moors spread before him, a hazy glorious landscape dotted with pink and purple. The colours reminded him of something, but he couldn't quite place his finger on what it was, and it didn't seem to matter that much anyway.
He stepped forward on bare feet, sinking incrementally into the springy heather.
Welcome, Jack.
He paused at the playful feminine voice addressing him, faintly aware of an unidentifiable discrepancy between what it called him and … what was his name again? It did begin with a J, he was sure of that.
A feather-light stroke brushed his left arm, distracting him from his train of thought. Then again, the unseen tickling sensation assaulted him, this time on the right. He tried to elude his invisible assailant, but now he felt a distinct thrill of titillating lips against the back of his neck, and he snorted in involuntary laughter.
It felt so … good. He found himself revelling in the teasing caresses. It was almost as though with each touch, he was uncurling from around his hard, bitter inner core of pain and sorrow and beginning to drift away from his cares entirely.
He groaned and closed his eyes, surrendering to utter bliss.
Welcome home, Jack.
He gazed down at his arms again, a dreamy smile creeping over his face as he watched in fascination whilst long strips of his flesh unrolled from them, vaporized into smoke and floated away on the deliciously cool breeze….
Tonks startled awake at Remus' low cry. He had turned away from her in his sleep, but he shifted position in her direction again, and she saw him grimace in the ray of moonlight touching his face. "Mm, n ... no, s-stop," he stammered in a strained voice but then gave a gasp that sounded bizarrely like laughter. As she reached to shake his shoulder, his body sagged into stillness once more, and now in the silvery light, she saw his lips twitch upward into a peaceful smile. After observing him for another moment, she smiled herself and nestled against the warmth of his body, rapidly following the steady rhythm of his breathing back into pleasant dreams.
Remus was already puttering about the kitchen when she entered it the next morning, unhurriedly preparing a plain but filling breakfast, as he often had done for the two of them over the past year or so.
"Sleep well?" she asked in some amusement, noticing how he seemed to be drifting lazily through his routine this time.
He paused to glance over his shoulder at her, a mischievous little smile playing about his mouth. "You might say that," he murmured, sounding coy.
"Oh, now you'll have to tell me all about it, because I know that look," she joked. "You must have had a very special dream last night."
Remus blinked sleepily, opened his mouth, hesitated, then merely repeated, "You might say that."
She smirked behind her hand as he crossed the room to the stove once again.
After clearing away the dishes, they both resumed their seats at the table.
"I think we should set our priorities in order, don't you?" she began. "We've hardly had a chance to breathe for the past few days."
In truth, although it would mean revisiting sharply painful recent memories, and pondering even more frightening future prospects, Tonks was keen to sample some of Remus' wisdom on both accounts. He always had a way of putting everything into perspective for her – for everyone, really – and his steady hand as a leader within the Order was one of the first attributes she had found herself admiring about him. His political acumen was at least a match for Kingsley's, and he always had fascinating comments to share about the propagandistic tricks employed by the Daily Prophet in order to manipulate the general wizarding public. What did he think would be likely to happen in the coming days and weeks, both within the confines of the government and from the broader standpoint of the war?
And then there was the subject of Albus Dumbledore to broach. She had always been a little in awe of not only the greatest wizard of the age, but also one of the kindest, as she had learned when she tripped and fell flat on her face a mere two days after arriving at Hogwarts, only to discover that the wrinkled hand assisting her to her feet and then offering her a lemon drop belonged to the august Headmaster himself. But how much more had he meant to Remus, who owed his very education to Dumbledore and had regarded him as close to a second father?
No time like the present, especially since tact had never been her strongest suit. "We've lost Dumbledore, and I was wondering if you would like to talk about it. I mean, not just in terms of what it implies about the direction of the war, but..." She made a vague gesture with her hands.
"He was a great man." For an instant, she saw a flash of deeper emotion in his eyes, but then his face settled into the same composed, smiling mask he had been wearing all morning. "He showed me a tremendous amount of compassion, and I liked him very much."
She waited.
Finally, she prodded him. "Is that all you have to say?"
"Say? About what?" He actually looked a little distracted, if not confused.
"I was hoping you could offer me some ideas about what you think may be at hand for, you know, the government, the Order, the war?" She began to feel extremely awkward and not a little confused herself.
