CHAPTER EIGHTY-THREE
Tonks blearily awoke to the crackling sound of a campfire that crackled nearby, projecting long shadows on the surrounding area.
The light cast by the flames danced across the dark, gnarled, and twisted trunks of the trees in the Forbidden Forest, twisting and curling in obscure shapes and providing a small radius of orange and yellow faint light, almost a dim glow, a mere ember flame, but it was better than darkness.
The fire itself was pulsating, the glowing embers seemed to move in rhythm with the flames, matching every dip and sweep. It was mesmerizing to watch, colors of orange and red gave way to yellow and white near the center of the fire in its pit, where the emanating heat was the greatest.
It was this warmth which roused Tonks from her sleep as her consciousness slowly awoke and allowed the young witch to return to the land of the living.
She blinked, rather forcefully at first, in an attempt to rid her lashes and lids from the crusted 'sleep' that had accumulated sometime in the night.
It was that the young Auror was able to deduce that she must have been out for longer than she'd initially thought possible, that and the occasional chirping of birds.
Tonks slowly sat up, trying to ignore the swells of dizziness and nausea that wracked her slender frame, or how her skull pounded at the base of her head and at her front temples, and the crusted gunk from her eyes did not easily want to be removed, and she had to scrub it away with the heel of her hand.
Tonks let out a pained hiss, grinding her teeth upon discovering the hand she was currently using to rid her lids from sleep was in fact, her injured hand, the one her arm was still bound in a sling.
This had to be what, the third or fourth time she'd injured this arm by now? Tonks heaved a heavy sigh and furrowed her brows, flexing her fingers of her uninjured hand. She looked to the left and right.
No signs of Ollie, Norah, or even Remus, and for a moment she panicked, thinking that this was another cruel, malicious trick again.
Tonks parted her cracked lips to try to make a noise, a cry for help, a call for either one of them to come to her aid, though no words were coming out.
Just a strangled attempt at speech when she did try to speak, and the young woman found that her throat felt on fire, hollowed, and constricted, and unable to make much noise at all. But what she wouldn't give for a cold drink of water! Just a small sip… Tonks let out a sigh and glanced down at the blanket in her lap, momentarily confused, and then it hit her.
She remembered. "Ollie?" she croaked hoarsely. Ollie had been the one to conjure the blankets earlier and helped her get to sleep, while Remus had been left to bear the brunt of the worst of Norah and her wrath, but where were the two of them?
She supposed if anything, the blankets were a sign that she was safe. If something had happened to Remus and Norah and Ollie in the middle of the night, and something or someone had kidnapped her again, Tonks highly doubted that her captors would have gone out of their way to trouble themselves in order to ensure her comfort.
Tonks furrowed her brows into a frown and stared into the depths of the fire. The darkness of the forest surrounding her and their campsite swirled around her curled form, tendrils of inkling bleak reminders of her current state of involuntary solitude.
Had Ollie abandoned her? Had they all just left her out here, gotten together in the middle of the night and decided she was too much a risk and not worth it, a liability and not a good asset to have in their group? Had they left her and gone after Umbridge?
The silence echoing in her ringing eardrums was the constant white noise that was not shutting up. Her head swam in the fire burning inside, the only smoldering embers of a time when there had been other presences with her, around her, and inside her.
But now, in her panicked state of inner retreat, the void had been slowly filled with a cold, howling storm of fear that currently refused to let up. Tonks felt like she was completely and utterly alone in her mind, body, soul, and most of all, the Forest.
Tonks let out a tiny whimper as her mind dragged her back to last night, as flashes of unpleasant memories, ones that she would sooner rather forget, interrupted the brief moment of tranquility, thrusting her underneath the hovering hoof of an angry centaur.
