Note: Worst. Chapter. EVER. Sorry! It was awfully tricky and...urgh!
This chapter is dedicated to thepiperscuriosity. I apologise for dedicating such a sad excuse for a chapter to you, but hopefully you will enjoy it anyway!
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter.
21: Sporadic Sense
The cold marble floor was chilly and hard upon her back as she lay staring up towards the ceiling, the sight above swimming before her as she gasped in breath after salty breath.
Somewhere in the distance, somebody was hammering a fist upon a door.
She could barely hear it.
She didn't care.
Scours of paper and parchment floated around above her from where she had struck a stack of files flying with a wild sweep of her wand, the burst of magic leaving them to drift in an oddly serene fashion through the air.
She imagined being buried alive by them. Suffocated to death. And oh, what a relief! What glorious release, what perfect rest from her gasping, choking breaths...
"TONKS!" a voice demanded vaguely from out in the corridor beyond. "For the love of Merlin, open this door!"
She wouldn't. She couldn't. Couldn't move, could barely breathe, her throat was closing up, she was sure of it, she was choking.
She hoped it would kill her.
"I'll break it down!" the voice threatened. "I will! I mean it!"
A piece of parchment drifted down to rest upon her chest, and she stared at it, the rapid rise and fall, the choked gasping ringing in her ears...
"Have you found Remus yet?" the voice called, probably not to her, and then: "WELL BLOODY WELL HURRY UP AND FIND HIM, SHE'S IN A BAD WAY!"
She had no idea where Remus was now.
She hoped they didn't find him.
When she had first burst into the shop, half falling through the doorway and launching herself at the front of his robes to announce hysterically that Teddy was gone, the look of sheer horror that had materialised upon her husband's face had very nearly broken her entirely. But she had held it together then, managed to process his demand that she send word to the Ministry. Then he had disappeared off into Knockturn Alley to look for their missing son, and within half an hour she had joined him with a flood of Aurors in tow, ransacking shops, leaving not a single stone unturned. In the chaos she and Remus had lost one another, she had barely noticed he was gone, so preoccupied was she with looking for Teddy...
She had tried to pretend it was a normal raid, a normal day at work, tried to remain calm and collected, tried to think clearly...
She'd kept it up for hours. It was a wonder how she had done it.
And then she'd tripped over a grotesquely carved antique coffee table in one of the grimy little shops and had somehow managed to smash her fist through a glass cabinet containing a strange looking plant of one form or another as she fell.
And as she smashed the glass, the shards embedding themselves painfully in her hand, a sudden stinging sensation erupting up her arm as her bleeding fist plunged straight into the mass of strange leaves within, her composure had been smashed too.
She'd grown instantly hysterical, hopeless, utterly devoid of all reason.
Teddy was gone.
He was just gone. Forever. It was all useless, they wouldn't get him back.
And it was all her fault.
Again.
She didn't deserve him. She didn't deserve that sweet little boy, she wasn't fit to call herself his mother. She wished she'd never found him, wish she'd left him alone, wished even for a moment that she hadn't brought him into this cruel, dreadful world because it was just too awful.
He deserved so much better than all of this.
And Remus. Merlin, she couldn't bear to think of ever laying eyes upon him ever again. She couldn't bear to think of the Aurors finding him and bringing him here. It would be utterly unbearable, she wouldn't be able to look him in the eye, he who she loved so much, he who she had devastated so entirely.
Again.
She'd shrieked and babbled and sobbed like a madwoman as Harry had dragged her back to the Ministry, and the Head of Aurors had rather lost his own composure then too, bundling her into his office, shoving her clumsily up against a wall and pinning her there with his hands upon her shoulders.
You need to calm down, Tonks, he'd pleaded, struggling a little when in her madness she had attempted to fight him off, longing to sink to the floor and stay there forever. You need to stay calm, for Teddy's sake. You're...you're hurt...you need...somebody needs to take a look at you...