"Oh, politics, you mean." He rolled his eyes to the ceiling. "Boring stuff, but if you like, we can talk about it," he continued amiably.
"Okay," she replied hesitantly. "I was thinking that perhaps it was time to smooth over our differences with Scrimgeour, if that would be at all possible. He may be a self-important prat in some ways, but I think at heart he's on our side, or near enough that –"
"Albus means 'white,' doesn't it?"
She frowned. "Yes."
"And Remus means 'oar,' and Ja – John means 'God's grace,'" he continued in a sing-song voice, sounding like a child reciting from rote memory.
Where was he going with this?
He darted a look at her from under his lashes. "And Nymphadora means –"
She drew her wand and pointed it at him. "You get hexed."
He sniggered.
She returned his smile uncertainly. After several seconds of further silence, she resumed, "I'm sorry, but I don't quite follow you."
"Well, you should." Was he flirting with her? "Might get lost otherwise."
She stared. "Remus," she began slowly, "I'm trying to have a serious discussion with you here."
"Oh, I'm sorry, were you?" He extended his palm towards her politely. "Do continue."
She stood abruptly, nearly hooking her ankle around the chair leg before backing away from the table, feeling her throat tighten. "Maybe when you're more ready to talk," she muttered shortly and left the kitchen, throwing him a venomous glare over her shoulder.
He remained seated, index fingers steepled in front of his face, staring straight ahead, smiling at nothing.
'Romulus, where are you?'
Tonks scanned the pale sky, searching for a white bird, her frustration mounting. She was beginning to regret a number of her recent decisions, such as failing to wear her Auror robes outdoors in the unusual chill, given the short sleeves on her T-shirt. And not marking her message to Kingsley as urgent...
She roamed the periphery of the property, wand drawn covertly, attempting to commit nearby landmarks to memory, since it wouldn't do to get lost should she need to beat a hasty retreat to an unseen house. Her already considerable sympathy for her late cousin Sirius Black, prisoner at first in Azkaban and then in his own family home, had doubled in only the short time she had been in hiding at Moorcroft. At first the concept of a cosy little farmhouse perched at the edge of the moors had sounded fun and even romantic – not that she would admit such a fanciful notion to many people. Now the pervasive mist and Remus' oddly dismissive behaviour were grating on her nerves something awful, and all she craved was to return to her poky little flat in London.
'I'm being unfair to him,' she thought guiltily. 'He has been through more pain than I can imagine during his life, and this may be the only way he knows to cope right now. I'm sure he'll be fine soon, if I just lay off him about Dumbledore for a bit.'
She found Remus sitting in an armchair in his small study, bent forward over a large brown leather-bound book in his lap. Upon a closer look, she realized that he had fallen asleep. Sighing softly at the way he sometimes reminded her of a little boy, she approached and tapped him on the arm. "Wotcher, sleepy-head."
He came awake with a start and looked up at her, that same serene smile on his face. "Hullo, Tonks."
"What are you reading?" She gestured to indicate the volume.
"Oh, this?" He chuckled. "Well, you know it must be an absolute bore if it puts even me to sleep – whoops." His right hand had trembled suddenly, accidentally pushing the book off his lap. With another light laugh, he rose from the chair and bent down to retrieve it.
"My clumsiness must be catching," she teased him.
He straightened again, holding the open book securely in both hands. "Must be." He gazed at her a moment, still smiling. His right thumb and forefinger abruptly made a pincering motion, catching and dog-earing one of the pages, although he seemed peculiarly unaware of the movement. Then he closed the cover and set the book down on the small battered desk in a corner of the room.
Tonks wrapped her arms around her torso and shivered. "It's a bit chilly in here, isn't it? When I came in from outdoors, I thought for a moment that you had lit a fire, because I smelled wood-smoke. Are you sure there isn't anyone else living nearby?"
He shook his head. "No one." He passed a hand through his greying hair. "And I don't smell anything. Seems quite comfortable to me, too, but perhaps that's because I'm accustomed to having been lacking in the basic amenities in recent months." He shrugged. "You may light a fire, if you wish."
"Even with the house Disillusioned, I imagine that smoke rising from an invisible chimney might attract attention, if anyone else is around. We'd better not risk it."
