He kissed me back.
A tiny something awoke in a corner of Tonks' mind, stretched its limbs, flickered into life. Not hope. Certainty.
Tonks opened her eyes. Why was another matter. Pity? She couldn't think that of him, surely Remus of all people would know that to be more cruel than kind. Loneliness? She knew he was lonely, and she thought she had an inkling why. The way Sirius used to stare at him all through meetingsā¦
I will never compete with that, she thought. Not in a million years.
Was she the only one who knew? She didn't think so, somehow. There was no way they had fooled Molly, for one. Nothing important ever got past Molly's notice. She'd been plying Tonks with tea lately, even more so than usual, and she sometimes caught her shooting sympathetic glances her way that she didn't think were to do with Sirius. And Snape had had a habit of glancing at Sirius, then Remus, and curling his lip. Not that it was surprising that he should look at them with disdain, but there was something else there, something much more like disgust. Nonetheless, most people probably didn't know, and so couldn't understand the depth of Remus' grief. They had been friends, yes, at school. They were friends when he died, although they had been apart for years. But she couldn't begin to imagine how he really grieved, and most people didn't even know to begin imagining.
Like me.
Tonks instantly felt horribly selfish. How can you even compare this to you? People know he was your cousin.
But not that we were friends. Not like we were. He was my favourite cousinā¦
Dora is two and in a big house she doesn't know full of people, all talking about two people getting married, which is when a man and a lady love each other and have children, her big cousin Cassiopeia and a tall man with a beard. There's a funny wrinkly little man, almost as small as she is, with great big ears she wants to play with, but when she asked him what his name was he shuffled away and she heard him say something under his breath while looking back at her over one bony shoulder, she doesn't know what but it didn't sound nice and she thinks it was about her. There are lots and lots of pictures, lots more than in her house which hardly has any, and these ones move so at first she was worried that the people in them were stuck but when she touched one of a clever-looking man with a pointy little beard she got chocolate smeared on the frame and he walked away out of the side. She keeps bumping into people, and they look down at her and tut, but there are so many of them and when she tries to get away from them she runs headlong into a huge something with umbrellas stuck into it, a great big foot for a great big animal but she doesn't know where the rest of the animal is and she's starting to want to cry.
Her first sniffle has just made a lady with very black hair turn round to stare disapprovingly at her when someone bears down on her grinning and waving. Sirius is so big; his chin is all scratchy and as he picks her up, she feels as though she is flying, soaring miles into the air, far from the dusty prickly carpet. She puts out a tiny hand to touch his face and is shocked at how prickly it feels under her sticky little palm. Her wispy hair flashes violently pink, a habit she has not yet learned how to control, like sucking her thumb her mummy says, which she doesn't really understand because she only ever sucks her thumb when there's chocolate or something else yummy on it and what could be wrong with that? Across the room, her Great-Aunt Walburga looks up and frowns, then says something quietly to her mother that makes her eyes flash and her lips tighten. Sirius doesn't know exactly what it was but he can guess, and he squeezes Dora a little bit tighter, and she doesn't understand what she did wrong so her hair goes even pinker and she starts to cry, quietly, into the stiff woolen shoulder of his heavy, itchy robes.
She is hiccupping noisily by the time he carries her into the hallway, louder and louder hiccups that threaten to turn into fully-fledged sobs. Sirius puts her on the floor and squats down in front of her, looking furious at something- at her?- and also slightly unsure of what to do. He runs his hands through his hair, and Dora thinks that that looks like fun, so she sticks out her grubby hand and does the same. His hair is spiky and surprisingly long. Sirius laughs then, and Dora is momentarily distracted, until she remembers Great-Aunt Walburga and how she upset her mummy and how that was Dora's fault, somehow, and then she starts crying again.
'Nymphadora, um, don't cry, please, erm, bollocks I- oh bollocks I shouldn't have said that, or that, boll-damn!'
Sirius lets out a long stream of words most of which she doesn't understand, but she does hear her name, her real name, the one she doesn't like, so she draws herself up to her full height (which still barely reaches the crouching Sirius' shoulder) and says firmly through her tears:
'Don't call me Nimdora.'
And Sirius laughs, and leans in close to wipe away her tears, and says:
'Do you know what? You are definitely my favourite cousin.'