She'd shrieked at him. She didn't know what the words were, if they had been words at all, but she'd flung them at him anyway, and he'd resorted to throwing his arms around her, clinging to her so tightly that she simply hung limp in his arms.
He'd stood there murmuring Merlin knew what for minutes...hours, who knew? She had started to feel quite faint and sickly, and yet had somehow managed to plant her feet firmly on the ground when he had finally released her to step outside into the corridor to talk to...somebody or other.
The Minister sent for me to take her to the hospital, the somebody had said, and Harry had insisted:
She won't go with you. She won't go anywhere, she said...
Had she? She had no recollection of doing so...
She needs to go to the hospital, that plant might have been poisonous and I hear she's had some sort of dreadful shock...
I know...we're all worried about her but...well unless you want to stun her and carry her off on a stretcher...!
That's not how we do these things, Mr. Potter...
Well obviously...
...we don't stun our patients, we sedate them...
She'd instantly made a wild dash for the door, slamming it shut, fumbling for the wand in her pocket and reeling off a delirious list of spells to keep it that way.
She'd taken furious aim at a few random objects in the office, including the stack of files, the bangs and crashes not feeling nearly satisfying enough, before sinking to the floor, waiting...
She didn't really know what for.
Death, perhaps. Or clarity. Or both.
Her fist was still stinging.
She raised it shakily up in front of her face for inspection and found it bloodied and tinged a distinctly unhealthy green.
If she had been poisoned, she mused with a sniff as she reached with her other hand to prod gingerly at the wound, it really wasn't good enough. She didn't feel remotely as if it might kill her, and any time now Harry was going to have broken the door down.
She wondered if perhaps she had smashed the glass on purpose, if it had been a subconscious attempt to put a stop to this nightmare...
She waited for the little voice inside her head to laugh and pass this thought off as wild nonsense, since that was of course precisely what it was.
But there was no laughter. No little voice...
Merlin, the witch thought, watching a droplet of blood seep from the wound, trickling down between her knuckles before clinging to the underside of a finger, that had never happened before.
She had never had thoughts like that. Unsuppressed thoughts like that...
Suicidal thoughts like that.
She'd willed herself to die on occasion, she'd willed herself to die for days when Teddy had been snatched the first time. But she had always known it wouldn't happen. She had known she'd make no active effort to make it happen.
She had known simply willing it to happen would never make it so, and had known that this was a good thing.
And yet, just now...
She could think of more than just willing. She could think of actions. Real, actual actions...
She hastily reached to snatch her wand up from where she had abandoned it beside her and, frightened by her moment of weakness, reached to throw it across the room away from her.
Just in case.
Because she didn't trust herself, not anymore. Not one bit.
She tried to lie very still, as if she might just save herself from Merlin knew what that might invade her mind now that it was so utterly broken and devoid of sense.
The concentration at long last made her feel a little calmer, as if she might regain a shred of sense at last...
The shred of sense, when it did seep back into her mind, only served to frighten her even more, and she squeezed her eyes shut, sucking in a deep, panicked breath...
The door burst open so violently that it was very nearly flung off it's heavy hinges, but Dora barely flinched.
Somebody dropped down upon their knees beside her, and she blinked, gazing up at them.
She had expected Harry.
She had expected wrong.
Had the sight of Remus' face not thrown her so dreadfully, she might have wondered just how long it had been since she had barricaded herself inside the office, but as it was she could not manage to wonder much at all.
She couldn't think to ask if he had found Teddy, if he had found anything at all, but she gasped in a breath to say...who knew what? But before she could utter a word Remus had reached to press a hand to her cheek.
"Don't speak." the werewolf murmured, voice sounding distinctly strained. "Try to...try to take some deep breaths..."
He looked ill, she realised. Deathly pale and positively bedraggled. His clothes were damp from the rain that had started to fall at some point during their search and as he leant forward, bent low towards the floor until his lips brushed her ear she thought his eyes looked...puffy...
