PART 1
Jodie:
"Yes, its terribly exciting." I said and pulled in a little squeaky noise as I made fish lips; "How do I do that with my hair?" I asked as I looked at its maintained shade of bronze touched brown. She flooded it with a bright pink, it suited her.
"Sorry old friend, I was born able to do it." She said, shrugging. Are all girls our age like her? I greatly doubted it, people like her didn't turn into people like fatty at the counter just by aging a few decades. She called me her friend.
"So you are weird?" I asked, keeping my tone neutral but feeling a bit hopeful, just a bit.
"No, I am totally awesome." She said, as her hair eyes flicked from there brown to a purplish colour and back again. She pressed her lips together as if she had a bad taste in.
"Oh" I looked at the ground and bit my lip.
"You didn't seem to forward with the whole being a Malfoy bit." She said tersely and I felt my eyebrows push together to form a what I now knew to be a very Malfoy line at the top of my nose.
"Yeah, the Malfoys I have met are pretty dumb." I shrugged, continuing to avoid the cool girls eyes. I felt smaller than the normal girl (who for the record was my age and new the difference between a wand end and a barracuda unlike some silly Malfoy kin).
"Then why the melancholia over a few oddities?" She asked, seeming a little appeased and pleased with my answer. My skin flushed a little.
"I guess I just thought it would be normal once I got here." I answered. I did think that my character would seem less outlandish among the wand waving cloak flourishers but apparently alliteration was as under appreciated as ever. The girls hair darkened slowly to a severe red and returned to its pink as she looked at the ground and then at the owls surrounding us. I adjusted my broom in my hand.
"Sorry to have not met your expectations oh grand Mistress Malfoy," she hissed at the ground and I felt frustrated. "I guess I will take my abnormality else where." and with an unexpected flourish she took her pink haired self out of the owlery.
"Are you queuing for a reason or did you just come into scare of customers." The shops patron asked and I curled a lip at him before leaving the foul dome of fowl.
I saw Tonks a few metres ahead but as I called out to her to get her attention she spun quickly with a mean look on her face. The gesture ended however, with her getting caught in her robe and careening toward the ground. Things slowed for a heart beat and I flicked my arm.
My wand shot into my hand and the seating cushion from one of my settees at Ollivanders appeared right in the middle of Diagon alley to catch the pretty girls fall. As she gazed down at the cushion for a moment, laying atop it on the flat of her stomach, she returned her eyes to me and I shrugged helplessly, as if it was completely out of my control.
"You freak!" She yelled toward me and then she began to laugh, very, very hard. For a moment I was stunned, hurt, I felt very small but the I saw a little twinkle in the girls eye and a little something clicked. I was a freak, I had summoned a piece of furniture in the middle of a street, and it was really really funny. A laugh bubbled up from my middle and it felt strange, it was like a normal laugh, the sort you get from a funny voice or like when I had tricked Sirius into thinking I was fat back in the vault, except it wasn't like that at all. The bubble was followed by another. Soon the laughter escaping me as I landed on the cushion next to Tonks was a sort of laughter I didn't expect at all.
"I.. I-" I continued laughing as I thought of the look on the other girls face when she had realised the cushion was my fault, "I cant breathe!" I cried out and I could hear her breathing becoming laboured as well, she managed to sit up, impressively, but quickly collapsed in another fit of giggles, then I realised I wasn't laughing at all, I was giggling, I was giggling like a school girl, like I was supposed too giggle at seventeen. Maybe you have to meet a school girl to laugh like one, I thought. A blunted shadow fell across the ground which I lay so near;
"Get distracted in the middle of your very important mission to the owlery, Jodie?" I rolled onto my back and contained my mirth just long enough to register Remus, he was holding my broom.
"Oh goodness!" I cried, "Tonks," I tapped her arm from where she was laughing into my belly; which I kind of liked, no one had gotten that near to my belly except me for a long while. For the most part. The girl looked up at me and I pointed to my broom in Remus's hand.
"I left my broom." I laughed more, I didn't know why it was so funny. Tonks burst into fresh giggles too. I struggled for a moment with my aching belly I sat up on the cushion, Tonks did the same.
"Tonks, this is my friend, " I said as I pulled myself off the ground and pushed a stray tear from my eye.
