Fear and Loathing in Romania
Disclaimer: Without the proper medication I happen to believe I own the rights to Harry Potter and every single piece of merchandise that goes along with it. But that doesn't make it true…
Rating: R (language, sex, violence)
Summary: Tonks is begrudgingly sent to Romania to fetch Charlie Weasley and bring him back to the Order. Everything that can go wrong manages to go wrong and the two find themselves running for their lives, without magic, from both Death Eaters and the Muggle police and somehow manage to re-discover each other along the way.
Author's Note: Well, lookie here…I didn't make you wait three months once I got back at school. Instead I made you wait a month. Or so. I'm getting better. And I've reworked this story. I now know where this is headed, and that makes my world. This story is going to end up being thirty chapters. Yes. Thirty. I have high goals. And if all goes well, that goal should be reached. Someday. Hopefully sooner rather than later. Wish me luck and please continue reading and commenting. I adore you all and am completely grateful for everything you have to say.
Chapter Ten: Crooked Spin
"But now I feel changed around
And instead falling down
I'm standing up the morning after
Situations get fucked up
And turned around sooner or later
And I could be another fool
Or an exception to the rule
You tell me the morning after
Crooked spin can't come to rest
I'm damaged bad at best
She'll decide what she wants
I'll probably be the last to know
No one says until it shows
And you see how it is
They want you or they don't
Say yes…
I'm in love with the world
Through the eyes of a girl
Who's still around the morning after…"
- "Say Yes" – Elliot Smith
Morning. She hates and she loves seeing it from this angle. Bony shoulder trapped between the sheet and his far more freckled one. Hair matted down to a once sticky neck; the beginning of her legs lost in the ending of his.
It's wrong on so many levels. But even those lines are beginning to blur, in a bubbling, toxic mess. The very situation they're in threatening to bring them down. And down and down and down. And down.
She rolls over. A lazy attempt to make the situation a bit clearer.
She remembers once loving mornings like this. The bleary eyes playing connect the dots with the then far more sparse freckles across his jaw-line. Clouded by darkness, a morning hidden by heavy tapestry, heavy eyelids. That sated feeling, one that inched its way along in her spine, in a gentle, unfolding arc.
The perfection of dawn. And she's not even a morning person.
"Charlie? Charlie? Hey…You awake?" Finger pressed into his arm, her graceful approach at a wake-up call. "C'mon…talk to me." He had rolled, slightly, his chin nipping her forehead, grunting unintelligibly syllables.
She had never understood the concept of silence.
"Charlie…" Her stage whisper, all the more deliberate, as she had shaken his shoulders. "I want to talk…Now…"
His eyes had flickered, as though on command. "Bloody hell…it's not even dawn yet, Dora…go back to sleep…"
"I can't…Charlie…I'm awake, and you…you're being boring…" She had shover him, and he had grunted, a lame attempt at a derisive laugh. "Entertain me…" She knew how much he hated that whiny edge, the childlike pleas, but they amused her at the same time. "And, I mean, it's not like there's anyone else here to keep me occupied, or talk to, or tell them secrets. You want to hear my secrets, Charlie?" She sounded like a ten-year old at a sleepover. And she knew it, and found it all the more humorous, as she playfully nudged his shoulder.
He had grunted again.
"Well, let's see. First-year I had the biggest thing for Ralph Hendricks. And I just thought he was so cute, and well, Genevieve told him about it, and we kissed. It was my first kiss, my first real kiss. And he tasted kind of like slugs. Or, well, at least how I imagine slugs to taste. Really rather quite the disappointment. For me at least."
She got a lone chuckle out of this.
"You were the first boy I ever had sex with. But you already knew that…"
She had received a true laugh from that one. The quiet, rumbling kind. The kind she had liked to imagine was reserved only for her.
"I once stole some money from my mum. Her purse had been on the counter, and I just got this…urge, and I just…reached in. And took her money."
"Dora, that's not funny. That's a felony."
Her fingers had skipped along his wrist bone, the hand lying gently and protectively along her hipbone.
"Shh…I'm telling you stories here." She can't see it, but she imagines that he's rolling his eyes. In the typical fashion, dressing up his inability to understand her. The girl lying next to him.
"Alright…"
There was silence. A quiet moment where she had contemplated. Wondered if it was worth it to let the skeletons out or leave them imprisoned. For whatever reason, she felt emboldened and unlocked her secret closet door.
"You remember that rumor about Susana Rockhart? The one about how she had shagged half the Slytherins?" She could feel his head bobbing above hers. "Well…I started that. She called me a…Mudblood. And I was angry. So I told people she was a whore. And I never once felt bad about it. Even when she was crying in the middle of the Great Hall. I felt…nothing for her. But vindication."