He nodded. "Very well." Then he turned his back to her and walked towards a narrow three-tiered bookcase.
It appeared that their conversation was over.
Tonks braced herself as she lifted her fork to her mouth, eyes cast downward towards her plate. Remus had spent most of their dinner beaming placidly at her across the table. If she could gauge nothing else about his current moods, she was quite sure that he wasn't angry with her. Merlin only knew what else he was feeling, but she had to try one more time.
"I think we need to discuss our plans for tomorrow. Surely Romulus will have returned by then, but even if he hasn't, maybe it's time to leave regardless. It won't do to have the Ministry start believing that one of its Aurors has gone missing, and we'll need to rendezvous with Mad-Eye and the rest of the Order soon, to start going over our plans to collect Harry next month."
She finally sneaked a peek at Remus.
He was tilted back in his chair, arms crossed behind his head, gazing at the ceiling. For a fraction of an instant, she could have sworn that his smiling mouth had just stopped moving, as though he had been silently mimicking her speech.
"So, what do you think?" she said slowly.
He laced his fingers together, stretched his arms above his head, and returned to a normal seated position, his eyes twinkling at her as he leaned forward. "I think," he said sententiously, "that those were the best roasted potatoes I have eaten in my whole life."
Exasperation flared behind her eyes. She could feel a headache commencing. "Remus, please be serious!"
"I'm serious, Tonks." He tilted his head to one side, evidently trying unsuccessfully to appear contrite.
"I would be far more convinced of that if you didn't look like you hadn't yet recovered from being hit with a Rictusempra Charm."
"Is it a crime to be happy? Will you place me under arrest then, Auror Tonks?"
She closed her mouth. Her jaw muscles began to stiffen as she fought to control herself. Finally, she managed to respond. "Keep this up, Professor Lupin, and I just may take you up on your offer last night to sleep on your sofa."
Without so much as blinking, he nodded agreeably. "Please do whatever you wish." That damned fatuous smile remained frozen on his face.
Was he baiting her?
She had never considered Remus capable of such calculated cruelty, even if he was deliberately holding her at arm's length again, but her thoughts flitted unbidden to his recently concluded mission underground amongst the feral werewolves. Could what he had experienced there have effected fundamental changes in his character that she had failed to recognize until now, when they had finally spent extended time alone together at last?
Did she even truly know him any more?
The heather was nearly knee-deep here, brushing silkily against his bare legs, from which smoke curled in minute puffs. He paused to shiver in excitement, close his eyes and sigh in profound contentment. He could no longer remember ever wearing another expression on his face than the pleasure-silly smile gracing his lips. He did not understand how he had come here, or why someone had deemed him worthy of this place, but he loved that someone without reservation.
He gazed up into the sky ahead of him. He was so close to his ultimate goal that he could not only see it, he could hear its lustrous voice calling to him, smell its luminescence, taste its lambency, nearly touch it...
Let it be a lamp unto thy feet and a light unto thy path.
With an eager grin, he began to stretch forth his hand towards the floating lantern as it soared downwards to join as one with him….
Tonks felt the lump as she shifted and catapulted out of a fitful dream of Remus standing across a yawning gulf from her, laughing, smiling and waving a cheery goodbye to her like a happy little boy as the gap continued to widen, while she screamed hysterically and pleaded with him to come back. Fighting her way free of his quilt without quite managing to land on the floor, she sat up on the sofa and pulled irritably at the short spikes of her fading hair. Then she listened to the abnormal quiet.
She kicked her feet into her boots and went to look for him.
Remus was standing clad only in his pyjamas at the edge of the moors, staring up at the sky.
Hesitantly, she approached him from behind. "I'm sorry," she apologized softly before throwing her arms around him in a fierce hug. "I don't want to fight. It's just … I love you. I don't want to lose you."
She lifted her face from the back of his grey-shot brown hair, thinking distractedly, 'Why am I smelling smoke again?'
Barely stirring, Remus said, "Good evening, Tonks," in a polite, distant voice. "Isn't that a beautiful light up there?"
Her eyes followed the angle of his head. "It's … the moon." Was he joking?