"Remus this is Tonks, we just met." I pulled my broom from his hand and smiled at them both,
"Well," I laughed, still feeling floaty; "shake hands!" and they did, sort of. Remus seemed to have picked up a sudden penchant for staring as did the pink haired girl. There hands met as normal, Remus pulled her from the worn cushion on the ground. The people in the street were depleting in numbers and as I stood beside the two of them with my broom I felt confused. Remus didn't let go of the funny girls hand, they both just looked at each other, Remus was a little pinked and the girls grin grew bigger, if that were even possible. Maybe they already new each other? Maybe this was the correct way to greet people and I had applied the methodology from books incorrectly so far? I new I was wrong though, as I watched Remus eyes fall to the girls small hand with chipped purple paint on her finger nails held in his and cough before dropping it quickly I couldn't help but think that I had missed something very important.
"I'm Nymphodora Tonks." She glanced at me and I glanced at Remus.
"Remus Lupin, pleasure to meet you." Tonks turned a little red in the cheeks.
"I have to bring this back, would you guys like to come round to mine for some tea?" I asked, quoting almost directly from a scene in "Play boy of the Western World". I didn't even like that play.
Their heads snapped to me. Remus seemed hesitant for a moment but then Tonks piped up;
"We'd love too! What's the deal with your parents?" She pried carelessly which I loved. "Do you live with Malfoys?" I grimaced along with Remus.
"Good Lord no! I shudder at the very thought, I think I might gag. Don't even say that! Yuck!" I heaved for a moment and then regained my composure and said calmly; "I live in the flat over Ollivanders, I'm working their." they sort of exchanged a look that wasn't quite as much about them but more about me, it didn't seem bad though and we continued to walk toward the flat, I adjusted the fat cushion in my arms.
"Let me take that." Remus scarred hand lifted the cushion from my hands. I stopped at a stall serving chips wrapped in news papers.
"Three please." I said to the vendor; "Medium or Large?" The man asked.
"All large, obviously!" Tonks cut across and the vendor raised eye brow at me.
"Yeah, go on." I laughed and switched my broom to my other hand as I dug in my pocket for some cash. Blacks problem now, I could discuss it with him after my plan went ahead tomorrow. Remus began to laud out something after he realised my intention
"Jodie! I can't possibly allow you too…" I turned to see what had silenced him and saw Tonks had a finger pressed to his scarred mouth.
"Don't think so much Remus." I realised there was something in the way she said it. I was glad to have met Tonks, for all the things she seemed to know that I didn't, there was one thing in particular that I wanted to talk with her about and I just didn't want Remus to be there when I brought it up. It had something to do with that lilt in her tone. I passed a galleon over the counter and the vendor handed me several bronzy coins.
"Thank you." I said politely. The stalls along the street appeared to be closing. When Tonks moved her hand away from Remus face and walked ahead, stumbling on the cobbles for a moment he looked at me.
"Who did you say she was?" He mumbled to me.
"I said I just met her." I replied, "You don't mind staying for dinner, do you Remus?" I asked, hoping I wasn't playing into our new friendship to much,
"A lot of this making friends thing is guess work on my part, you know?" I confided something very personal in an easy dismissive tone. I felt dumb for doing it.
"You pretty much know the worst thing about me, Jodie and you know its not just that I feel as though life had been rather dull working at that stall when you aren't arguing with powerful political figures near by." He laughed lightly, his sad laugh. I did feel like something connected me and Remus, something a little bit better then what made me want to be around other people. Remus felt like a real peace of family to me, Dumbledore was just a physical representation of what my life was now, Ollivander was another parallel to that. Tonks was, very shockingly, a girl my age and well. Really I was sort of over whelmed with the amount of connections I was building every moment. When I had left Pembride I had sought new things to be afraid of and I had found something. Suddenly I was very afraid of being alone and forgotten again, now that I finally existed outside of myself I felt like I had an identity. Being something made me tactile, existing gives people something to hold on to. Jodie the ghost, the occasional creak on the stair whose greatest marks were book marks, she was gone. Jodie the woman, Jodie the friend. She had something to loose.