A horrible, tightening constricting feeling began to claw at her throat as it hollowed and constricted, feeling like as it tightened, it cut off air to her passageways, and the feeling only intensified with even the slightest movement, and as Tonks reached up to undo one of the buttons on her red collared shirt, she let out a sigh as the pads of her fingers on her right hand accidentally grazed over the yellow gold wedding ring she wore on her left that would very soon become the symbol of her marriage to Remus.
Tonks lowered her gaze and held out her left hand in front of her, up to her eye level to better study Remus's mother's ring, a beautiful little thing that had been in his family for generations.
And now it was hers, and Tonks felt herself emanate a tense, shaking breath as she allowed for thoughts of the man who would be her future husband the second they stepped outside the boundaries of this damned cursed forest to calm and ground her.
Though the moment did not last long as the visions continued to swarm within the tormented confines of her mind, threatening to break her down.
How the blood flowed, thick and sluggish from a slash across the centaur's neck, a slash that she had made, spilling out crimson liquid all over her hands and her face.
"He deserved it. Repeat it to yourself. He deserved it." Tonks's mind conjured up visions of maggots, flecks of doughy white nestled within mangled flesh, feverishly squirming into chunks of gore. "He deserved it. Repeat it to yourself. It deserved it."
The centaur's once-handsome features were spotted in her mind with angry bruises, and Death had frozen his pale lavender face into a rigid snarl, a final, eternal lamentation to the heavens.
"He deserved it. Oh, he bloody deserved it. He deserved…" Her voice trailed off, her words escaping her lips as a series of whimpers that transformed into choked sobs.
The cold look reflected on the creature's face gave Tonks the shudders. How his strong hands had wrapped strongly and squeezing on the column of her throat as he had almost succeeded in strangling her to death. It had seemed to have no sense of humanity.
His heart seemed to be made of stone, the blasé way he had acted towards taking a human life. Tonks wasn't sure she would ever be able to forget the glint in his beady black eyes. The centaur had smelled of blood. Of danger. He was a murderer.
These horrible swarm of memories flitted through the forefront of her mind in seconds, leaving Tonks feeling quite breathless and exhausted. She felt as though she'd only lain down to sleep, Ollie had fallen asleep beside her, she remembered that much.
Feeling his head lay down and rest on the crook of her uninjured shoulder, just feeling his weight, the pressure of his body against hers had been enough to calm her.
Though without Ollie here beside her side to comfort her right now, given the shared trauma of what had almost happened to both of them, they had experienced together, and he was not here beside her, Tonks felt the panic starting up again now.
Although she was conscious and sitting up, staring into the fire's depths and trying not to look at the Forbidden Forest's clearing around their campsite, it felt as though her sense of acute awareness had dimmed horribly, like candlelight that had been extinguished, and she stared into the depths of the flames, feeling her eyes gloss over, not really seeing it. Her mind felt like a frayed down an electrical wire, fallen, but surging.
The sound of a twig snapping somewhere in the distance in front of her caused her mind to spring forward, and it felt to the young witch and Auror as though the Forest had just now come rushing up to meet her, flooding her olfactory senses.
Sounds came to her eardrums in crisp clarity. The sounds of the crickets and other insects chirping. The distant howling of what she suspected was a wolf, though a regular wolf or a werewolf, she could not quite tell which.
The fire crackling in the way that fires do sound louder than before as the flames caused the logs to pop and settle.
The rustling of the leaves on the trees clung to their branches, and there was a timorous voice that whispered to her, echoing in her eardrums, faint but…familiar.
Like…like she knew this voice, this person, trying to reach her conscience. Several different smells assaulted her smell, causing her nostrils to flare in agitation.
The waxy scent of pine and fir needles tended to calm her, gently and soothingly lulling her into a sort of a safe, hazy daze which for the moment, Tonks decided she didn't mind. The crisp cleanness of the air in the Forbidden Forest, which she'd not noticed before. In the fresh air, Tonks's lungs expanded as if on automatic refill, and with the rising and falling of her chest came with it an eerie sense of calm.
