IF WISHES WERE GOOD-BYES
By: Lesera128
Rated: PG-13
Disclaimer: I own nothing. Everything Harry Potter belongs to the goddess J.K. Rowling. All hail the queen!
A/N: Enjoy!
Chapter 8: A World of Grays
When Dora was a little girl, her mother Andromeda would often read her fairy tales. Some of them had originated from the wizarding world while some came from the muggle world and some... well, some had come from somewhere in-between. It was one of these later types that had often been Dora's favorite when she was a child.
"Tell the good-bye story again," Dora would plead whenever it was Andi's night to put her to bed.
"Again?" Andromeda would sigh.
Dora would nod happily. "Again."
Going to Dora's little gold-colored bookshelf, Andromeda pulled out a well-worn and well-loved dark blue book. Where it had come from no one quite remembered... it had one of Andromeda's books as a child, and one of the few things she had taken with her when she left the Blacks in order to marry Ted Tonks. Going to the rocking chair which stood next to Dora's closet, Andromeda sat down. Gesturing for her small daughter to come to her, Andromeda settled herself in the chair as Dora crawled up into her chest.
When her small daughter was nestled in the crook of her arm with her head leaning on Andi's chest just at the spot where Dora could hear her mother's heart beat, Andi opened the book to a very familiar page, and she began to read.
"Once upon a time there was a little girl with great big blue eyes..."
The exact wording had faded from Tonks' memory over the years, but she remembered the general gist of the story.
There was a rich lord who was married to a beautiful woman. They loved each other very much, almost as much as they loved there only child, a daughter with large, deep blue eyes.
While the child had a good heart, she had been spoiled by her parents. On the day of her seventh birthday, she was sitting in her room staring out her window dreaming of that which would one day be. The girl had the gift of prophecy, but it had been foretold at her birth that her gift would dry up, like water which evaporates on a hot afternoon, on the day that the girl found her true love. No one quite understood why, but the little girl did.
'One day I will meet my true love, and he will have the whole of my heart. On the day that happens, I will no longer have the gift of seeing the future because the part of my heart that is due in sacrifice of my talent will no longer be free... and I will no longer be free from the moment my true love becomes a part of my life,' the little girl thought.
Wise beyond her years, the little girl realized that the moment her true love became a part of her life on a regular basis, her gift for prophecy would leave her.
And, so on the day of her seventh birthday, her parents decided that their daughter should be betrothed to the son of a neighbor. The little girl's parents figured that as long as they married their daughter to a stranger, she would never fall in love with her true love. Thus, they reasoned, her miraculous gift for prophecy would be safe.
What the little girl's parents didn't realize was that the son of their neighbor had been destined to win the little girl's heart long before she had ever been conceived.
Theirs was a fate written in the stars.
But, due to her gift of foresight, the little girl knew who was to be her one true love... and though she wanted nothing more in life than to give her whole heart to the little boy, she knew she could not.
And, so, each time she saw him, the little girl with blue eyes would say, 'Excuse me, my lord. Farewell, but I must bid you good-bye this fine afternoon. Safe journeys.' And, each time she said good-bye to the little boy, the little girl would make a wish... she made a wish that each time she wished him good-bye that she would have another chance to do so for then at least she would see him again and be able to love him from a far.
The end of the story was unimportant. What Tonks had adored about the tale was the idea that a woman could love a man enough to voluntarily leave him while at the same time wishing she never had to let him go.
The concept of loving someone so much was such a foreign novelty to Tonks, she never believed that feeling so deep a love could happen to her... until the day Remus kissed her by the lake on the afternoon of her graduation.
From that point on, even if Tonks hadn't consciously realized it, deep within her heart, Tonks knew that she would only have one chance for a love like the little girl with blue eyes in the story had felt -- and her one chance had been with Remus Lupin.
Except now, after so many years had passed, Tonks knew that she had lost her chance. Remus was gone, and without him, Tonks felt that her entire heart had disappeared. Of course, something still existed in the empty part of her chest that helped to pump blood through her body. But, whatever it was, it surely wasn't Tonks' heart.
She remained curled in a fetal position for so long that she didn't know how much time had passed. Tonks had fled to the one place she could think of where no one would think to look for her. No one but Remus even knew she knew about the little cottage's existence, and as he was gone, she knew no one would come looking for her.
Staring up at the ceiling, Tonks lay on a pile of cushions and blankets in front of the fireplace. The fire was charmed to burn hot, but even at so close a position, Tonks couldn't feel the heat. All she felt was an all-consuming emptiness. All she felt was overwhelming sadness. All she felt was disturbingly numb.
Remus couldn't be dead. He just couldn't.
But he was. The mission... something had to have happened.
Seeing the bloodied fragments of Remus' broken wand lying on the table in the kitchen of Grimmauld Place was almost like seeing Remus' broken and battered body there for all to see.
Remus Lupin was dead, and Tonks didn't know what to do.
"You can't be dead," Tonks whispered. "I never even got a chance to tell you good-bye."
Their last words had been spoken in anger, and now Tonks felt such a deep guilt that it burned in the pit of her stomach. "If only I could have told you good-bye, I would have gotten the chance to wish to see you again," Tonks mumbled to herself.
"You just can't be gone," Tonks murmured to herself as she felt the tears begin anew.
Clutching a dirty and somewhat bedraggled rag doll to her chest, Tonks cried into Marie. The faint smell of mint and earth filled her nostrils. The familiar scents were too much for her. They only served to remind her of her loss. Tonks sobbed for a few more minutes, and she was then silent as she eventually let the gray oblivion of her new world without Remus claim her.