Chapter 65 Tonks Interlude H
That autumn, Tonks counted the days, the hours, the minutes until she would be able to resume full Auror duties.
She missed being in the middle of the action terribly, and every day she fantasized about morphing into one of her colleagues and going out to catch a dark wizard with her bare hands. She got as far as turning herself into Maria Gordon one afternoon, but when she passed Dolores Umbridge in the corridor she realized what a dangerous thing she had nearly done. She ducked into a corner, morphed back into herself, and swore never to think of it again.
Newly single and with a reduced workload, Tonks felt that there were too many hours in each week. Still, she wondered how Umbridge found the time to come by the Auror office almost every shift. She knew that Umbridge was spending significant time at Hogwarts (Tonks would not think about Remus) and that Umbridge was also pushing through anti-werewolf legislation (Tonks would not think about Remus).
The Aurors often could not agree with one another about whether the sun rose in the east. They argued about which investigations should take priority; the best way to approach a dark wizard when there wasn't yet enough evidence to take him into custody; the best way to take a dark wizard into custody when they did have enough evidence; how much evidence they ought to be required to have to bring a dark wizard in; the best way of tracking; the safest way of fighting; where to buy the best curry in London; how the desks in the office ought to be arranged; how much Scrimgeour ought to know about what they were doing; whether Robards would be good at Scrimgeour's job if Scrimgeour decided to have a go at being Minister of Magic; whether Scrimgeour harbored ambitions of becoming Minister of Magic; whether Mad-Eye would ever make his alleged retirement permanent; and whether Dawlish was really as much of an idiot as he sometimes seemed.
However, the Aurors could agree about one thing: they despised Dolores Umbridge. They had no use for her visits to their office and were more than convinced that she had no idea what Aurors actually did. Almost everyone knew a student at Hogwarts— a neighbor, a relative, the child of a friend— and few of the students had anything nice to say about Umbridge, either.
Some of the Aurors thought that werewolves ought to be exterminated but that it wasn't their job to do the exterminating and that Umbridge's time would be better spent lecturing hit wizards and underlings at the Magical Law Enforcement Squad.
Some of the Aurors thought that werewolves ought to be left alone to live their lives unless and until they committed a crime, and that Umbridge's demands were ridiculous and bigoted.
Some of the Aurors didn't care one way or the other about Umbridge's new werewolf initiatives, but didn't want to hear anything about anything from a woman who had never had to fight for her life.
Tonks was, as far as she knew, the only Auror who had to remind herself not to think about Remus Lupin on the first full moon of the Hogwarts term. She reminded herself over and over for a week after the moon had passed. She gave in one evening when she and Sirius were cleaning up the kitchen after eating dinner with her parents.
Sirius' face darkened. "He's convinced that Umbridge knows something. He's probably right, too."
"Has to be suspects, not knows," said Tonks. "If she knew, she'd just expose him right now."
"Not if she wants the legislation to pass first. If she exposes him now, the parents complain and he resigns. If she exposes him later, you and your friends at the Auror Office will personally cart him off to Azkaban."
The thought made her sick. "You're right."
"Unfortunately." Sirius flicked his wand and made the clean dishes stack themselves neatly on their shelf. "Remus insisted on teaching the day after the full moon. It's amazing that he even managed it. When we were younger, sometimes he'd be unconscious for two days after a transformation. Between the Wolfsbane Potion and having his own personal Animagus…" Sirius shrugged. "The improvement is remarkable. He actually does even better when I don't transform. Gives him some peace of mind, I think, at a level he doesn't even acknowledge that he has."
"But he can't stop himself looking like he stayed up all night battling something dangerous."
"No," agreed Sirius. "He can't. If there are students who had their suspicions about his pattern of absences, this won't dissuade them. But I understand that Umbridge wasn't there herself the day after the moon, so if she's just relying on a spy to tell her whether he taught or not, this might buy him another month or two."
"It might buy him right into the new year when the legislation passes."
"We don't know where any of us will be then," said Sirius. Then, clearly knowing that he had nothing reassuring to say, he challenged her to a duel.
The duel took her mind off of the state of the world for forty-five minutes, which was something.