As she further explored this strange and unfamiliar sensation, the image of waves gently rising over wet sands comes to her thoughts, and with them the sound of water and the song of sky-borne birds.
To further explore the eerie sense of calm the Forbidden Forest bestowed upon Tonks, she allowed herself to inhale as deeply as she could, wincing at the pain in her ribs, as she could already feel where the centaur had kicked her in the side starting to bruise.
Tonks inhaled, holding her breath for several long minutes. Her hands trembled and eyes watered as she glanced wildly around her, searching for the source of the noise that was causing twigs and leaves to snap and crunch behind her.
Something was behind those bushes and it was anything but good. Her body felt hot and sweat started trickling down her brow. She could feel the sweat drench her skin, the throbbing of her eyelids. Her fingers were curled into a fist, nails digging into the sensitive flesh of her palms. Tonks could not hear her rapid breathing, but she could feel the oxygen flooding in and out of her lungs. In. And out.
Repeat this a few more times until she felt her breaths start to slow and resemble something more normal, and Tonks exhaled slowly.
Good, she thought. Focus on just breathing normally. Just…just breathe. That's it. Tonks squeezed her eyes tightly shut, not wanting to relive the memories from just several hours ago, it was way too soon for her fractured mind to revisit what happened.
Doing so, Tonks felt sure would send her into a panic, and panicking in her already stressed state of mind wasn't good for her or her and Remus's baby growing in her belly, and putting their child at risk was something that she could not afford.
Not now. But if she did not address these feelings, then when was a good time? She was going to have to confront these doubts and fears sooner rather than later, it felt as though her lungs were heaving, straining for air that was simply not coming to her lungs, and it felt as though she were drowning in her fear, suffocating in it.
Tonks's fear was escalating to utterly paramount levels, and she had no idea what to do about it.
Tonks gritted her teeth, grinding her molars until they snapped shut and squeezed her eyes tightly closed, feeling like the fear that stabbed and pricked at her heartstrings was running rampant and she was no longer able to control her emotions and keep them at bay. She felt like she was breaking, shattering into a million little tiny pieces.
And there was no preventing it, no stopping the storm that was coming for her. Brick by brick, the walls around her hardened heart came down. The tears welling at the corners of her lids stung and blurred her vision, marring it with her hot, salty tears.
Tonks exhaled a tense, shaking breath through her nose and with reluctance and shame, closed her eyes and allowed herself to perhaps for the first time tonight, fully feel it, and let her mind collapse in on itself in an effort to move past this and go forward.
Her brain now free as the walls collapsed and tore through her like shards of glass, each one sharper than the last, her myriad of emotions ranging from anger towards Norah and Remus's reactions earlier, to sadness and despair at seeing Lupin worry for her, to wondering if she had inadvertently put their baby's health at risk, to pure rancor at the centaurs for doing what they had done, not just to her, but to poor Ollie as well.
She just broke down. The sobs punched through, ripping through her muscles, bones, and intestines as her stomach lurched and churned, twisting as coils in her guts.
Tonks allowed her heart to yank in and out of her chest. It pulled back in like one of those Muggle yo-yos. Over and over. In and out. Tonks felt horribly hollow. Her life crumbled in her fingertips. Her memories flashed, uncensored, in rapid succession.
Visions of Barty Crouch Jr.'s handsome but twisted face, Ollie's face, the centaurs, seeing Lord Voldemort himself up close and personal back at Crouch's estate, Snape…
"Tonks?" A young man's voice spoke up nervously, coming from behind her. Tonks felt her head whiplash sharply upward, a startled cry upon her lips as she slowly swiveled at the waist to see who it was that had spoken and caught her attention.
Then, suddenly, Ollie was there, patting and rubbing her shoulder, kneeling at her side on the log, reaching into her hollowness, and trying to pull her out of this hazy fog. Tonks blinked owlishly at Ollie Brennan's face as his handsome face swam into her line of sight as she forced her bleary vision to try to clear and focus solely on him.