"Be calm, my darling." she heard him breath, fingers brushing somewhat shakily against her cheek in an attempt to soothe her. "Take some deep breaths and show them you can be calm. Don't let them cart you off to Mungo's unconscious, you'll be stuck in there for much too long. Get up and walk there, won't you? We'll be home far sooner, I promise."
"I...I don't want to go to M...Mungo's or...anywhere..."
"Shh, Dora. Please. Please don't...don't let them see you like this, I...I want to take you home. I want us to go home, I...I need you with me...I need you, Dora. Please don't let them see you like this, they'll take you to hospital whether you like it or not...don't...don't make them keep you there, please don't..."
"Y...you don't...you don't n...need m...me...nobody n...needs me I...I'm...I'm just..."
"Don't say that. None of...none of it's your fault. It's not your fault, Dora, it really isn't..."
She made to slump sideways against him so that she might bury her face in his shoulder and not have to look at the state of him, but he reached to cup her face in his hands and before she knew it they were forehead to forehead, gazing at one another so intently that she had to bite her tongue against a sob.
"I won't lose our son again, Dora, I mean it, I refuse." Remus insisted, voice surprisingly fierce for one who looked so broken. "I won't. We won't. We will find him, I'm telling you we will. It's not like before, it's not hopeless, I won't hear you tell me otherwise. We will find Teddy. But not now. Not like this. Look at the pair of us, darling. We're entirely spent."
There was a sizeable pause as she slowly processed this information, which slowly seemed reassuringly logical, then with a sniff she admitted:
"I'm so, so tired..."
"It's nearly three o'clock in the morning." Remus explained, and at this shred of reality she felt as if her mind was slowly clearing.
"Is...is it really? Have we...have we really been searching for..." she tried to do the maths, failed, and was glad when he supplied:
"We've been looking for at least nine hours."
"Nine hours?"
"Yes..."
Whilst she felt somewhat awed by such an abrupt passage of time, Remus' expression grew anxious at his calculations as he elaborated:
"That's at least nine hours that...that Teddy's been...gone. Without us. Merlin..." He squeezed his eyes shut, his hands dropping from her face as he leant back from her, swaying a little with fatigue. "I...I can't think to rest...not when I think about it like that. I know I said...but...but nine hours...!"
"No, no!" Dora cried, reaching to grab hold of him firmly by the elbow, if only to steady him a little. "You were perfectly right, love. Look...look at us! We're no use to him like this, you're absolutely right."
She wondered where her sudden strength had come from, her sudden certainty. Perhaps she just wanted something to cling on to, something to believe, and the idea of the two of them having a rest was the only option being offered to her.
Whilst her composure was beginning to rebuild itself, Remus' was apparently crumbling.
"What do you suppose they want with him...whoever...whoever they are?" he wondered, increasingly troubled, and for the first time that night Dora actually attempted to give this question some serious, calm consideration.
"I don't think they mean to hurt him." she decided after a little while, gazing thoughtfully down at her bloodied hand. "They don't...they don't quite seem the sort. I know I only caught a glimpse of them, but I'm sure they're the boys Teddy told me about and...they're no Death Eaters, that's for sure."
Remus sobered again at this theory, and for a moment he too gazed down at her hand, before carefully reaching to lift it up for closer inspection. As he frowned deeply at the wound, it began to occur to Dora that it was growing increasingly painful.
She still didn't entirely care.
Remus' expression suggested that he seemingly cared a great deal, and Dora marvelled at him.
"I don't know how you can so much as look at me," she whispered miserably, "let alone fret over a...a silly little cut on my hand like...like that."
His gaze shot up to look at her and he wondered:
"Why in the world could I not look at you?"
She gave a small squeak of a laugh as if she thought him quite mad for needing to ask.
"Why would you want to? The pain and misery I cause!"
"Pain and misery?" he echoed, lips twitching towards a smile as he reached to take hold of her by her good hand. "I don't know what you mean. You've been all that is joyful in my world, Dora. I'd be in eternal pain without you."