Then she began anew to ignore the fact that she missed doing her job properly and ignore the fact that she missed doing Remus properly. She focused on Tulip's wedding instead.
Tulip had spent the seven years of her Hogwarts education gleefully making her parents miserable with her incessant need to break every rule anyone attempted to inflict upon her. She had thrived on disruption: she'd released nifflers into the castle, she'd rigged dungbombs to explode at inopportune times, she'd tortured Flich with a fanged frisbee.
Once, in their fifth year, Tulip and Tonks had been studying for their OWLs when they'd quite literally tripped over a couple snogging on the floor of the library's Astronomy section. Madame Pince had thrown them out of the library along with the perpetrators, insisting that they could not have been innocent. Their reputation being what it had been, they could hardly blame Pince for her assumption.
They'd taken the whole incident as a sign that they deserved a break, and they'd sat casually on a little used staircase and eaten chocolate frogs. The subject had turned to romance (as a Ravenclaw, Tulip strongly believed that libraries were not for snogging) and then marriage.
"There's no use trying to stop my parents having the wedding they want for me. A hundred relatives I've never met on Dad's side Apparating in from Turkey. A hundred relatives I've never met on Mum's side Apparating in from Japan. Henna night, ribbons, nuptial cups, origami cranes. I'll be too busy to sabotage it with a magical prank." She grinned. "Will you run down the aisle yelling 'stop the wedding, I'm married to the groom?'"
Tonks choked on her laughter and morphed herself into an approximation of their handsome classmate Barnaby Lee. "No, I'll yell 'stop the wedding, I'm married to the bride!'"
They'd laughed until their sides ached, until they'd nearly fallen down the stairs.
Now the wedding was at hand, and Tulip was a different person. She'd joined the Ministry herself, as she had once sworn that she would never do. And she would have murdered Tonks on the spot if Tonks had interrupted the wedding.
It made Tonks a little bit sad as she wove her way through the crowded church in search of someone she knew. Tulip had been right, years ago, about the throngs of relatives journeying to London from her parents' childhood homes.
She sensed a presence behind her and turned, quickly, wand at the ready. Then she smiled; it was Badeea Ali, who had been one of Tulip's roommates at school. "Isn't it wonderful?" asked Badeea. "So many people from so many places, all wanting to wish Tulip well."
Tonks supposed that it was wonderful.
She thought, but didn't say, that she might prefer it if the majority of guests at her wedding were people she actually knew.
"Penny and I saved you a seat," added Badeea. Badeea, who was an artist, chattered happily about the decorations as she led Tonks up the middle aisle and down the far aisle.
Tonks was relieved to slide into the pew next to Penny. She ought to have been as enthralled by the people and the decorations and the happy energy of the place as Badeea seemed to be. Instead, she wanted to curl up against Penny and wait for the ceremony to be over.
"Remus didn't come with you?" asked Penny.
Right. Tonks hadn't bothered telling Penny or Tulip that she and Remus had broken up. "There wouldn't be any reason for him to come," she said as casually as she could. "As I dumped him. He… we just weren't compatible after all."
"I'm so sorry," said Penny, and she hugged Tonks. Badeea, who hadn't known anything about Remus in the first place, hugged Tonks and said she was sorry, too.
"Thank you. But today is about Tulip, isn't it?"
They agreed that it was, and talk about the pretty decorations and the people who had traveled such great distances resumed.
Tulip looked beautiful; there was no denying that.
When the officiant asked Tulip whether she pledged herself to Ayberk, she wiggled her eyebrows at her audience before agreeing that she did. Everyone laughed. Tonks laughed along with them; it was good to know that Tulip was still Tulip.
The reception was better than the ceremony. She and Badeea and Penny ate and drank and danced.
(There was a certain awkwardness to dancing with Ayberk's friends from Durmstrang. She'd killed their Headmaster, after all. They were all too tactful to mention it, and in return she tried to step on their feet as little as possible.)
Tulip joined her friends as soon as she could.
"Where's Remus?" asked Tulip, dragging Tonks aside.
"It's your wedding. Don't you have more important things to—"
"No," said Tulip, who was not going to let Tonks off so easily.