At least this time, instead of seeing Ollie's bruised face wrought with worry for her, this time, his face held such a sweet smile, that aside from Remus, she was sure no other man on this Merlin's green earth held such a smile, it was like a warm sunset. Though Ollie's smile to her was strained, showing the tightness around the man's eyes and it did not quite reach his brilliant cobalt, sky-blue eyes like that of a robin's egg.
It was still a smile nonetheless and comforted Tonks more than she cared to admit. Ollie, Merlin bless this man, had pulled her back. Brought her back to reality, was showing her now just by sitting with her and wrapping an arm around her shoulder, pulling her close, that things were going to be all right in the end, once she talked to Norah and Remus and hopefully, caused the two of them to come to an understanding.
Tonks parted her cracked lips to try to speak, though all that came out was a strangled attempt at speech, and the words themselves clung to the inside of her throat, her tongue refusing their release, unwilling to come out and speak what was on her mind.
She blinked rapidly as more tears threatened to burst forth and escape from her lids, which eventually spilled forth and down her pale, ashen cheeks in graceful tracts.
The tears burst forth like water from a dam, spilling down Tonks's face. She felt the muscles of her chin tremble like a small child and she looked towards Ollie, as if just his face could soothe her.
There was that horrible static in her head once more, the side effect of this constant fear, constant stress that she lived with. She heard her own sounds, like a distressed child, raw from the inside.
It took something out of Tonks that the young witch didn't even know she had left to give. That's the way it was when she was hard.
It was like theft of the spirit, an injury that only she allowed Ollie to see right now. Tonks was not afraid to cry, tears of both relief that she and her baby were safe, and Ollie too, and wanting nothing more than to get the hell out of this damn Forest.
And she wept too for the centaur's life that she had taken, brutish as he was, and maybe he did deserve it, but that did not make what Tonks had done any better, really.
Tonks clung onto fistfuls of Ollie's black woolen robes like a lifeline, as intense tremors of fear and regret and stress at the life she had taken, at what had almost happened to her a few hours ago, rocked her to her core, leaving her mind reeling.
The memories and emotions swirled through her in vast waves of pain and agony, and Tonks wasn't totally sure if she would ever be okay, but having Ollie here helped.
Tonks swallowed down hard past the lump in her throat, and the rustling noise as Norah and Remus slowly came into her line of sight, though still keeping their distance, caused her to wonder if that Miss Jameson would forgive her, in time.
She could only hope so.
Lupin exhaled a tired sigh and raked his fingers through his light brown hair, perhaps the only visible indication of his utter exhaustion, as he wanted nothing more than to go to Tonks and comfort her, though judging by one look, Mr. Brennan seemed to have things under control, and he still needed to have words with Norah.
"Miss Jameson, I think that you and I need to have a talk about your actions, don't we?" Remus began hesitantly, flinching at how cold and harsh his tone sounded, and he recognized that it was courtesy of that Mad Beast, the Wolf within.
Lupin turned slightly to regard the young blonde werewolf regarding Remus in silence as she rested her back up against the bark of a twisted gnarled old elm tree, with her usual standard for her, impassive expression, though a muscle in her jaw started to twitch.
"Mr. Lupin," Norah responded in kind, keeping her voice calm, despite the growing storm welling within her darkening sky blue eyes as the hues of her eyes darkened and shifted to almost cerulean in color the more upset the She-Wolf got.
Lupin narrowed his eyes and regarded the young blonde woman for several moments in a thick, tense, and uncomfortable heavy silence as unspoken words lingered in the air between the two of them, with Norah feeling still furious over Tonks's actions tonight, and Lupin's anger with Norah for how violent she had been to Dora.
Norah, for her credit, did not back down nor flinch away from Remus's gaze, though after a few minutes of each of them staring at the other, and yet neither wanting to be the first one to break their gaze, she huffed in frustration and stomped her foot.