She had paused. Awaiting judgement. None came.
"I was heart-broken when I was sorted into Hufflepuff. My mother had been a Slytherin, my father a Gryffindor. And here I was, in the catch-all house, the one designed to hold the ones not smart enough to be Ravenclaws, not brave enough to be Gryffindors, not ambitious enough to be Slytherins. I had felt…ashamed for so long…and then guilty for the shame…and now…nothing really. To be quite honest, I think that hat just plain fucked up, but then, then I'm not really sure where I'm supposed to belong…"
She had shifted her weight, felt his hand tighten on her waist.
"I come from one of the worst wizarding families imaginable. But you know that." She had started whispering. "I'm half Black. They shunned my mother when she married my dad. We're like…outcasts. My aunt killed people. The other one married a Malfoy. And they hate us all now. And sometimes…sometimes I'm scared. They're in my blood, you know? They're…family. And sometimes, sometimes I'm just afraid I'll turn out like them."
She had taken a deep breath. Was proud of herself, and shameful all the same. He had seen her naked before, but never like this.
"I've never thought of myself as…beautiful. It's near impossible. Whatever I don't like I can change. I can be a brunette, a blonde, a redhead, bald. I can have blue eyes, green eyes, brown eyes, snake eyes. I can be thin, I can be fat. I can be pale, tan, white, black. But…but I can't ever seem to be happy…with me.
I don't know who that is…It always seems to be…changing."
He had kissed her then, whispering sweet nothings and sweet everythings.
She hadn't shed a single tear.
She hates that lying there now she can't understand half the memory, the names, the places. But she can remember the emotions, the feelings, the fear behind it all.
She can remember him comforting her, convincing her that she was worth something. Even if it was only to him.
Together now, seven years, over half a decade of hell later, she doubts there will ever be a repeat performance. By him. For her. He feels like stone to her now. Cold, distant. Beautiful and polished. Frozen in motion, empty eyes.
It angers her that time hasn't brought him low. Time and trials and grief and work; nonehave stained his flawless exterior. The only reminder of pain are the scars that arc across his body, separating the freckles from one another. A sick part of her, the sadistic part, wants him to have hurt. Because of her.
She's twenty-three with the mind of a child. The logic of a demon, a terror.
Tit for tat. He should break too.
She hates that lying there, naked next to him, she can't quite feel anything but anger and nostalgia. Here they are, bare, and barely touching. Skin grazing skin, no obstructions in their way.
They might as well be in different rooms.
She remembers the morning after. Asleep and waking against him. Head upon his chest, feeling the beat of a heart, both distant and in her own breast. She used to practice, try and get her own heart to beat in time with his. She never quite got it, getting bored with the game only seconds after it had begun. But there was something, something to be said of that closeness. The heat of a body that's more than a body. The warmth of a soul that half belonged to her. When the morning came, she felt as if she owned him. Owned that satisfied half smile that graced sleeping lips, the disheveled red hair, the hands that held her in place. They were hers, and hers alone.
She always had a vicious possessive streak. She still wants tobrand him as hers, plant the flag and claim that land in her name.
In her eyes, it would only be fair.
After seven years of sleep and bad dreams, the awakening dawn is bitter, garishly bright, resounding with the reality that nothing, nothing will ever stay that same once time has set her stamp on it all.
He's asleep, but she can't feel him.
She's forgotten what it means to be sixteen.
She sits up. Hugs her knees to her chest, and looks down at him. The way she always had; her vantage point high above.
She doesn't know this man she went to bed with.
She doesn't know the woman who joined him last night.
Silently, she stands. And looks at the scattered remnants of their wardrobe splayed across the floor.
She grabs a pair of knickers and pulls them on. Grabs a shirt of his, and barely manages to button the lone two buttons she even bothers with.
The morning is grey. And she finds that oddly appropriate.
She recognizes herself at times. She just seems to be stuck in black and white, the color palette dried and forgotten at the side of a crooked easel. She's barely hanging on.
She used to love sunny mornings. She remembers it. As a child, racing through a backyard that was more forest than yard, playing the sports her father had taught her. She remembers how her mother hadn't liked that. She remembers being at a school, and loving the mornings when the sun peeked through the window, beckoning her outdoors. And she would follow, ignoring homework in pursuit of play.
She hasn't felt like that girl in a long time.
No. Now she's the kind of girl that kills people with rubbish found in back alleys and then proceeds to fuck the former love of her life on a nightly basis, watching herself slip a little further into something she's afraid to name.