"I imagine he's at Hogwarts. I think they have a Quidditch match this weekend."
Tulip stood with her hands on her hips and glared.
Tonks tried not to sigh. "I dumped him. I found out something about him that was a deal-breaker for me."
"Did he kill his first wife?"
"No!"
Tulip shrugged. "He always seemed like he had a secret."
"I know his secret and that isn't it."
"But it was bad enough for you to chuck him?"
"It's not bad."
"You might as well tell me," said Tulip. "I love mysteries. I love mysteries so much I joined the Ministry because the best mysteries are there."
Ayberk appeared behind Tulip. "Dance with your husband," said Tonks. There was a shock of pain somewhere in her chest. All she had to do was say the word, and she would be able to dance with the man she loved, too. He'd probably even marry her at the soonest opportunity.
"This isn't over," said Tulip, but Tulip had dozens of relatives to thank for attending her wedding and dozens of Ayberk's school friends to meet. So it was, indeed, over for that night at least.
Tonks made a point of visiting Sirius on Halloween. His hair had grown long enough to graze his shoulders and his eyes were terribly shadowed.
He didn't smile when she told him that Tulip was back to implying that Remus had murdered the first love of his life. She knew he'd thought it hilarious the first time she'd told him Tulip's theory; he'd choked on his wine at Christmas dinner.
Then she remembered that today was the anniversary of one of his best friends facilitating the murder of two others and realized that she'd definitely told the wrong joke.
"Do you want to duel?" she asked. They always dueled when one or both of them felt horrible.
"No."
Of course he didn't. It was nearly the anniversary of the day he'd been thrown in prison without a trial for supposedly killing one of his best friends, and a host of bystanders, in a duel.
"What can I do?" she asked at last.
"Shutting up would be brilliant," he said.
So she shut up, but since he hadn't told her to leave, she didn't leave.
She found the Weasley twins' stash of products and spent the afternoon admiring their ingenuity.
Some hours later, Harry arrived, having snuck out of school to visit Sirius.
Assuming that Sirius would rather have Harry's company than hers, Tonks made to slip out the door, but to her surprise Sirius asked her to stay. So she and Harry quietly played chess all night while Sirius stared at them with a haunted, hungry look in his eyes.
November dawned terribly, unseasonably cold, but Tonks didn't care.
Her suspension was over and she was a real Auror again. She relished the long hours spent tracking illegal goods and Dark wizards. Her blood sang with power and delight the day she and Kingsley arrested a witch who had owled a particularly nasty curse to the Muggle Prime Minister; it was something to do with the resignation of the Secretary of State for Wales, a party leadership election, and the privatization of British Rail.
She loved her job again even when she was in the office. Late one afternoon, Maria Gordon set her radio to play a marathon of Muggle Christmas music. Tonks quite enjoyed it; thanks to her Muggle-born father, she had grown up hearing many of the songs.
"This one is new," said Maria. "Very popular with Muggles." And Tonks stopped to listen.
…I don't want a lot for Christmas
There is just one thing I need, and I
Don't care about the presents
Underneath the Christmas tree
I don't need to hang my stocking
There upon the fireplace
Santa Claus won't make me happy
With a toy on Christmas day
I just want you for my own
More than you could ever know
Make my wish come true
All I want for Christmas is you…
"It's catchy," Tonks told Maria, and the two of them had started to sing along when the sound of a throat clearing behind them made Maria hasten to turn off the radio.
"Hem hem."
It was Undersecretary Umbridge.
"Auror Tonks," said Umbridge in sickeningly sweet tones, "I would have thought that you would have learned more from your suspension."
"I wasn't suspended for singing along with the radio."
"You claimed that you mended your ways," said Umbridge even though Tonks had never claimed any such thing. "You claimed that you were eager to return to duty. And yet, rather than work to protect the wizarding population of Britain, you chose to listen to… Muggle music. Thankfully Auror Gordon was here to remind you of your duties."