Tonks:
I will not be reduced to a giggling mess, I will not be reduced to a giggling mess, I will absolutely outright refuse to be reduced to a giggling… God he is such a hot mess. I had never seen anyone so shabby look so sexy. A tilt of the head, a gentlemanly gesture; a flash of his incredible and unique amber eyes; I was toast and I had only just met the guy.
He must have been some sort of fancy type to have been hanging out with the weird Malfoy girl; Jodie. The girl was very similar to how I would have pictured a real girl Malfoy to look, if I had ever bothered to think of that actually being a real thing. But her meeting of my expectations sort of ended at her looks.
I could smell the vinegar on the chips Jodie had bought us as it wafted up the street from where the two friends chatted amiably behind me and I smiled. I think I would have liked to have gotten to know her after I found out more about this Malfoy gig but I don't think I would be joining her for dinner so frivolously if it weren't for the tall dishevelled gentile man who she was apparently friends with.
At least I hope they were just friends, I turned and looked at them walking behind and tripped up on the cobbles again, so much for a sneaky glance back. Damned feet.
They seemed comfortable with each other in a strange sort of way. Remus's posture appeared a little less strained when he was talking with her. As if he could let go of the pressure of something heavy when he was with her. I was jealous instantly.
I mean, Jodie really was a fun girl, especially considering she was a Malfoy she didn't even ask about my blood or family. She was a very beautiful girl, maybe not what you would call good looking though. Although you could probably cut glass with her cheek bones there was something inhuman about her face. As if she didn't know quite to do with it. Not to mention that every time her unnerving white eyes met mine I felt as if I wouldn't be able to think of her face once I looked away from it. As if I wouldn't understand it no matter how much I looked at it.
Did Remus think she was beautiful? I couldn't help but blush when I had shook his hand earlier. I couldn't stop blushing even just knowing I was going to spend any extended period of time with him. I wish Jodie hadn't introduced him as Lupin and then flaunted her use of his first name as she had. Remus, I had never heard the name before but it had a certain quality that I liked. He had a certain quality I liked.
"Tonks;" Jodie called and I turned to see her and Lupin stopped outside Ollivanders; "You over shot it a bit." She laughed and pulled a set of keys from her pocket as I walked back over. Jodie frowned.
"I don't want to wake up Mr. Ollivander, do you guys mind flying up?" She didn't wait for a response but just took the large cushion from Remus and clumsily flew her broom up to an ajar window on the second floor before he could protest. Remus watched the window and shook his head as we heard Jodie talking to someone. The broom returned to the ground where we stood. Remus turned to me and gave me a wane smile.
"Ladies first." I will not be reduced to a puddle on the ground, I will not be reduced to a puddle on the ground;
"I will not be reduced to a puddle on the ground." I heard the words come from my mouth and I blushed bright red, oh God. I stared at the broom uncomfortably, perhaps it would be best not to think about it and just find a way to get to the second story window while not crashing into the window pane.
"Good" Remus coughed and as I turned to look at him I saw him staring at the ground. There was something nice about his mouth from this angle and I found myself watching him for a moment longer than was really appropriate.
I climbed on the broom and flew up to the window easily. The broom wasn't very new, it kept a slow pace. Once I reached the apartment I found Jodie huffing as she pushed a piece of furniture toward a settee.
"Hey Jodie, how do you want to get this broom back down?" I asked as I looked out the window to see Remus fidgeting. It was stupidly endearing.
"Just tell it to go down!" Jodie laughed and as I looked at her straining back she whipped around in a strangely angular movement.
"Go pick up Remus you dolt." The broom in my hand shivered a little and then moved itself toward the window.
"What a strange broom." I stated uneasily as the girl with the greying hair placed the dirty yellow cushion onto one of her chairs. She smiled at me breezily and then looked down at her hands.
"Remus acts differently when you talk with him and touch his mouth." Jodie said quietly and then spared me a quick glance. I wondered if she was going to warn me off but the she let out a nervous sort of hiccough and moved closer to whisper,
"Why?" why what? Why would I treat Remus that way? Why would I treat Remus that way when she was with him? Why did I like him? Did he act differently? I smiled in thinking that he did and then turned my attentions back to the confused and confusing Malfoy.
"I don't know." I said and there was a little bump as Remus dismounted by the window.