The young blonde werewolf turned away from Remus, her gaze drawn toward what sounded like muffled whimpers and tiny sobs, and she flinched and let out a small hiss and bared her canines as she realized the disturbance was coming from Tonks.
"I—I did not mean this," she whispered, her tone softer, more subdued than before. "I…recognize that I lost my temper with your fiancé, and I should not have."
When Norah spoke to Remus, her voice was soft and hoarse, her words quiet, barely above a whisper, and for a moment, Lupin thought that her words were wind, so faint and hardly audible that he was of a mind to believe that she hadn't spoken at first.
Norah dipped her head in submission, suggesting to Remus that the blonde werewolf was genuinely ashamed of how she had allowed her volatile, violent temper to get the better of her. No doubt the adrenaline from her encounter with the centaurs back at the mouth of the cave had still been wildly surging through her veins.
But still… Even now, as Lupin allowed himself to silently observe the blonde young witch, her hardened exterior and outward appearance betrayed nothing of her inner turmoil, which Remus knew, judging by the shimmering, glistening moisture in her eyes, lay just beneath the surface, threatening to break free at any given moment.
Remus knew that Norah Jameson was conflicted, and not quite sure how to act.
"No," he admitted, surprised to hear the hardened edges of his normally quiet, reserved voice.
Lupin swallowed down hard, recognizing that his own temper at the way their guide had treated the woman who was soon to be married to him was in danger of potentially imploding if he could not maintain control of his emotions.
"You should not have, Miss Jameson, but that does not change the fact that what is done is done." He flinched and ran his tongue along the top wall of his teeth and hesitated. "You have berated my fiancée to the point where she is now clearly shaken from you yelling at her the way that you did, on top of the unknown trauma and abuse that she experienced at the hands of those vile beasts," he spat, unable to keep the note of hatred out of his tone as visions of seeing the gory state of things when he'd gotten to the campsite to find Jameson had slaughtered all of the centaurs, flitted through his mind. "Now Dora is injured, and far beyond the ability to be reasoned with at the moment. But…despite your inability to understand her, or me, and your lack of compassion for us up to this point, Dora is safe, as am I. Though, if she has any hope of recovery that I would hope would reach its fullest, the two of you are going to have to learn how to trust one another, though I believe the fault fully lies with you. I think Tonks already trusts you, Miss Jameson. Therefore, you're the one who needs to learn to trust her. To let her in completely, and in a clear manner, I might add, because if we start fighting amongst ourselves in a damned cursed Forest that already wants to divide us, then we're doomed." Lupin fell silent and bit down on the wall of his cheek, studying her face.
She pursed her lips into a thin line and scowled, folding her arms across her chest, and seeming to shrink into her black leather jacket as much as she could for warmth. It seemed to take Norah an eternity to find her voice, and when she did, hers was so soft, that had Lupin not already been hanging onto her every word, he might have missed.
"How could Tonks possibly come to trust me after…all of that?" she growled lowly, uncrossing her arms and gesturing towards the open air, and glancing down at the sword of Godric Gryffindor that rested against the bark of the tree by her feet.
Norah's tone reflected a sense of bitterness and self-hatred that, as a fellow werewolf, Remus was all too quite familiar with by this point in his adult life.
Though she gestured towards the Forest's thick path that lay ahead of them in the morning, her gaze remained unwavering and unabashed, her eyes fixed on Tonks and Ollie. "You know that I don't say this with any lightness, Remus," Norah scowled.
"I'd consider you a fool if you didn't, Miss Jameson," Remus retorted immediately, folding his arms across his chest and resting across the bark of a different tree, all the while watching Dora's former partner try to do what he could to calm her.
For the briefest moment, he felt the familiar flicker, that hot fire-seed of anger and jealousy at seeing her best friend in such an intimate embrace with his soon-to-be-wife.
Though he quickly gave his head a curt shake to clear it as his friends' voices filled his already troubled mind, with Lily coming to his rescue first, for a change in pacing.
