Vermilion
by Fossicker
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Tonks sat upon the workbench, one leg swinging freely and the other raised to her chest. Her chin rested upon her knee and her eyes were locked upon the only other figure in the room.
He stood with his back to her, the archetypal wizard hunched over his simmering cauldron. His impressive height, pointed shoulders, long hair and black robes contributed to an imposing and intimidating silhouette.
"Pulvis et umbra sumus," he said softly but clearly.
It sounded like a spell, but it was only a statement.
"We are dust and shadow," she translated.
Snape looked over his shoulder at her, just long enough for Tonks to glimpse an arched eyebrow before he turned back to his work.
"How impressive, Nymphadora. Despite being the root of all incantations, many of our kind are unfamiliar with Latin."
Tonks grinned. "My mother learnt Latin before starting Hogwarts, like all Blacks."
Comfortable silence settled around them. Snape appreciated silence - Tonks knew this, because she appreciated it as well. Noise invaded her at every hour of the day, even followed her in her sleep. But here with Snape - her first time in the dungeons since her school days - she found a certain stillness that calmed her.
Tonight, however, her insatiable curiosity was winning the struggle against her chase for peace. She was thinking about the death bite on his forearm.
"When did you get the Mark?"
His shoulders stiffened for a moment, then his silken voice carried over his shoulder and across the cold room to Tonks, several feet away.
"After becoming an adult, and prior to becoming mature."
She smiled briefly at his non-answer, dimples pressing into her cheek. "And why did you become a teacher, Snape?"
"It was an action that followed some time after I took the Mark, Nymphadora."
He transferred the potion into clear vials - bottling fame, brewing glory, stoppering death. The eloquent verse he gave to each set of First Years had stuck with her. She'd always coveted his articulacy, his gift for poetics.
Tonks slid off the table and slowly made her way over to him. She scrunched up her face and her dark hair turned precisely the same colour as the potion.
"Orange doesn't become you."
"It's not orange," Tonks argued lightly, inspecting the tips of her hair. "It's more red, I think."
"Nonsense."
"Nothing-sense," she murmured, and leant against the workbench, flanked by the cauldron on one side and a collection of vials on the other. She watched his graceful movements as he cleared away the workspace, equally admiring and jealous.
"Nothing will become of nothing," Snape quoted softly, his wand held aloft as he waved it in a series of swishes and flicks. He always talked more freely when he was preoccupied with his hands, and so Tonks seized the moment and spoke again.
"Tell me everything you know."
He quirked another eyebrow and sent it in her direction.
"What I know? Alright then, Nymphadora." He carefully collected the vials and turned to the shelves, placing them amongst their brethren.
"I know of plants and curses that have no names. I know forty-two different potions that can kill a man, and the way to Hell and back, and how many veins are in the human body. I know how to identify a poison that cannot be identified, and when I am being lied to, and when you are scared. I know that knowing is nothing when there is nothing to know."
Dimples pressed into her cheeks again and she stayed silent, letting his stanza hang in the air.
Snape was less impressed by his own soliloquy, and immediately returned to the table to begin another potion - the one she'd come for. Tonks retreated to her former seat upon the table again, where she wouldn't have to worry about slipping on the stone floor and upsetting the ingredients. The comfortable silence descended once more.
While Snape brewed the potion she inspected her hair again, creases forming on her forehead as she scrutinised the colour.
"It's definitely red," she said.
"It is certainly not red, child. It's got far too much orange in it."
"Sunset, then."
"Sunset isn't a colour," Snape replied silkily. "It's a natural occurrence."
"Well it's not red," Tonks said, holding up a fistful in front of her eyes and looking at Snape through the strands, like a lioness spying her prey through the savannah. She knew it was a backwards metaphor, though. Snape was the spy. Tonks was never as good with words as he, could never hope to be.
"Vermilion," Snape announced.
Tonks drew the fistful of hair away from her face and squinted at the tiny orange-red vials across the room, newly housed alongside the others.
"Vermilion," she finally agreed.
The silence settled again, they both breathed it deeply.
Tonks sat upon the workbench, one leg swinging freely and the other raised to her chest. Her chin rested upon her knee and her eyes were locked upon the only other figure in the room.
He turned and strode towards her, the potion captured in a dark bottle and held out like an offering. Tonks carefully set her feet back on the floor, taking the bottle and dimpling in thanks.
She disappears through a whirl of green flames, and the comfortable, peaceful silence was left behind.