We bury our dead and leave them underground…we bury the dead but can't hide the sound…we carry the dead…waiting to be found…
She grabs the small grocery bag from last night and overturns it, dumping its contents out on the dresser. And there, among the sugar-carb hangover in the making, she finds what she's looking for. The pack of cigarettes.
She's not a smoker. She was introduced to the habit by a neighbor when she was fifteen. She thought it was cool then. The glamorous look of it, as though it belonged in one of those films that her father was always watching. She just needed the fedora, a dangerous husband and a dashing detective willing to help her out of a rough spot and shag her rotten simultaneously.
She feels, but she doesn't. She's…empty. Directionless. Lost, with no destination to call a home, no future to live vicariously though in dreams. She's not…living for anything, merely breathing for the lone sake of survival.
She has no name. No name to place on her lack of thoughts, her empty head. She's lost her rhythm, her music put on stop.
She's lost her spark. And she wonders why she can't glow.
She grabs a pack, flipping it gently in her hand over and over again, and a book of matches. Throws opens the window, wide. She sits on the windowsill, one knee up, the other down, toes brushing the carpet, prickling, but not enough to make her stop. She leans back, places the cigarette between her lips and lights it. A deep breath.
Light it up and put it out. Up and out, flame and fizzle. Inhale, exhale, cloudy lungs.
Her mother caught her once. In this very same position, sitting in her window, leg hanging out, a cigarette gracefully hanging between her fingers, nails polished black. Her mother had lectured her, using Tonks's grandfather, on her father's side, as an example. Used the dirty word: Cancer.
She remembers nights in London, underground clubs, deafening music and the intoxicating scent of nicotine branding her, infusing her clothing. The deep inhalation brings it back to her, and she almost expects to see the pleated skirt when she looks down at her lap. He doesn't even know the half of it when it comes to her…
She remembers she had a different look for every night. Now, she can't even imagine how she ever possessed the energy to keep the charade up.
And she knew at the time, and knows now. Cigarettes. She knows what they do. They're supposed to kill, designed to destroy.
She silently chants bring it on.
He's relieved that he wakes up to an empty bed, and feels almost odd for admitting it to himself.
A cold breeze washes over his bare chest. That's what had awakened him in the first place. Cold. Air. Bed. Room. It was all like ice to him.
And there she is. Perched, as though about to take flight two floors down into pavement. He watches her toes skim the carpet, the gentle swing of her bare leg. And he's not sure if he wants to push her or drag her down to him.
But even now, even now, with her body arched and almost still, he can feel the frenzy pulsing within her. Her dancing leg, tapping fingers. Cigarette that moves its way to and from her lips. Always in motion. Constantly on the move.
He's not sure why this seems like something new. She's always been this way. There's just usually been a manic grin to accompany her inner madness, a giddy laugh racing in its aftermath.
He once found it endearing. Now, all he can think is Bellatrix Black, and even though he can't quite pin the details, the accompanying fear, disgust and utter incredulity is enough to sum it up for him.
Bellatrix Black. The Mad Aunt.
He slightly remembers. She had killed people. Or tortured them. Something sadistic and inhumane. At this point, he's not sure he wants the finer points filled in for him.
But she…his she, the she sitting mere feet away. She had killed too. He remembers that. A little too clearly. The blood. The easy way it snaked down her palms, onto her shirt. The way it spread across her, blood of the dead leaving its mark on her.
He's killed too, though. A fact harder to forget than he'd care to admit.
Bellatrix Black.
He's almost afraid to evaluate and psychoanalyze this thought process. The association between his ex-lover and current bedmate, pseudo-peacefully having a morning smoke and her criminally deranged aunt. The connect-the-dots could have a terrifying outcome.
But he knows. Knows as he sits there, watches her turn to him with unblinking empty eyes and offers him a smoke. Knows the answer as he lights up and watches the smoke lilt towards the ceiling and beyond.
"There is no way in bloody hell the Chudley Cannons will take the cup, Charlie, and you damn well know it." She had thrown a chocolate frog wrapper into the dusk, watching it catch a ride on a breeze and float steadily down hill.
He had glared at her; the features on her face melding into the setting sun. Her hair was black, with bright green stripes, cut to just below her chin. Her eyebrows were reaching for her hairline, waiting in triumphant expectation.
"Two words, Charlie. That's all I need to hear. 'You're right.' Well, I suppose we could turn it into three words, make it sound a bit more eloquent. 'You are right.' Hell, let's make it four and throw my name in for good measure. 'Tonks, you are right.' Hmm, or does 'You are right, Tonks,' sound better? I can't decide. Why don't you say both and then we'll make a final decision."