Tonks is marrying YOU, Remus, Lily chastised, and Lupin flinched at hearing how clipped and curt sweet Lily's voice sounded. Not Ollie, not Sirius. She chose you.
Yeah, Moony, James's unusually somber and quiet tone piped up, though it did not escape Lupin's attention that he sounded strangely fed up with Remus's jealousy. I don't think now is the time to let your insecurities get the better of you, Moony. If Sirius were here, he'd tell you the exact same thing. This forest is evil, Moony. I'm sure you've been able to figure that out for yourself by now, but there's a REASON it's 'Forbidden.' It wants to divide you; separate you till you're all at each other's throats. Now isn't the time to get into a fight with that little twerp, James snapped, and Lupin barely stifled his smile as he imagined James scrutinizing Ollie's handsome, stocky build.
You could take him, Moony. The kid might be well-built, but he's no match for your 'furry little problem', James teased, and Potter fell silent as Lupin let out a low growl.
The gesture did not go unnoticed by Norah, who quirked a delicately arched brow Remus's way, though if she was suspicious of Lupin's little outburst, she did not voice her concerns.
Lupin coughed once to clear his throat and turned his head away, fighting back the light pink blush and incredible heat that crept its way along his cheeks.
"Allow Tonks a moment to breathe, Jameson. She needs to let herself feel it otherwise…" His voice cracked and broke as his gaze remained fixed on Tonks and Ollie's huddled form by the campfire. He could have sworn that Ollie briefly lifted his head and met Remus's gaze and offered him what he thought was a sympathetic nod.
"Otherwise I don't know if Tonks will be able to cope with it later. It's apparent that she hasn't properly sorted through her emotions and addressed the current situation. Her life ever since in this Forest, and even before that, was and is always in a constant state of change, always changing, always moving, and she's hardly had time to breathe, much less adapt to all of these changes that she's been forced to meet head-on and expected as an Auror to handle with dignity and composure. She cannot be expected to carry these burdens without repercussions, and I need to be there to help her through this, just as much as you do. This," Remus growled, letting out an animalistic, wolfish snarl, courtesy of the Wolf within him, as he gestured towards Tonks and Ollie's direction with a curt wave of his hand, "what you're looking at right now with me is the manifestation of those repercussions. This is what happens when she refuses to allow herself to really feel it. Though, I will give my fiancée credit, Miss Jameson, where it's due. Ever since we set foot onto the Forbidden Forest's soil, Tonks has shown remarkable bravery and wit."
"She has," Norah offered quietly, nodding with Remus, showing that the young blonde witch and werewolf agreed with his statement. "She should have been sorted in Gryffindor. Didn't you say when she was at Hogwarts, she used to be a Hufflepuff?"
"Yes." Remus furrowed his brows and glanced down at the sword of Gryffindor, which still rested idly by Norah's feet. He was still itching to hear how it was that this young wolf had ended up with the sword of Godric Gryffindor, though that was a story for a different time and place, once things had been patched up between all three of them, but especially, between Norah and Tonks.
The animosity between the pair of young witches was beginning to become smothering, and the sooner the two attempted to make amends, especially if Norah apologized for her treatment of Tonks, the better.
"Mmm." Norah made a non-committal noise at the back of her throat that sounded like a cross between a grunt and a snort as she continued to rest against the tree. "She is. Maybe the Sorting Hat got her priorities wrong, though, on the other hand, I've never seen a more loyal friend and mate. I've not seen a human witch so…"
Norah hesitated, her brain struggling to form the right words to describe what exactly it was that she thought of Nymphadora Tonks, and Remus, intrigued, swore he caught a hesitant flickering of uncertainty in the young blonde She-Wolf's expression.