Tonks waited for Maria to admit that the radio, and the choice of song, had been hers. Maria had ambitions of moving out of the Auror office and into an Undersecretary position. Tonks didn't understand Maria and she didn't always like her, but she didn't think Maria would let a fellow Auror take the blame for something that she had done. Aurors didn't treat each other that way. Aurors needed to trust one another in life or death situations.
"I was the one who asked Auror Tonks to listen to the song," confessed Maria after far too long a wait. But at least she had done it.
"Auror Gordon thought it was necessary for me to keep up to date on Muggles," added Tonks, more to annoy Umbridge than because she thought Umbridge had any business telling her what she could and could not do. The Auror office was Scrimgeour's domain, and Scrimgeour didn't waste his time worrying about his subordinates' taste in music. "Auror Shacklebolt and I just had an assignment involving the Muggle Prime Minister, and we did our job to the letter of the law."
"Laws can be changed."
Laws like the Child Safety and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act.
"Yes," said Tonks. "My distant cousin Araminta Meliflua Black once tried to pass a law to make Muggle-hunting legal."
Umbridge's eyes flashed with ill-concealed fury, and Tonks remembered the day Remus had confirmed what Tonks had already known.
The woman is a menace. You've met her. You know that she is a cruel, heartless, vindictive, bigoted, vile piece of filth who will abuse her power at every turn and never let a slight be forgotten. She does not believe in forgiveness or compassion or duty. She does not believe that other sentient beings are deserving of fairness or dignity. She is a danger to you because you are the embodiment of everything that frightens her. You celebrate differences instead of fearing them. You can trace your bloodline for centuries, but you don't care to because you believe in yourself and don't need to rely on who your great-great-grandfather may have been to believe that your own life is worth living.
"Of course," added Tonks, pretending that she hadn't noticed Umbridge's reaction, "you get all sorts when you can trace your bloodline back for centuries. My great-great-great grandfather Phineas Nigellus Black was Headmaster at Hogwarts. Isn't that interesting?"
Just for fun, she didn't qualify Phineas Nigellus Black's title with least popular in history the way Sirius always did.
"I'm certain your ancestors were powerful people as well," she continued. "Remind me what your father did?"
Before Umbridge could stumble through her usual lies about how her father had most certainly not been the man who mopped the Ministry's floors, Kingsley crossed the room in two long strides. "Auror Tonks, Auror Proudfoot has a question for us about the Muggle Prime Minister. It's rather urgent. Please excuse us, Undersecretary."
And all of a sudden, Tonks found herself sequestered with Kingsley in a back room. "You're one of my favorite people in the Auror Office and I'd prefer it if you didn't encourage that sycophant Umbridge to beg Fudge to have you sacked," he said bluntly.
Tonks would have blushed if she hadn't morphed, ever so subtly, to keep her cheeks pale and unconcerned. "Interrupting me when I start to have too much fun with Umbridge is usually Mad-Eye's job."
"Mad-Eye is half-retired. I thought he could use the help."
It was sweet, really, even if she had been enjoying watching Umbridge get more and more angry at the idea that the pink-haired junior Auror with the Muggle surname had a better claim to ancient wizarding nobility than Umbridge herself did. "Want to come to dinner with my family tonight? Mad-Eye comes sometimes, but this week it will only be my parents and me and my cousin Sirius."
"I doubt that your cousin Sirius wants to see me. I was the one who took him back to Azkaban after he turned himself in. Escorted him to his trial and bound him to the witness chair."
"Sirius won't hold you doing your job against you. I reckon he'll like you because Remus Lupin does."
"All right, then." Kingsley smiled. "As long as your mum doesn't mind last minute guests."
"She loves them, actually. Come on, we'll take the Floo since you don't know the Apparition point."
On the one hand, Tonks was right about Andromeda and Sirius. Andromeda loved unexpected guests. Sirius didn't hide his respect for Kingsley.
On the other hand, Tonks underestimated just how appalled Andromeda and Sirius would be when they learned that she had publicly acknowledged her Black lineage.
No, not acknowledged. Bragged about.