"Yes, yes." He nodded, his thin shoulders pulling mildly against her embrace. Then he chuckled in a delighted voice. "So lovely, like a lantern hanging in the firmament, yes."
Releasing him, she stepped back a pace. "Remus, are you sure you're all right?"
He finally turned to face her, smiling. "Perfectly all right, Tonks. Why do you ask?"
For a moment, she felt dumbstruck, as he continued to regard her with an expression of vague curiosity, as if he could not imagine why the sight of the moon should bother him, that irritating smile illuminating his face. She had barely begun to formulate a response, when his eyes slid off hers again, and he turned nonchalantly to resume his original position.
Tonks struck him on the back with an open-palmed slap. He staggered slightly, then rebalanced himself without a sound or any other acknowledgment that she had hit him. With a strangled cry, she ran for the house, stumbling briefly as she heard his tranquil, "Good night, Tonks," following her like mocking laughter.
Morning dawned mistier and chillier than ever. This time Tonks had donned her Auror robes before starting her patrol of the immediate area, dimming their scarlet with a colour-changing charm to a muted umber. She supposed that the Dementors must be breeding more rapidly still, their pernicious influence spreading even into areas of Britain where they had not yet physically intruded because of the relatively sparse human population.
She was trudging along the perimeter of the tree line when a flash of white dropped from nowhere onto her shoulder. "Romulus!" He offered her a thick packet tied to his leg. "I think I'll read this indoors, thanks."
She did not encounter Remus as she re-entered the house, and she felt both grateful and ashamed of herself for feeling that emotion.
Sitting in the kitchen, she quickly became engrossed in Kingsley's letter, but it proved equal parts informative and disappointing. While Ylva Schnee had long been suspected of practicing the Dark Arts, he told her in his meticulous handwriting, no foul play had ever been pinned on her. As Remus had said, she had taught at Dürmstrang for a stint – Transfiguration, in fact, just like Minerva McGonagall – but her real passion lay in creating and experimenting with something called composite spells, which cleverly combined aspects of different magical disciplines.
Her reputation in this field raised a red flag to the local wizarding authorities, but the closest they had ever come to catching her in the act of performing Dark Magic had involved the disappearance of a small boy, Kai Gerhard, three years previous. The child had begun acting strangely, his frantic Squib mother claimed, complaining of a constant icy chill two days before he vanished permanently. His jacket and cap had been found shortly afterward adorning a snowman not far from Schnee's herbalist shop, but it had melted before any further leads could be developed.
"The quintessential cold case," was Kingsley's black-humoured assessment. "And Schnee presented an air-tight alibi, naturally."
Time for harvest, Jack.
Tonks walked from room to room, searching unenthusiastically for Remus. As strained as their relationship had become over the past two days, she owed him the latest news, such as it was.
She opened the door to his study. Not there either. Her eye fell upon the brown leather-bound book on his desk, undisturbed where he had left it. Deciding to return it to its proper place on the bookshelf, she stepped into the room and picked it up.
Native Dark Creatures of South-West England, read the spine. A scholarly tome, then, just what she would have expected. Her own tastes had run to Auror procedurals until they became too much like an extension of her own work – and that was strictly the better-written ones. Remus had been nudging her in the direction of plays - Restoration comedies mostly, both wizard and Muggle – until they had been forced to part when Dumbledore had sent him to the werewolves, and then she hadn't felt much like reading at all.
The book slipped from her hands and fell open face down on the worn carpet. Swearing softly, she lifted it carefully, to make certain that she hadn't damaged it.
And then she saw the creased upper corner again. Remus had done that yesterday. She glanced at the page:
XXV
The Hinkypunk
"Most commonly found in Dartmoor, the hinkypunk is also identified by a plethora of other names, chiefly the will-o'the wisp, the ignis fatuus, the Jack o'Lantern, the ... "
Her head swam, and she dropped the book again.
Ignis fatuus.
Oh, Merlin.
"Remus!" Unsuccessfully dodging the doorway and whacking her hip against it, Tonks fled the study, her mind racing like a Firebolt at full throttle.
Ignis fatuus. Jack o'Lantern. Remus' constant, increasingly vapid smile that made him resemble a carved pumpkin. His insides, his human depths were being scooped out, and soon there would be nothing left...