"I know," Remus spoke up, concurring with the unspoken statement that Norah could not seem to bring herself to say. "Dora is unlike any other young woman I've ever met before. She's different from most witches. She possesses a fierce sense of independence and a certain kind of courage that makes me believe that you're right about her. Tonks should have been in Gryffindor, as I'm sure you've noticed for yourself. Even under pressure from those centaurs and then with Crouch, she never gave in or backed down even once. And as for her being a Hufflepuff, well…her loyalty to those fortunate enough to call themselves her friend is unmoving and firm, as I think you can see for yourself by the way she behaves around Ollie," Lupin grumbled.
Remus watched with no small measure of amusement in his light brown eyes, though thoroughly still feeling very much disgruntled towards the turn this horrible night had taken, as what little vulnerability currently lingering within Norah Jameson's hardened exterior and furrowed scowl on her pale pretty features promptly vanished.
He let out a sigh, watching as the frown slid off Norah's face like Stinksap, only to be replaced with a strange expression of cold silent fury and what Lupin could only describe as something of a warning as she turned her head, her gaze piercing Remus's.
"The kid cares for her, for your mate, and she for him, I think." Norah's words were blunt, uttered without any kind of inflection or hesitance on the She-Wolf's part.
Now it was Lupin's turn to frown, though the man was not fooled by her attempt to dissuade his annoyance and steer the conversation in a completely different direction.
"Think what you like of the young man, Miss Jameson, but if it weren't for Ollie Brennan on more than one occasion, Tonks would have been dead. The two of them are best friends, and aside from myself, Ollie has been the only person in this group to show Dora any kind of respect and kindness whatsoever, so I don't know why you're giving me that look. Don't act so shocked, it should hardly come as a surprise. If you'd been willing to give Dora a chance right from the very beginning instead of keeping the both of us at arm's length and constantly pushing us away, but you did not do that, instead you've berated her, insulted her, and you do not appreciate her efforts in helping us get Umbridge back so far, and if you'd at least allowed yourself a chance to get to know her, then maybe you'd be in Dora's good graces along with Ollie and me, Miss Jameson. But you haven't managed to do either one of those things, and it's no secret that Dora isn't. Nor am I, for that matter, but guess what? I don't care what you think of me. At the end of the day, all I want—all Dora wants—is to get out of this forest, get married, and go home and hopefully never set foot in these woods ever again," Lupin snapped, feeling his temper begin to swell, and he bit down on his lip, though he did not deter from what he knew the werewolf needed to hear. "She does not know it yet, but I plan to get married right here, in this forest, before anything else happens. I'm going to send a message to Dumbledore and the others asking them to meet us here. I had planned for us to wait until after we get out of here and got Umbridge back, but considering what almost happened to Tonks last night, I don't want to wait anymore. I'm hoping that you...that you will be by her side when the two of us get married, Miss Jameson."
Harsh though his words were, it was the plain truth, and the plain truth of the matter was, Norah and Tonks needed to come to a mutual understanding with one another if they held a prayer of getting out of this cursed Forest in one piece with Umbridge in tow. Remus's words did not please Norah in the slightest, and Lupin could have sworn he heard the blonde young werewolf growl and snarl as she bared her sharpened canines.
He instinctively felt the fingers of his wand hand curl over it as his hand rested inside the interior pocket of his jacket, sincerely hoping they wouldn't come to blows.
He was not entirely sure what he had been expecting from the young witch, though for Norah to let out a tense breath through her nose and slump her shoulders in defeat, all the while keeping her sharp, wolfish sight fixated on Ollie and Tonks's figures as the two friends sat by the campfire, conversing in too low of a tone for her to make out, for Norah to turn her head back around and look at Lupin with such a tinge of melancholia in her light blue eyes was…not quite exactly what he'd expected from her.
"You know that I will, Remus," Norah sighed exasperatedly. "Your fiancée's condition is of more importance right now than a grudge," growled Norah, huffing in frustration and folding her arms across her chest. "If what you tell me of Tonks that she heals fast, then by morning, she ought to be well enough to walk and you can send a message to the Headmaster then. Get married tomorrow, but allow her tonight to rest. Your wife will thank you for it, I'm sure. Her fever from eating those damned berries should have surpassed her by now."
