A/N: In response to Haylis' From A-Z And In Between challenge. My character was Tonks, my prompt was Deadlock.
Life, for Tonks, was beginning to feel like an endless series of deadlocks followed by painful concessions. Just last week on duty, a hostage situation had come to an impasse, and eventually she and Kingsley had been obligated to allow the criminal to escape in order to save the hostage from a fatal drop. And, of course, there was the entire situation with the war – Voldemort was hiding in his hole, and his hit and run methods left his Death Eaters virtually untraceable; all the Aurors could do at the moment was respond as quickly as possible, and clean up the damned mess. There was also the "Remus Thing." If only she could make him see… But that was all for another time, because right now, Tonks had a much more pressing matter to attend to, this being the wand held at her throat.
The most frustrating element of her current situation was that this idiotic man wasn't even a proper Death Eater, just some stupid vigilante aiming reckless acts of violence at the Ministry. Hell, the man wasn't even pro-Voldemort, as he was now telling her—he was just pissed off.
Tonks heaved a sigh. "Why, then?" She knew he was only too eager to explain it all to her. Pathetic.
Sure enough, "Wouldn't you just like to know." Tonks waited patiently through the dramatic pause. "Well, lucky you, I'm gonna tell you. So that you know what you've all done."
"Goody."
He snarled. "That's just it, isn't it? None of you sodding Aurors take none of this seriously. Like it's all just a game. Well, let me tell you, it's bloody well not. My daughter is dead because of all you lot. And you're all going to pay."
She forced herself not to roll her eyes. She felt for him, really, and maybe she was generally a bit despondent at the moment, but she could definitely see where he was coming from. The problem, of course, was that not only was his vengeance misdirected, but it was fairly weak. He was crazed more than he was angry, and that never boded well in the planning process.
Tonks was never really good at the whole "talking down" thing, and her patience was beginning to wane. Kingsley always criticised this in her, jokingly warning her that one day she would be in just such a hostage situation and would cause the perpetrator to give up on his demands just to be able to kill her. She always imagined she'd find herself a little more indulgent at such a time, but clearly, she'd been mistaken.
Her captor seemed rather dismayed, in fact, and she looked at him inquisitively.
"You're not going to say summat?"
"Oh. Er, well. What's there to say, really?"
He blinked at her in confusion.
"Well, look: You've got me in bonds I can't escape. You've got your wand pointed menacingly in my direction. I've got— Er, how long did you say it was?"
"Two hours," he ground out.
"Right. Sorry. I've got two hours to either live, or to wait for rescue… I sort of think that in this situation I'm the one that ought to be whinging, ay?" She internally strangled herself as his face grew increasingly confused, but also angry.
"Look, mate," she hastily continued, "Of course it's awful what happened to Madison, and surely I can't begin to imagine what it must be like to lose a kid, but what I don't get is how you justify extending that pain to other parents by divvying up Aurors between your inane crimes and the ones the Death Eaters are on about. So if you'd fancy talking about yourself some more, go on and explain it all to me."
He merely scoffed. "None of your psychobabble is going to sway me, lady. Way I see it is you lot are the reason my little girl is dead, and there's no one in the world that would deny me-"
"Who do you think cast the curse? An Auror?"
"Don't matter none, do it? The Aurors coulda stopped it."
"Sure, could've done." Tonks was getting exasperated with this cyclic conversation. It was time to name drop. Oughta mix things up at the very least, she reasoned. Elsewise I might die of boredom. "Antonin Dolohov's a crafty sort, you know."
The man stared at her. "Dolohov, you say? He's the one what killed Madison?" His pain broke through his eyes for just a moment before his blind resolve slid back over them. "Don't matter none. I've got you here now. And we're just gonna wait." He seemed to think a moment. "In silence," he concluded determinedly.
Tonks could only sigh as the Silencioslid over her, rendering her speechless, and thus also entirely lacking any source of amusement. By the time Kingsley finally got there hours later (which was really only about 20 minutes real time), Tonks was dancing as much as she could with her limited range of movement, and humming a dreadful Celestina Warbeck song that Molly had gotten stuck in her head days ago. Kingsley paused at the door and let out a short laugh, her actions indicating to him that the situation wasn't terribly serious.
He had already released Tonks and trained his wand on her captor by the time the distraught father rose from his seat. The arrest was made quickly, and with little to-do; the man was unbelievably shocked by the failure of his plan, so shocked, in fact, that he had passed out on the spot. Afterwards, Tonks and Kingsley headed over to the Leaky Cauldron for a drink and a good laugh. And, as she said somewhat later, and somewhat tipsy, perhaps life was looking up. After all, Remus was hardly scarier than that twit of a vigilante.