She nearly overshot the back door altogether in her rush, but grasped and pulled the handle in one abrupt motion, allowing her momentum to carry her outside, into a rapidly deepening mist.
A stick-thin figure stood motionless in the centre of the pumpkin patch with its back to her. It appeared barely five feet tall, but familiar shabby robes hung ponderously from its frail form. Slowly, it raised a nearly translucent and smoke-like arm towards a lantern floating just above eye-level, winking in alternating pulses of blue and green.
"Remus!" Tonks shouted desperately.
The hand closed over the handle of the lantern, and then the figure turned with languid grace to face her.
Its eyes stared wide and blank, reflecting no sign of recognition whatsoever. Its grey hair floated around its head in a smoky wreath. That abhorrent smile stretching its lips broadened triumphantly into a hollow grin.
"No!" Tonks screamed and rushed forward, wand raised.
The hinkypunk Disapparated, leaving nothing but a pile of clothing behind.
Her frantic thoughts pounded in rhythm with her racing feet. 'This cannot be happening. I've just got him back. I almost lost him this last year. And by Merlin, I am not going to lose him again!'
She skidded to a halt on the slick groundcover ... and screamed.
"Oh, help! I'm a traveller on the moors, and I seem to have become lost! Won't someone please bring a light so I can find my way to safety?"
As an acting performance, it wouldn't have fooled a drunken crowd at the wizarding follies, but she was dealing with a simple Dark Creature now – she hoped - and its every instinct was geared towards locating potential victims in precisely the straits in which she was presenting herself.
She doused the glow from her wand and held her breath.
And here came the hinkypunk, an indistinct grey form in the mist, its lantern swinging from its upraised hand held no more than four and-a-half feet above the ground now. Her gamble had paid off.
It arrived at a standstill perhaps thirty feet from her, as if expecting her to make the next move. She tried to keep her eyes focused on it rather than its lantern, but without the aid of a Lumos spell, she was almost blind in the thickening grey blanket that had nearly climbed chest-high by now.
In her peripheral vision, the lantern flickered its lazy, pulsing beat.
Blue, green, blue, green.
A tickle centred exactly between her ears transformed into a youthful, masculine and flirtatious voice:
Are you lost, pretty lady? Follow my lantern, and I'll guide you to a very safe place.
She nearly laughed aloud in her relief. Of course, Remus was only ever teasing her, and now that he was here, he would take her home, and they could begin to smooth over their differences with a long, satisfying cuddle, and all she must do was follow the sparkly lights….
She bobbled and realized with a start that she had taken an involuntary step forward.
'Oh, clever beast, "Jack."' Her eyes narrowed, and she resolutely averted them from the hypnotic twinkle of the lantern. "Go on, then," she taunted the hinkypunk. "I'm following, see? Right into the bog where you're no doubt leading me."
They proceeded in silence for what could have been minutes, or hours. Tonks discovered that the temper she usually tried so determinedly to conquer was a genuine help in keeping her mind off the temptation of the lantern and on saving Remus from this horrifying curse. It was still difficult to make out his shape ahead of her in the gloom, but she became convinced that his gait was slowly altering from bipedal, to a halting hitch, to a hop, and she realized with an absolute thrill of dread that it was because his legs were fusing together into one. His transformation could not - must not - be complete, however, since he was still a gigantic specimen for a hinkypunk, although he had dwindled to less than two-thirds of his original height. That was no comfort. Sooner or later, she would run out of time, and then nothing could bring him back.
"Oh, dear!" she said loudly. The small figure turned to face her again. "I ... I seem to have stepped into a bog, and now I'm" - she screwed up her face and concentrated – "sinking!" Shrinking, more like it, as she forced her own height to diminish, slow inch by inch, as the beast leaned forward, its eyes glittering in obvious excitement.
It gave one hop towards her. She sprang back to her full size and charged.
An instant later, she was on her elbows and knees in the muck, and the hinkypunk stood thirty feet in front of her again.
"I'm sorry, Remus, but damn you!" she snarled, rose to her feet with as much dignity as she could muster, and sprinted towards it again. It simply drifted backwards, as though she were creating a wake like the prow of a boat that blew the smoky creature away from her.