She scoffed and rolled her eyes, noticing Lupin's look of stunned, utter horror. "You didn't even have to tell me, Mr. Lupin. I know she ate a few Bleeding Mulberries. She's feverish, not really able to keep much down. Dazed and confused. You tend to forget I've lived in this forest practically my whole life," she snapped. "I know those berries and I know the symptoms that go along with eating them, Remus. If you and Miss Tonks hold a prayer of getting that pink-wearing hag back, then we're going to have to pick up our speed," she growled, cobalt blue eyes narrowing angrily. "It's not going to take Astelos long to figure out those few in the scouting party are missing, and when he or anybody else in his herd finds their bodies like that, well…"
Norah shuddered and allowed her voice to trail off, not completing her thought. Lupin nodded. She didn't need to say a word. He had witnessed the centaurs' brutality for himself, as did Tonks and Ollie and he did not fancy getting another surprise visit.
"Fine," Remus heard himself say in a hardened, agitated voice that still did not quite sound like himself. He sighed and pinched at the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger before lowering his hand and moving to head towards the fire to join his soon-to-be wife and relieve Ollie of comforting Tonks.
He lifted his head and cast Norah a sharp, withering look. "I suggest that you speak to Dora in the morning, Norah. I don't care what the two of you talk about as long as you're able to come to some kind of understanding with one another, and as long as you don't ridicule or mock my fiancée to the point where her fears and injuries are in an even worse state than they are now," he warned threateningly, and he turned and fixed her with a pointed glare.
Norah, for her part, said nothing in response. Remus frowned and continued. "Because if that happens, then not even Merlin will be able to save you from me, Miss Jameson. As much as I think she hates to admit it, Tonks in her current physical and emotional state, not even coupled with the fact that she's pregnant, is fragile, and if you provoke her or say the wrong thing, or Merlin forbid insult her again, I wouldn't put it past my partner to retaliate in ways that I can't even imagine right now."
And with that, Lupin strode away from Norah and headed towards Tonks, his hands shoved in his trouser pockets without so much as sparing the young blonde a second glance behind over his shoulder, leaving Norah alone to mull over their talk.
A/N: I wanted Tonks to have kind of that mental wilderness breakdown that I thought she ought to have, sort of a delayed reaction in response to what she's done, as well as the mental and physical trauma that she experienced earlier that she did not allow herself to feel up until this moment in the chapter. I also wanted Ollie to be the one to pull her out of it and not Remus, because though Lupin is her partner and soon-to-be husband (hint, hint ;)), he doesn't really know the true extent of what Tonks suffered, but Ollie was there for her through all of it, even the worst parts, and she trusts her best friend completely, and I haven't really given them too many nice moments yet aside from Ollie saving her butt several times now throughout the course of this really long Odyssey tale.
Now comes the tricky part ahead for Tonks, how to re-establish a semblance of trust between herself and Norah? They have each made poor choices.
1) Tonks really should not have left the camp to investigate the centaurs, even if she was really only looking for food. It was a disaster waiting to happen, and it did.
2) Norah shouldn't have allowed her temper to get the better of her and gotten physically violent with Tonks, no matter if it WAS the 'Wolf" within her. She should not have been so cold, treating Tonks as a stranger and an enemy when Tonks has done nothing to earn Norah's immense distrust.
Also, I felt like Lupin was the only one who could have this difficult conversation to be had with Norah, given how he's a calm and rational man by nature of his character, and I figured since he's a werewolf too, he would have known better how to handle Norah's mood swings than Ollie or Tonks would.
Both Remus and Norah feel responsible for what happened to Tonks and Ollie and have taken the first step towards reconciliation, now here's hoping Norah and Tonks can come to a mutual understanding with one another and hopefully, in time, become friends.