He wasn't sure at what point he had quit listening. He did know that he was a sixteen year old boy and her mouth was damn distracting and making him react to her chastising comments in what he could only call an inappropriate manner.
He hoped it wasn't incestuous to be attracted to a girl who felt like a sister. Something about it struck him as wrong. But at the same timetime...at the same time it was just...right
Yes, Tonks, you are right. The singular thought repeating through his mind. Not correct about her Quidditch prediction, but rather…she was right. Perfection in a misguided youth; precision in a trouble-making tomboy.
She had looked pretty that evening. Or maybe it had just been the first time he had ever recognized her as such. But he believed it. Fell for the beauty that was a dimming sun glowing silently behind flushed cheeks. The stray strands of hair that had clung to her forward and dripped down into her eyes.
She had turned a corner, flipped a switch. Introduced a new song and dance for him to sing along to. She was no longer Tonks. No. Tonks had been the little girl with scraped knees and big mouth and a permanent seat in detention.
He had looked at her then, and he just couldn't see it. Anymore.
"You know, why do you make people call you 'Tonks'?" He had said it like a curse word, a foulness that shouldn't be uttered in a lady's presence. And over the course of a good two minutes, she had become that lady for him.
"What do you mean? It's my fucking name." She had been shredding grass, plucking the blades and ripping them straight down the middle.
"No. Your fucking name is Nymphadora Tonks." He had ignored the scowl. "I mean, don't you have any other nicknames?"
She had laughed. "What? Tonks doesn't suit your fancy, Mr. Weasley? You want to rename me? Make me your pet, call me your own?" She had leaned in, dangerously close, noses nearly brushing. Her voice had gone from utter sarcasm to pure sex kitten. The mood gone from easy companionship to electric flirtation.
"Something like that…"
And he had kissed her. Their first kiss. Completely perfect, entirely picturesque. A portrait of young love, the beginning brushstrokes of a mural that wouldn't be finished even seven years down the road. He didn't know that then.
"Dora…" He had breathed the name, a hope-laced prayer. Dora.
"Dora?" Her nose had crinkled. "I sound like I'm either eight bleeding years old or fucking eighty."
He hadn't laughed. He had just looked at her. Dora. "No. It's…right."
And she had stared. Blatantly, eye to eye, not letting him go.
"Alright then…"
He remembers what it felt like to love. And to be loved in return. Now it seems so far gone, merely a memory, a page out of a photo album.
Love. A distant reality a part of him wonders was ever true.
He sees her now. His Dora seven years later. She's still the same mess she was when she was sixteen. Spontaneous. Flighty. Crass, crude, vulgar. Strong. Intelligent. Sarcastic, witty, bright. Scared. Lying.
It was all just a bit more acceptable back then.
But she's missing. She hasn't laughed in what seems like days. She's lost her clumsy appeal, her penchant for destroying a room merely by looking at it. She's lost…
The things that drew him to her in the first place.
The extrovert has become the introvert. The loud has become the quiet; the radical, the calm.
He's watched her come apart, unravel, undo herself piece by tiny piece without quite realizing what it was she was doing to herself. And she's come to this: a sad figure decorating a dirty windowsill, looking out on a morning that holds nothing but threats rather than promises.
And here he is. Strung out and strung along. In love with the idea of being in love. With her. And his bitter attempt at convincing himself that this is what it merely is all about.
But her…
He can see her rambling about Sunday cartoons and trips to the seashore and how some day she'll take him there, and she'll laugh because he'll turn into a complete lobster, and her later vivid description of what exactly a lobster is and how if you fuck with it, it will rip your nose off and feel no remorse whatsoever. He can see her telling him her plans for the future, and how some mornings she wanted twelve kids, and others she'd declare herself a spinster in the making and her desire to only have cats as company.
He can see her, those morning afters. The crooked grin, the high blush staining her cheekbones. And her eyes. Bright with…everything.
He can see her now. And hates the pang of remorse that stabs right through him.
This isn't the girl he fell in love with. This is the woman who will destroy him.
Watching her move, all legs and dark hair, moving, turning her head a fraction of an inch, eyes never reaching his, he knows that he'll let her. Break him down to bits and kindling and light his world on fire.
"We're going to London." Read like an obituary, a cue card, death ringing though the hollow tones.
"Alright then…"
She stubs the cigarette out on the windowsill, chucking the remains out the open window. Stands. And moves away from him.
He knows. He's already lost.