This must be a part of its luring magic, a device to lead its potential prey onward without ever being in danger of capture itself. Surely, there was a means of thwarting it – Remus once had even owned a hinkypunk that he used in his Defence Against the Dark Arts classes at Hogwarts – but Dark Creatures had never been her specialty, and she could consult neither the real Remus nor his book to aid her now.
A stalemate, then.
She could only pray that this Dark Creature could not access Remus' knowledge of chess in order to break it.
Maybe it was time for a more straightforward approach.
"Remus, it's Dora." Her voice caught on tears, and she cleared her throat impatiently. "I'm here to help you. If you won't fight for yourself any longer, then fight for me. For us. Please."
The hinkypunk cocked its head to one side, unblinking eyes glittering in the light of the lantern, mouth contorted in that idiotic grin.
"Remus, do you understand anything I'm saying?"
Of course not. The creature regarding her remained hopelessly out of reach, resembling nothing so much as a puzzled apish dog.
A dog. Or a …
She closed her eyes and concentrated furiously on her happiest recent memory and one of the best of her entire life.
A quiet evening of simple camaraderie … hot chocolate sipped beside a crackling fire ... the yellow light flickering over his young but lined face as he laughed with her over everything and nothing … her head dropping softly onto his shoulder … a tentative kiss…
I love him.
"Expecto Patronum!"
The majestic Wolf erupted from the tip of her wand.
"I love him," she told it. "That … thing over there is holding him prisoner inside it. Help me to save him. Let me speak through you. Let me act through you. Go!"
Her Patronus bridged the distance between her and what was left of Remus in three great bounds.
The hinkypunk planted its single foot as the shining Wolf stood nearly nose to nose with it. It emitted a reedy, high-pitched growl that would have sounded comical if not downright cute under most other circumstances, shaking its lantern threateningly. The Wolf began almost casually to circle the creature, which pivoted in tandem with it, Tonks evidently forgotten for the moment.
The Wolf's jaws opened, and Tonks' voice vibrated from its silvery throat. "Release Remus John Lupin, Jack. Let him go."
He's John, not Jack. Plain, boring John. Plain pure grace...
Her Patronus circled faster and faster, dancing in tempo with her words singing from its mouth. "Remus John, come back to me. Jack has no power over you. Think of your parents. What did they name you?"
'Oh, please, Remus, see the lifeline I'm throwing you! Catch it and hold on tight!'
"John, not Jack!"
The hinkypunk was spinning frantically, nearly falling over in its attempts to stay face-to-face with its frolicking silvery tormentor. For a split-second she thought she saw the vacuous grin beginning to falter.
"They granted you grace, you granted me grace, I return that grace to you!"
'Remus, please forgive me.'
"NOW!" she shouted from her own lips.
The Wolf leapt, catching the hinkypunk between its jaws as the beast threw up its free hand in a feeble pretence at self-defence. A tiny, pitiful shriek rapidly swelled into a blatantly human voice, a man's hoarse voice, crying out in child-like terror. Smoke and light whirled as one, the scream emanating from within the roiling mass rising to a crescendo.
The lantern spun free, floated in the air like a dream image for one brief instant, then slammed violently into the ground with an explosion that plunged all around it into darkness.
Before Tonks could ignite the tip of her wand once more, a very different light appeared before her.
Remus crouched on the ground, holding up an unsteady hand cupping flames, peering warily through the murk surrounding them. "D-Dora?" he rasped. "What's happening? Where …?" He glanced downward and went still, then spoke in a voice obviously labouring to convey an air of calm dignity. "I'm sure that there must be a completely rational explanation for this, but why am I stark naked in the middle of the moors?"
With a cry of joy and guilt, Tonks ran to him, yanking her Auror robes over her head and draping them around his body as best she could.
Still holding Kingsley's message in his hand, Remus shook his head.
"No, nothing clearly after I showed you my pumpkin patch. And when I fell asleep that night, these incredible, wonderful dreams began. I ... don't ever recall feeling so euphoric in my entire life, and soon, they were all I could really concentrate on, even when I was awake. Some small nagging voice in the back of my head kept prompting me that there was something horribly wrong with all of this, but I didn't want to heed it. I felt I had earned this peace, this rest I was being offered. I didn't think about the potential danger facing us, or Dumbledore's death, or Harry or even you, although you were standing right in front of me." He swallowed. "And I knew that I was wounding you, but I couldn't control myself. I would hear another voice saying, "Good boy, Jack!" and it made me want to wriggle all over like a puppy, ecstatic that I had pleased it."