"This is quite at lofty place you have got Malfoy." Lupin looked around and I reflected upon my previous assumption toward his fanciness when I saw him in the not-so-dying light of the well lit room. His clothes were quite tattered, he didn't look very economically happy. Jodie smiled widely, flashing a white smile and a few chipped bottom teeth that looked so bizarre coinciding with her Malfoy features.
As I turned back to Lupin out of the light of the dusk I saw something I hadn't quite expected, across his jaw and around his fingers were the vestiges of crisscrossing white scars. Scars which looked clean enough to have been done with a blade but in some places so jagged, they could have been done with serrated metal. A light shiver ran through me and I found myself failing to contain the questions bubbling to the surface.
"Dinner, then?" Jodie sat on the couch and we sate down. Remus leaned back into his chair and I had to remind myself to look away as the pink in my hair grew deeper.
"Terribly kind of you Jodie, really." He is so polite.
"Yeah." Hopefully no one noticed how much of a simpleton I sounded.
Jodie pointed her wand toward the kitchen, successfully summoning three plates, forks and glasses of water. A moment later after we had begun to tear the brown bags in which the chips were wrapped there was a rustling and a crash, suddenly a large gramophone came whistling into the room on a squat three legged table.
"Oops" Jodie pulled back her lips, bearing her teeth in a way that admitted to awkwardness. Remus huffed out a little laugh. As I assessed Jodie in her old fashioned blue dress and her magenta rune cloak with rather long greying hair I wondered how Remus saw her uncanny features.
I poked a fork and jammed a steamy chip into my mouth distractedly before promptly squeaking, then in as elegantly a manor as possible, spat it out into my hand.
"Fuck, they're hot!" I complained and took a deep draft of water. Jodie seemed to still be enraptured by the gramophone and I turned my attention to Lupin who seemed intent on blowing on one of the inferno instilling chips.
"So, how do you know each other?" I directed the question at the sandy haired man, which was probably for the best as Jodie didn't so much as turn her head when I spoke.
"Actually Jodie and I only really met, yesterday. Dumbledore introduced us." My eyes flew away from the chip I had been blowing on in an attempt to look nonchalant and I turned to look at Lupin in my surprise. I quickly regretted the decision as meeting his bright, gentle eyes was doing nothing for my not so wonderful chip spitting composure. He had a little smile and I felt my insides melting stupidly. Since I was only enjoying my first few weeks in the auror initiation program I didn't a lot much time to indulge in batting my eyelashes at friendly boys with metamorphous kinks but Remus wasn't leaving me much choice.
He was already such an enigma, how many men with such gentle temperaments are covered in scars and spend their time associating with high society wizard like Malfoys or Dumbledore while still being dirt poor? So many to personal questions begged to be asked.
"Really?" I responded brilliantly and then allotted an extra amount of time for staring at my chips to avoid staring at his oh-so-warm fiery eyes;
"Really." the gramophone began to blare out the Blue Danube and Remus almost fell of his chair as Jodie smiled happily. The kid really seemed to be having a good day as she stood closed her eyes and hummed a completely different tune to the one emitting from the crackling record.
Remus stood and lowered the volume quickly and Jodie looked at me;
"I have heard this song before. Some of the kids I knew took ballroom dance." She stared at the gramophone for a moment again and Remus returned to his seat. "I was never much good, I don't like hands on my sides. It makes me laugh. Are you two dancing people?" Jodie turned to ask us and she looked hopefully at me. The small amount of my hair I could see in my vision had turned a shy please-don't-notice-me shade dull brown. I tried to add come vibrancy to it quickly but it wouldn't budge.
"Oh, I haven't danced for years." Remus marvelled at my hair for a moment and had a small smile on as he shook his head at the floor. He methodically twirled his fork in his fingers. I was momentarily mesmerised by the dextrous movement that really sent my mind places it shouldn't have been. I said nothing for a moment. As Remus paused his movements to a simple fidgeting my mouth began to move a little below my notice.
"I bet you are a wonderful dancer Remus." The fork dropped to the ground and Remus hissed an admonishment after it. Jodie giggled and when are eyes met she gave me a look that insinuated that it was the sort of thing she had been talking about. A moment later a mischievous smile crept across her face and she looked every bit as savvy as the next person on the street.
