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In the weeks that followed, Hermione would repeatedly summon the memory of Tonks' hand in hers on the Knight Bus back to Hogwarts. Circumstance had put the rest of the group in the back of the bus with Moody, leaving the two of them to surreptitiously clasp hands and lean into each other with a ferocity that matched the wild swaying of the vehicle. Hermione had awoken the morning of the journey with a biting, vexatious feeling that she was hurtling down the road towards much more than just another semester of school. Would anything for her ever be simple again?
'Negative' Her brain provided as Ginny flopped face down onto her unmade bed in their dormitory, groaning wetly from the velvet depths. This display was becoming more and more frequent in the girls' dormitory; Valentine's Day was upon them and, Merlin help them all, Hermione had never seen such a parade of feminine vapidity in her life. Carefully marking her place in her book, she set the volume aside and quietly bridged the gap between their beds, sitting down next to the despondent red-head.
"What's going on Gin?" Hermione cooed, gently combing the younger girls' hair with her fingers.
Ginny sat up, wiping ferociously at her decidedly soggy features, "Harry's an idiot, that's what. And I don't care because he's an idiot and I don't date-" at this her jutting chin threatened to wobble, but she heroically recovered, "I don't date idiots." Her reasoning sound, Ginny flopped back onto her sheets and lay, imobile.
Hermione froze, barely breathing, and stared hard at the patterned stonework walls. She really, really shouldn't do what her brain was saying to do: splutter with dumbfounded zeal, say nothing and wait for the punchline, or worst of all, laugh raucously. No, composure was the ticket; luckily her will was draconian. She cleared her throat and resumed her petting, trying to avoid the dampest spots. "Harry can be-" She paused, allowing herself the tiniest of smiles as she cleared her throat, "-Harry can be as dense as your mom's Christmas fruitcake." Ginny reared up again, growling in frustration with her red hair floating halo-like around her damp face; Hermione quickly steeled her face to neutral concern, clasping Ginny's hands in hers.
Ginny glared blearily at her, "I know what you're thinking" she sniffed, "I thought I had grown out of it, but, I don't know…" she trailed off, glancing at the open window, obviously avoiding Hermione's eyes, "I guess you can't control these things. I mean, you fell in love with a woman."
Hermione tucked Ginny against her shouder as she dissolved again into tears, resigned. No, you really couldn't choose, she thought with a slight sardonic grimace; she had known for years that Ginny held a torch for Harry but in the last few months it had appeared to abate some, and Hermione had assumed that Ginny had finally moved on. A couple girls came giggling into the dorm, but briskly aborted their entry when they saw Hermione's brutal stare.
Valentine's Day be damned, but Lord knows she wasn't completely immune to the season's charms, especially this year. She had desperately wanted to send a letter, some sort of communication to Tonks but her sense had won out. She had resorted to carrying the little orbs around with her everywhere; but Merlin, did she hunger for Tonks' touch. The holiday in general though seemed to bring nothing but broken hearts and lots and lots of snot. Maybe one or two of the older girls were quietly whisked away around April, when their mistakes started to show. And this, this was just a bit of a mess, if Ginny wanted Harry, then she was going to help her figure him out. Luckily, Hermione had had four and a half years' worth of Harry and she knew the immense hilarity of a match between him and Cho Chang lasting longer than a week.
Of course, she wasn't 100% sure that Harry was good enough for Ginny, but once again, if she wanted him then she was going to give it a try.
But, as Hermione hiked resolutely into the Forbidden Forest, pouring every ounce of her will into a calm and confident demeanor while Professor Umbridge and Harry trailed behind her like ducklings, that had been the last harmonious moment before the entire order of their lives had gone to utter shit. Her only hope was that she would get the chance to attempt an explanation to Tonks before the older witch ripped into her. They had been so stupid, so incredibly, undeniably reckless; the discovery of the DA had been the tipping point for chaos. Through all of that madness had been her O.W.L.S, the second most sacred of horribly exhausting and anxiety producing activities of her life; or at least she thought they were the goal, one of the most important defining moments of her life. Was that true anymore? She felt so unsteady, didn't know where her compass should be pointing. She longed for Tonks' arms, ached to fall into that incinerating embrace and beg her to hold on. Please, please just hold on to me.
Behind her Umbridge made an impatient noise, prodding her in the back with the tip of her wand; a bead of sweat dripped down Hermione's neck and she led them to the left, further into the forest, praying with every step that the forest would heed her call.
