By: Amanda
Feedback: sweety167yahoo.ca
Rating: G
Disclaimer: I'm just playing with JK Rowling's toys. I promise to put them back when I'm done, whenever that is. And I thank her for sharing her toys with the world.
Spoilers: OotP, HPB
Summary: Sometimes love is the right thing to do.
Completed: August 4, 2007
Notes: It's really hard to write as Tonks. Good Tonks. GoF Tonks. Also, the title is from a line in Daniel, by Elton John.
He stood there, drained and broken. The hall had emptied, but he kept staring at the veil. Keeping a vigil, like the Muggles at Daddy's church.
"Lupin?" I approached him carefully, quietly. Cautiously.
He turned, slowly. A dead look shadowed over his face. He looked even more tired, and even more drawn than usual. Like all the life had been stripped from him. It seemed to take him a moment to realise his name had come from me, to notice who I was.
He swayed slightly.
"Are…are you alright?" I took a slow step toward him. After all, I knew what he was, but I didn't really know him. Beyond a few Order meetings, with Sirius between us, I never spent any time with the man. And now, cousin Sirius was…
He cast another weary glance at the veil, but said nothing.
I looked around the room: silent and cold. Empty, for all but the veil. The veil and us. I found myself watching it, hypnotised by it. Drawn into the soft movements of the enchanted fabric. No.
"We need to get outta here," I quickly grabbed hold of his hand; it was cold and shaking.
His attention, momentarily, snapped to our joined hands. Remus opened his mouth to say something, to question, to protest. But I wouldn't let him.
"Come on," I gave him a little tug, "Trust me." With a crack that must have been deafening in the silent space, I apparated us away.
It was odd, having Remus Lupin stand in the middle of my sitting room. The bright purple walls of my flat highlighted the drab brown and paler of his skin. He was painfully out of place here. An old relic in a modern shop. Not that he noticed. He didn't seem to. It appeared as if he hadn't even realised that we were no longer at the Ministry. He continued to stare off in the direction of that ominous doorway to nowhere, his eyes didn't never register that it was no longer in front of him.
And then he blinked.
"Wh—Where are we?" his eyes focused on the changed and unfamiliar room around us.
"My flat," I offered. He didn't seem impressed. "You didn't want to go back to headquarters, did you?" I assumed. After all, we'd be going back with one less. A noticeable one less.
His eyes glossed over. He shook his head.
"He's really…this time," he sputtered with a though but stopped. A breath caught in his throat, choking him.
I watched as he dropped his long and spindly body into one of my overstuffed chairs, and bury his face in his hands. There was a shake in his bones – I was watching a man fall apart. And I had no clue what to do about it.
Surely I heard a whisper of Sirius, followed by the unmistakable sound of sobbing.
Yes, Sirius. My cousin. Only a vague recollection of shaggy black hair and a wicked smile, before the image of a haunted man haunting number twelve Grimmauld Place. But this man, Lupin here, had really known him. Inseparable school chums, soldiers in arms of the First Order. They even shared secret smiles at the meeting now. Or rather, they did. They wouldn't anymore.
Who did he have now? Who was left for this broken and lost man on my filched Hufflepuff common room chair?
He needed someone. Everyone needs someone. And what good are you if you can't love someone else?
I looked over at his shaggy hair and bony body. He needed someone to love him. I could love him.
Carefully, to avoid banging or tripping or disturbing, I went over and placed my hand on his shoulder. To tell him. To offer him. To give him.
, I thought, as I leaned over the back of the chair to put my other arm around him, to comfort him, I could love him.I would give Remus Lupin someone to love.
I'd love him.