"I bet you both are! Oh, wouldn't a little dancing be lovely? You two first I think. The food needs another moment to cool anyway." She gave Remus a wide eyed glance and then raised her eyebrows at me as if she had no idea what she was doing. I pursed my lips as I heard a breathy laugh emanate from beside me.
Oh God. To stand that close, even if all I managed to do was fumble and fret, I just needed an excuse to break the physical barriers between is.
"I'm sure Nymphodora would prefer to keep her seat." Remus sighed quietly and tapped his fingers on his leg as if he wasn't the sexiest man to ever drop a fork over my big mouth.
I stood abruptly.
"I have been meaning to get a lesson." Audacity, audacity. Always audacity. I wasn't going to turn down a perfectly reputable young man just to make stiff conversation and burn my mouth on a bag of to salty chips. No I was kidding myself, those chips were salted to perfection, but the principal still stood!
There was a rattling outside Jodie's door and her eyebrows shot up as her palm hit her face.
"Mr. Ollivander!" She cried. "The music will have woken him!" she ran to the door and fumbled with the lock for a moment before she was gone from the room leaving me standing overconfidently next to Lupin. Tonks you idiot.
"I reckon I am probably a bit rusty." his voice seemed a little husky and he took a sup of water. Tragic really, I had liked the crack in his soft speaking tone. "but I reckon I'll give it a shot."
PART 2
Remus:
Sit down Remus, she is just being polite I told myself. But she was already standing, and now barely a hand away as I stood with her. She must have seen me staring stupidly at her as the freckles on her skin immediately faded and the charming shade of brown her hair had taken on faded into its previous perfect pink. She sort of smelled pink, if that made any sort of sense, like pink lemonade. I closed my eyes in smelling her and heard her move away, this allowed me to focus for just a moment but when I opened my eyes again she was standing in the middle of the room in her dark blue mondian dress. Her wide smile making me nervous, almost shaky.
I could dance with her surely, just one dance during which I will be normal and she will be perfect. She wouldn't be endangered by just one turn around the room during which I'd be more Lupin than lupine. A hoarse laugh slipped out as I approached her. I took her right hand in my left and then glanced at her.
"You don't mind me calling you Remus, do you?" I shook my head and then met her eyes as I felt her small warm hand slip around my neck.
"Not at all." I smiled tightly and looked up at the cracked plaster ceiling as I put my hand on her small waist. The curve of her hip and her pink lemonade aroma causing goose bumps to start from where her hand rested comfortably on my shoulder.
"Have you danced much before?" She asked as she pressed herself closer to me. If she was expecting any sort of response besides an accelerated heart beat she had another thing coming. She was warm and confident and just so womanly.
I didn't know why I had insisted on disparaging myself with such forbidden fruit. She moved away to look up at me and as I stared down into her eyes I saw a blush flair across her cheeks. It was obvious that my adoration of her was embarrassing her and I felt my ears warm up. Lupin you idiot, she already doesn't want to be near you and she doesn't even know you are a monster. Surely someone so rakishly thin and covered in scars had no business giving dance lessons to Aphrodite whether he was a werewolf or not.
I felt her finger trace lightly over a sensitive scar resting at the junction of my shoulder which had been there for little over five cycles. I needed to say anything.
"I will lead." I croaked lightly. I pulled her a little closer and decided that maybe just this once, I could have just this. She moved into me again and I felt her breath on my neck as she laughed. My face felt warm and I cast my eyes to the ceiling beseechingly begging whatever higher power there was to either let this never end or make the torture end immediately. Not really knowing which I would prefer.
"Are you sure? I could lead if you want?" and her soft hand ran down my neck to my waist as her hand moved atop mine. She pulled me close and then giggled again.
"Its not so bad is it? Well, besides the fact that if you did let me lead I would probably dance us out the window." the pink in her hair darkened. "I amn't really known for my lightness of foot." I thought back to all my dance lessons back home. My Mother had trained in dance halls twice a week, it was inherent that I would learn to dance.
"Oh I am sure you are a wonderful dancer Nymphodora." Her hand returned to my neck and I thought that our exchange, standing so close in the middle of the music filled apartment might seem rather odd, Then I couldn't help but reflect that having Nymphodora standing with me made more sense than anything else had for a very long time. My heart hurt a little when I felt an untoward bitterness. If I had been someone else, anyone else, dancing with the sparkling girl could have been perfect.