"It's not as if I believe it makes me superior!" she snapped when she tired of Sirius and Andromeda looking at each other sideways. "That was the point! Umbridge is every kind of bigot. She's a blood purist who can't attack Muggle-borns in the current political climate, so she goes after werewolves because people don't know them, or don't know they know them. It's not socially acceptable to say she's superior to a Muggle-born, but at least she gets to pass legislation to remind werewolves that they're worthless. So I made her feel worthless, just for a second, and I enjoyed it! I…"
She trailed off as she finally realized what she was saying. She'd been ashamed of her extended family ever since she'd been old enough to know what it meant that Bellatrix Lestrange was her aunt.
Her fierce pride in her father had never wavered. He had entered a new world at the age of eleven, and he had navigated it brilliantly. Strangers walked away from a ten-second conversation with him smiling with delight. Everyone who came in contact with Ted Tonks, however briefly, came away happier.
That was her Muggle-born father.
Blood and lineage were the stupidest possible ways of measuring a person's worth.
Her eyes threatened to fill with tears. "I don't know why I said it."
"Dolores Umbridge does strange things to people," said Kingsley in his deep, soothing voice.
"That she does," said Sirius. "Have you ever heard Remus talk about anyone else the way he talks about her?"
"Thank you again for saving me from myself," said Tonks to Kingsley.
"My pleasure. I won't say I didn't enjoy any part of it. I simply think that you need more plausible deniability when you rebel against the Undersecretary."
That took Tonks by surprise. Kingsley had never struck her as particularly devious. "Do you suggest anything in particular, Auror Shacklebolt?"
"I suggest setting up a radio frequency to play that song on a loop at all times in the main Auror office. Those of us who belong there can use a spell to stop us hearing that particular frequency. But every time an unwelcome guest darkens our door, she will be forced to partake of the latest in Muggle holiday cheer."
Sirius laughed darkly in the way he only did when he was truly impressed.
Tonks vowed to never, ever underestimate Kingsley again.
Andromeda, after a long moment, declared that she wanted to hear the song, and Ted offered to Apparate to a Muggle shop to purchase it. They agreed that he should go, and he was back within ten minutes, waving a brightly colored disc over his head.
"It's the latest in Muggle musical technology," Ted told Kingsley and Sirius. "We have a Muggle CD player— a gift from a Muggle cousin of mine who thinks I'm rather eccentric, choosing to live with one foot in the last century. The bloke at the shop says it's the most popular new Christmas song in years, but it peaked at number two last December. Didn't get the big Christmas Number One because of East 17's Stay Another Day."
Tonks was the only one in the room who really understood what her father was saying about the UK Singles Chart, but it didn't matter. Everyone was too eager to listen, and in a moment the song began.
I don't want a lot for Christmas
There is just one thing I need, and I
Don't care about the presents
Underneath the Christmas tree
I don't need to hang my stocking
There upon the fireplace
Santa Claus won't make me happy
With a toy on Christmas day
I just want you for my own
More than you could ever know
Make my wish come true
All I want for Christmas is you…
"That's rather sweet," said Andromeda when the song had finished. She looked at Ted with love that made Tonks' own heart hurt. "It reminds me of the Christmases when I thought I would never be able to have you. It reminds me never to take you for granted now that I do have you."
Tonks lowered her eyes. She was glad that her parents were still in love after so many years. She didn't necessarily need to watch them kiss.
The song chased itself through her head for the rest of the night, and she was careful not to let herself be left alone with Sirius, who would doubtless feel the need to ask whether there wasn't someone she wanted for Christmas.
One Christmas before, she'd pulled Remus Lupin out of the Yule Ball and kissed him.
So much could change in a year.
To be continued.
Auxiliary Disclaimer: "All I Want for Christmas Is You" was first recorded by Mariah Carey, who co-wrote and co-produced it with Walter Afanasieff.
Recommendation:
Five minutes by Alternatively. It is story ID number 13435691 on this site.
Summary: If they hadn't been sacrificed for some narrative symmetry, and because it really is unusual for things to move that fast. A brief alternative Lupin-and-Tonks relationship arc.
A romantic ficlet that's almost… fluffy? A nice antidote to canon-compliant fic (much of which I enjoy, don't get me wrong) if you want a minute of this couple relating like adults, and also not being doomed.