He replaced the parchment on the table. "I could have warned you, had I tried hard enough, but I didn't."
"But you did," Tonks retorted. "You tried to show me what was wrong by dog-earing the chapter on hinkypunks in your book." She rubbed her closed eyelids. "And I'll just bet that wasn't the only way you attempted to signal me, but I was so caught up in worrying that I was losing you again that ... I nearly did lose you for good this time."
A lump began to rise in her throat. "And I'm so sorry I hurt you. You know I'm not that good at thinking on my feet – God, I'm not that good at staying on my feet – and trying to shock you back to reality was the only plan I could come up with –"
"And did it not work? Am I not sitting here before you in this rustic little kitchen, alive and whole and as human as I'm ever likely to be?"
She stared at him.
"Dora, if you hadn't fooled me into believing that Fenrir Greyback was rushing towards me, if you hadn't dredged up that memory of my six year old self being plunged into agony and terror, the spell would never have been broken. Don't ever regret what you did. It saved me. It made pain real to me again."
He sighed, furrows creasing his brow.
"Do you know, I didn't even remember that I was a werewolf? But in the end, that didn't matter either, because I was just as much a threat to you as if it had been a full moon. I could have stood there and squealed in glee as I watched you die.
"And even now, after all that has happened, part of me desires nothing more than to return to that illusionary world."
He pressed the heels of his hands against his closed eyes, shoulders slumping.
"I'm weak."
"Remus John Lupin, you listen to me!" she shouted. "You are not weak! You're the strongest man I know!"
She poked savagely at Kingsley's message with her fingertip. "Didn't you read this? Ylva Schnee was a specialist in developing composite spells, remember? What do you want to bet that the Ignis fatuus used a variation on the Imperius that was triggered by an image – of a pumpkin, in your case – but then lay dormant until its victim entered dream-sleep and could no longer summon the willpower to fight it?"
Remus looked impressed, despite his visible exhaustion.
"Well, I've been thinking about this," she muttered. "I can, you know."
"I do," he replied softly. "And then the other component would be Transfiguration, which just so happened to be what she taught at Dürmstrang, probably predicated to activate upon the victim's complete surrender to the mind-control aspect."
"And Schnee was a revenge-obsessed loony who had been itching to make you pay for years. Doesn't that suggest that this could have been the most person-specific spell she ever created? Realistically, you probably never had a chance against it. And it most certainly is not because you're weak!"
She shuddered. "That poor little boy she murdered three years ago was probably nothing more than a test case for her." She glared at him. "And don't you dare start thinking that was your fault, as well!"
Remus was gazing at her in his perfectly ordinary cryptic manner. "But I don't believe that she had a chance against me either, in the end. I had one weapon she never could have anticipated."
She frowned. "And ... what was that?"
"You."
Then he grasped her hands, drew them to his mouth, and kissed them.
"I'm very tired. I believe a warm bed would be just what the Healer ordered, as long as no dreams are forthcoming."
"Want some company?"
"I don't think I should be alone tonight." He shuddered, rubbing his arms as if suddenly feeling the cold at last, although she had lit a roaring fire in the hearth, any potential risk of exposure be damned.
"You'll never be alone again, if I have anything to say about it," she replied fiercely.
He met her eyes and gazed steadily into them for a moment before nodding. "My Hufflepuff, ever loyal and true. I'm so grateful you're here, Dora," he whispered.
He was not smiling.
Tonks startled awake at Remus' low cry. Shaking, she forced herself to peer into his moonlit face. He grimaced, then gave a gasp that sounded distinctly like a sob. Two tears trickled out from under his fluttering eyelids.
'It's all right,' she thought, as she drew back so as not to risk waking him. 'Just let it out. You don't need to share it with anyone right now. Not even me.'
Settling onto her pillow once again, Tonks puffed a soft sigh of relief. Then she turned her back to the man she loved more than her own life and tried to pretend that there were no tears beginning to roll down her own face.
Fin