And thank Merlin, it had worked. Kind of. She was not above admitting, but only privately to herself, that she had nearly pissed herself once or twice. Thank Merlin for Grawp.
At the end, she was shaking from head to toe, her sweaty back pressed to a tree trunk as her knees continually attempted to buckle underneath her. Harry's condition was similar, but he was lit with the fire of purpose and already stomping around the clearing trying to scheme his way to the Ministry of Magic, to find Sirius; if Sirius was even in trouble. Hermione bowed her head, squeezing her eyes tight shut and grimacing, drooling privately behind the curtain of her bushy hair with adrenaline-fueled nausea. The image of a plaid quilt illuminated by soft candle light, a wisp of fresh tobacco smoke drifting by her nose and a warm, impish smile hit her gut like a boulder, and she dry-heaved quietly, tears mixing with the dirt and blood on her cheeks. In her pocket, her knuckles clenched white around Tonks' Christmas gift, David Bowie's voice slowly bringing her down from the cataclysm:
"I, I will be king
And you, you will be queen
Though nothing, will drive them away
We can beat them, just for one day"
Merlin, how did this happen? Harry was acting insane, growling about flying to the Ministry of Magic when they didn't even have their wands. They didn't have anything, they were alone out in the woods. Hermione wasn't even sure she knew the way back.
"We can be heroes, just for one day"
She didn't want to be a hero. She had just wanted to protect her friends, her family, maybe make a difference if she could; this was so much bigger than her small intentions.
"We can be us, just for one day
I, I can remember
Standing by the wall
And the guns, shot above our heads
And we kissed, as though nothing could fall
And the shame, was on the other side
Oh, we can beat them, forever and ever
Then we can be heroes, just for one day"
Tonks jerked awake to the sound of frantic pounding on her door; someone in the hall was yelling, but the words were so rough and slurred that she couldn't comprehend it until she had tumbled out of the sheets, already pulling on her pants.
"Wake up! Wake up! We need to GO!" It was Mad Eye; something must have happened, something big. Tonks grabbed her cloak and stepped into her boots, crashing through her bedroom door to clamber down the stairs with the rest of the Order and out onto the front lawn; Mad Eye rounded on the disheveled group, frowning sourly in the moonlight, "To the Ministry of Magic we're going; keep in tight formation, Death Eater's are confirmed on the other side. Let's make it quick, they have some of ours."
Mad Eye turned abruptly, preparing to move out, but Sirius darted forward and grabbed his sleeve, "Who?" Sirius' face was ghostly and Remus had gone white; they knew something, and her heart leaped into her throat.
Mad Eye thumped his staff on the ground, grumbling in his throat, "It's the kids" The group froze, wide-eyed; Tonks' body jolted, the ice in her veins flooded with incinerating heat that flushed her hair deep, blood red. "All of them. The whole group. Don't know why…" Moody's voice faded out as Tonks struggled to breathe; a cold paralysis had settled on her chest, heart shivering in panic as raw energy began to flood into her core. Hermione. She blearily saw the others begin to blur, white smoke pooling around their feet, and closed her eyes, setting her feet firmly on the concrete. Her breath was coming in short bursts, whistling through tightly clenched teeth as she twitched the tip of her wand in a small circle at her side; energy built and rose in her blood, vibrating through her neurons, jumping the synapses like a wolf on the hunt. She knew she wasn't together enough to be doing a spell this intricate, but with one, careful, deep breathe she dove into her core, gathered herself, and let her cells sunder. White smoke billowed around her feet, lifting her body up as her edges blurred. With a leap she was streaming through the air, weightless, silent as a passing cloud with the rest of the Order, arrow-straight towards the Ministry. All she had to do was hold it together until they arrived; her core was boiling like a dragon's gullet, building and building with every breath. She would kill every fucking Death Eater in the Ministry, down to the last atom.
As one unit the Order descended into the Ministry, following Mad-Eye as he sussed out where the conflict sat; Tonks hit the floor seconds behind Sirius and Remus, rising from the knee-saving three-point landing with wand outstretched, and strode from her cloud of smoke like a demon fleeing Hell. Sirius tore off to their right, sighting Harry alone facing off with Malfoy. Tonks dodged a rebounding spell and spun, cloak flowing, and knocked a masked Death Eater back into the gloom, scanning the room wildly for any hint of the others. Remus was closest to her, and they backed into each other, grabbing fistfulls of one anothers coats in a practiced maneuver to keep them solidly linked together, back-to-back. They twirled, shoulder-blades touching, spinning spell after spell as the Death Eaters flowed and billowed around them, the black smoke of their flight obscuring the little light in the chamber. Tonks' heart was hammering, skipping recklessly; there wasn't anyone else in the chamber, just Harry. Where were the rest? Mad-Eye had said "all of them", right?