"And what about Teddy?" she asked him dismally. "Look at all the dreadful things I've caused him! He'll never forgive me, he'll hate me for it..."
"You mustn't blame yourself..."
"I...I hate me for it. I...I wish...I wish I hadn't found him! He was...he was better off...better off without me..."
"For the love of Merlin, don't say that!" Remus told her, rising abruptly to his feet as if her words had scalded him. "Don't you ever let me hear you say that, Dora! I mean it, don't!" he reached down to offer her his hand as he insisted: "Get up, it's doing us no good sitting around here..."
"Why shouldn't I say it?" Dora mumbled glumly, though she consented to taking his hand so that he could half-drag her back onto her feet. She stumbled, her head spinning and fuzzy, but he made no attempts to steady her for he was much too preoccupied with her words instead.
"Because my darling," he told her, reaching to run a hand across his weary face in an attempt to wipe the tears and fatigue from his features, "I simply can't stand to hear it. For once you do truly pain me."
It was not until almost six o'clock that morning that the two of them finally fell into bed, her hand swathed in bandages and a sickened taste lingering in her mouth from one potion or another.
Harry, who had accompanied them to the hospital and sat somewhat tentatively at Remus' side in the waiting room for Dora to be released, had escorted the pair of them home as if they might get lost somewhere within the floo network between St. Mungo's and their house.
"We will find him." he'd assured the two parents firmly. "We will, I swear it."
Dora had bundled him back into the floo with barely a word, and then she had reached to take Remus by the hand and lead him wearily towards the stairs.
"We'll have a sleep." she'd decided firmly, nodding her head as she led the way up the steps. "Just...just a short one, right?"
"Yes, only a short one."
"Just so we're...a bit more with it. Just a couple of hours or so..."
"No longer than that."
"Exactly."
"Then we'll get up and carry on looking."
"Precisely."
Remus had set an alarm for half past eight and the two of them had drifted off into reluctant, fitful sleep, chasing after muggle cars with wailing infants, running through dingy cobbled streets, frantically searching as the the streets grew ever darker, ever more narrow...
Remus awoke at noon.
He gazed blearily at the alarm clock and waited for some form of horror or panic to descend. But it simply didn't come.
He felt drained.
He stumbled groggily out of bed, casting a despairingly glance at his still-sleeping wife as he did, before stumbling downstairs to put the kettle on.
He stood waiting for steam to rise from the spout. Calmly.
He had been so determined to remain calm the night before, but had only managed to do so sporadically. He had wandered round any significant areas of both magical and muggle London that had come to mind, feeling quite calm and focused for a time, only to catch sight of his weary reflection in a shop window, or realise he was going in circles and quite abruptly he would have a sudden bout of despair or madness or a mixture of both, stood stock still in the middle of the dimly lit street, his face buried in his hands, collapsed on a roadside curb trembling, kicking at lamp posts and letting tears seep freely from his eyes.
But he felt as if his composure was far more solid now. He even managed to feel bordering on amused that at a time like this he had gravitated towards the kitchen to make a cup of tea. Glancing out of the window he found that the sun was shining after the downpour the night beforehand, and somehow it made him feel hopeful. By the time he had finished making the tea and was levitating it up the stairs upon a tray, Remus felt entirely satisfied that oversleeping had in actual fact been a good thing.
He found Dora awake when he returned, equally unconcerned by the late hour as she sat gazing thoughtfully down at her lap, picking at a loose thread upon the duvet.
"I dreamt I saw her," the witch murmured as he set the tray down upon the bedside table and slipped back under the covers beside her. "The woman, I mean. The woman with the blonde hair."
He offered her a cup and saucer in silence and she drank the scalding liquid as if it were only luke warm, draining the teacup in just few large gulps, before letting the china come to rest askew in her lap.
"I know who she is." she murmured, gazing down at the empty teacup as he sipped at his own tea in a far more cautious fashion. "I suppose I knew as soon as the Beddingtons described her to us...I just...I don't know...it didn't seem important...not then, at least."