Having her in my arms gave me a healing sort of reassurance though, that as long it was just the two of us, perhaps I could be someone else. Someone to be trusted, someone with whom a simple dance was a dance and not a foolish traipse about with fate. Her trust did sting a bit though, the give in her body, the freedom of her laugh. I did feel a little envy as Strauss's second blasted through the room, killing tension and bringing rhythm over reason.
"The waltz" I smiled down at her and her eyes stole my breath for a moment. To only dream of such perfection and then as I shifted forward she followed. Then again and I saw the beginnings of a laugh around her dark pinky lips as our feet continued to shift carefully below us.
"prepare yourself for the worst Remus." I sent her for a spin and pulled her back in gently.
"You are already better than you think." I told her as she fit back against me in the most sensible way, as if this whole scenario wasn't ludicrous. As if she couldn't feel the shake in my hand or she hadn't noticed the stutter of my once well practiced feet. We continued our simple box step and I began to move us in a small flared circle in the middle of the room.
"1-2-3,1-2-3,1-2-3,…" I breathed out in an attempt to steady her. I could feel her rapid mismatched pulsing steps laced with a determination. Each movement she made in response to my own was like a threat. As if she was attempting to stave off an inevitable mishap.
"Relax." I murmured in a tone that wasn't barely upward of being unseemly. I couldn't help it, she made me veer back into a fantasy of normalcy that made no allowance for Remus; the big bad wolf. I didn't care anymore, because then she did relax, her head rested on my shoulder, her fingers laced in with mine. The movement of her feet became unsteady but her thighs pressed flush against mine as I pushed her legs back in step.
The waltz was losing tempo and our movements were becoming lazy and habitual as all I could reflect upon was the feel of her, the smell of her. Her polite acquiescence to the gift of a dance. To dance with her would surely be a dream that would tide me over for many a moon but as we paused with the music and I brought her down in a low dip I had to smile widely for the simple fact that this wasn't a dream, even if the reality of it was now over.
Her long eye lashes fanned around her incredible blue eyes as she looked up at me. Her hand moved from my neck and slid into my hair, I closed my eyes to enjoy the soft feel of her caress. I could feel the rise and fall of her chest below mine. The dull warm weight of her soft pink perfection in my arms.
"I'll lead." I felt her breath brush against my mouth as she spoke and then I felt the brush of her soft lips. My breath hitched and I had to remind myself not to drop her, the effort to keep from allowing her to fall had me pulling her closer. I instantly regretted it while simultaneously thanking my lucky stars as she pressed herself flush against me and kissed me more intimately then I could ever remember being kissed.
She sighed deeply and I pulled us upright with a flourish, I groaned a little.
The soft, methodic and romantic movements of the dance had left my heart pounding but as her lips moved against mine tenderly I felt every bit the man I had wished to be. The woman, Nymphodora, continued to be everything a young woman ought to be. My heart hammered, my left hand gripped hers and my other moved softly up and down the curve of her waist. Her left hand splayed across my neck and I was pulled back to reality as a piece reminiscent of Tchaikovsky's Clair Da Lune began and the wonderful girl traced a deft finger over one of my ugly and evil scars. I removed my hand from her hip and covered hers at my neck. She pulled her sweet pink mouth away from mine and hummed.
I just pressed my eyes shut and put my forehead against her for a moment, just to savour this, for if I was cruel enough to take something so imperial from someone so precious I damn better take a moment to really appreciate it.
I could never discard a gift as beautiful as this fairy tale, even if I couldn't keep it I could admire it before I returned it. I inhaled deeply and made to move away but the girl just pulled back minutely to meet my eyes unabashedly. Her pink hair lightened a little as she shook her head. Her voice filled the space between us with a wonder which I was never wild enough to crave as she spoke;
"Don't you dare." and then I fell in love.
"To late." I hissed and we were kissing again and I could feel her smiling under my mouth, I could feel the little grin of Aphrodite herself and I once again begged the higher powers to either stop me now or allow this to go on forever because I didn't have quite enough strength to pull back or push forward on my own. I only had the foolish power of idiocy to fall.