Fuck fuck fuck fuck FUCK She hurled a curse so hard that the Death Eater hit the concrete wall and slumped, his mask clattering to the floor, blood pouring from a grotesque dent in the back of his skull. Overhead Kingsley swooped, entangled with a dark cloud.
"Good, Tonks, GOOD" Remus yelled, whirling them around to the right, deflecting a weak shot from a fleeing Death Eater who careened through a dark doorway across the chamber.
"I'm going after him" Tonks yelled back over the static crash of spells, pushing Remus away from her and sprinting across the room, in pursuit. Maybe she could find the others, maybe they weren't hurt...
"SIRIUS! No! SIRIUS!" Tonks twisted around at Harry's anguished scream, saw him beating impotently at Remus' shoulder, straining towards the ghostly arch in the center of the chamber, had the merest sliver of a second to focus on Remus' face, eyes wide and fixed on her, agonizing disbelief in every line as he clung to Harry's struggling frame like a life support, before a curse roared out of the dark doorway, hitting her square in the chest and throwing her into inky blackness.
Ginny rested with her back to the cold corridor wall, rubbing disconsolately at the bridge of her nose to ease the throbbing headache behind her eyes. Hermione's head was cradled in her lap, body limp in some sort of magical faint; every few minutes Ginny fingered her friends neck, reassuring herself with the strength of the pulse she found there. Neville, Luna, Ron, Hermione and her had been huddled there for about half an hour after Harry had hurtled down the hallway, literally leaping over Hermione's prone body, in pursuit of Bellatrix; the two had disappeared around the corner and faded into the distance, Remus tearing after him only as far as the group of wounded students. Fast on Remus' heels had been Mad-Eye and Kingsley, and the remaining Death Eater's had all been either taken away or fled. For now, they appeared to be safe but by the hushed whisperings echoing down the hallway from the main chamber, that could just be a facade. Ginny caught whisperings about Dumbledore and Voldemort, and they had all been informed of Sirius' death; silently, Ginny pulled Hermione closer, wincing painfully as her broken ankle was jarred. Next to her, Ron stared glassy-eyed at Hermione, a fold of her shirt in his fist. Neville's nose had stopped bleeding and was now just a swollen purple bruise on his face; Luna was crying silently on his shoulder.
The minutes ticked by. She felt like they were in a bomb shelter.
Remus bustled into the corridor, carrying something large in his arms; for a second he blocked the light in the hallway Ginny blinked to clear her vision enough to see. She jolted, stomach dropping like a brick, "Is that Tonks?!" Her voice was harsh and loud, jerking everyone out of their intimate hells, but Remus' face was the color of porridge, tear tracks streaking his cheeks. No no no no no no She panicked, reaching out towards the curled figure in Remus' arms, "I didn't-I didn't think she came with you guys I didn't even consider-" She babbled as Remus slowly lowered the unconscious metamorphmagus to the marble floor. Lupin gave Ginny a sharp look to shut her up and gently folded his own battered body to the ground, gathering Tonks against his chest like an oversized child.
"She's not dead" He mumbled, fussing with her cloak, "Just cursed; she'll be alright, like Hermione. I just...I figured they should be near one another." Ginny sighed, the flood of relief so palpable she felt airborne for a second. Lupin shifted, gasping in pain.
"You can leave her here, next to Hermione, and go lay down yourself, Lupin" Ginny whispered, scanning his mottled complexion and haunted eyes. Remus shifted again, pulling Tonks in closer, hugging her to his chest and tucking her head against his neck protectively. He wouldn't meet her eyes.
"If it's alright, I'll keep her right here." The words were barely audible and Ginny had to strain to hear them, nodding her head thoughtfully in the gloom; she was suddenly irrefutably tired and felt her eyelids starting to droop. Her head nodded on her chest, but she felt Remus shaking next to her; blearily she cracked open her eyes and saw he was crying, face almost hidden in Tonks' cloak. Shakily, she reached out and took his hand, his palm rough against hers, and gave in to sleep.