"Is it important now?" he wondered, not entirely sure, and she mumbled:
"I don't know...is it?"
He sipped at his tea, frowning deeply before the witch asked:
"But I'm right, aren't I? It...it was her, wasn't it?" She sat a little straighter, the chine clinking in her lap as she turned to fix him with wide eyes. "It was Narcissa, wasn't it Remus? Who...who took Teddy and gave him to the muggles..."
"I'd say given the description, Narcissa Malfoy does spring to mind..." Remus agreed, not entirely sure what the point of this conversation was, though much calmer than the previous night, he felt as if really they ought be discussing where to look for Teddy next, ought stay focused on that...
He felt yet more bemused when Dora settled back down against her pillows and wondered:
"Why d'you think she did it?"
"I...well..."
"It's just if she gave a toss about him...if she cared enough to snatch him away from the Death Eaters, surely she'd bother to return him to us. Rather than just...dump him on some...some bloody awful muggles who...who didn't want him or...or love him or..." She paused with a sniff, reaching to swipe a sleeve across her eyes, and Remus mused:
"I think if I were to have snatched a baby from under Voldemort's nose I'd have dumped it on whoever I came across first...wash my hands of it as quickly as possible. I'd certainly not have gone looking for the enemy so that I could hand the baby back! She'd never have found us, Dora, we wouldn't have let her near us..."
Dora's expression grew abruptly furious.
"The war ended almost a decade ago!" she exclaimed through gritted teeth. "That's...that's ten...ten whole years, Remus! Ten whole years of...of her keeping quiet! Ten years of silence! She knew our son was alive and she...she just...just did nothing! Just...just sat back and...and let us think he was dead! What sort of a person...what sort of...of mother could do that?! There must...there must be some shred of compassion in her somewhere! There must, if she saved Teddy to begin with! She...she loves that son of hers, doesn't she?! She knows how...how painful it would be to lose him! Why would she just...just let us...let us go on like that?!"
"I don't know, darling..." Remus mumbled wearily, only to feel alarmed when Dora abruptly reached to throw back the covers with her thickly bandaged hand, very nearly sending her empty cup and saucer flying.
"Yeah, well we'll find out, won't we?!" she decided as she got purposefully to her feet, making a beeline for the wardrobe.
"Will we...?" the werewolf wondered, feeling quite apprehensive at the notion, only for his wife to snap:
"Yes, Remus! We will! Because if there's some crucial reason why she had to keep it all a secret I want to bloody hear it!"
"I...I'm not sure that's a very good id..."
"She could know something important!"
"Yes but Dora...we're talking about Narcissa Malfoy...!"
"She might know who the boys who took him are!"
"We're talking about the Malfoys, Dora! Former Death Eaters...!"
"She might know why they took him!"
"We're talking a couple of former members of the Order of the Phoenix..."
"And if she doesn't..."
"...wandering up the driveway of Malfoy Manor..."
"...I don't give a toss..."
"...knocking on the door, for Merlin's sake! And..."
"...I want to shame her! I want her to feel bloody ashamed of herself!"
"...having a chat about those good old times during the war..."
"I want her to look me in the eye and tell me why she kept quiet!"
"...when we all used to try and murder one another on a daily basis! It's insane!"
"And she will be ashamed!" Dora concluded, reaching to yank some clothes out of the wardrobe, tossing them forcefully down onto the bed. "Because by the time we're finished I'll make that darling aunt of mine wish Augustus Beddington had knocked her down with that bloody car of his!"
And with that, she stomped out of the room and across the landing into the bathroom, slamming the door shut behind her.
Remus stared after her, eyes as wide as snitches.
"Oh Merlin..." he mumbled, a lump forming in his throat.
It was not until he went to hastily scramble out of bed a moment later that he discovered that he had apparently succeeded in pouring the remainder of his cup of tea into his lap.