Love be enough: though the World be a waning
A/N: Most of the dialogue in this chapter is taken word for word from Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, specifically the chapter: The Phoenix Lament, which obviously, does not belong to me. I am shamelessly borrowing it, and it ought to make my attempts at dialogue look pretty pathetic by comparison. In the previous chapters of this story I have done my best to avoid portraying specific scenes in canon, but this scene had to be done for the purposes of my story from either Tonks' or Remus' POV. I chose Tonks.
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Tonks hurried into the castle, heading straight for McGonagall's familiar office. What she wouldn't have given for a night off, the chance to soak her feet and curl up on the sofa, wrapped in…no, she gave that back, nearly two months ago, hadn't she? He needed it more than she had, after all. She hadn't even been able to face giving it back in person, to have to deal with his polite insistence, 'oh no; you keep it, Tonks.' As if it could possibly make up for his desertion.
So, she had wrapped it carefully and laid it on his bed in his room at Headquarters. And so what if she had picked up his pillow, inhaling deeply? And she really hadn't cried much, had she? At least she had resisted the impulse to steal one of his shirts, keeping it hidden in her house. That would have been a little too much like stalking. Plus, he would have missed it. He had too few articles of clothing as it was. Not that she had looked through them. Not much, anyway. And it wasn't like he wouldn't be able to tell exactly what she had done in his room. Damn wolf nose. She really wished she had remembered about his heightened senses before she had poked around his room like a love-struck teenager.
But she wasn't going to think about him anymore. She would think about her imaginary 'perfect evening.' She would wrap herself up in the afghan that Molly gave her for Christmas, made with just as much love as Remus' quilt, and undisputedly belonging to Tonks, too. She would curl up with a book; something sad and romantic, like Jane Eyre. Not that stupid, Muggle book…well, all right, it had been funny, but she still found herself fighting the nightly urge to chuck it into the floo along with that goddamn, lying…well not lying, exactly, but that …well, shit, bloody beautiful letter that always went along with the book in her mind.
Pushing aside thoughts of the book and the letter and the stupid blanket, she tried to think again about curling up on the couch, or in her fairy tale bed…no, not the bed, too many memories, back to the couch. Shit, the couch had a few memories too. Okay, then, the beanbag chair. With a large bowl of popcorn and some hot chocolate. Better yet, a bottle of butterbeer. No, some Chardonnay - better yet, a gin and tonic. Tequila shots, possibly. No, that was taking it a bit far.
Regardless, it was really a pointless fantasy because she was not going to do any of that tonight - she was on duty for the Order. And she was praying rather fervently that the 'Order duty' in question would not include any contact with a certain sad sack of a werewolf. Because she just couldn't deal with any more of his polite and distant behavior. Because she had to struggle not to burst into tears every time she saw him. Because she just couldn't see how she would ever get past his stubborn noble streak.
"Nymphadora!" called out a familiar brogue, stopping her in her tracks.
"Oh, hello…" she broke off because she never could quite manage to call her former head of house 'Minerva,' and the formidable woman in question had asked her repeatedly not to call her Professor McGonagall anymore. "I'm sorry I'm late."
"Albus told me that you would be here some time after the others. I realize that you have only just finished your Auror patrols. Did you get yourself something to eat?"
"Yeah," Tonks lied, and continued, "Where shall I start?"
McGonagall pursed her lips, considering. "William is on the seventh floor, Remus is on the fourth floor, and I have just patrolled the dungeons. Why don't you cover the second floor and work your way up? I will have a quick look around the grounds."
Bugger! He is here, Tonks thought, but replied respectfully, "Yes ma'am."
She watched her former Transfiguration teacher's shadow disappear around the corner, shrinking seamlessly into a much smaller and more graceful shape. Not a bad idea. A cat of any age could cover more ground and notice more small details than a seventy-odd year old woman could. Tonks wondered idly what animal she would have turned into if she ever had harnessed the patience and skill to become an Animagus. Professor McGonagall had seemed convinced that she was capable of it, had nagged her about it regularly, actually. But as a teenager, Tonks had been too shortsighted to appreciate the opportunity. Why bother with all that when she could disguise herself so easily without any effort?
Tonks knew that she was only postponing the inevitable by letting her mind wander on these tangents, and reminded herself that she was here for a very important reason, and could not afford to skive off her responsibilities. With a sigh she began to walk down the hallway, shining her wand tip into every dark corner, interrogating the portraits, and popping her head into every doorway.
It was almost like a dance, she thought to herself, and not for the first time. One of those old-fashioned dances you read about in Regency novels, where the dancers moved on their own, then moved with their partner for a bit, then danced alone again, and on to another partner, repeating the process over and over again. It was a dance that Order members had practiced often, and usually it was somewhat comforting. In the past, the steps that she had taken at Remus' side had been some of her favorites. But now they merely greeted each other politely, walking in silence, or worse yet, making awkward attempts at polite conversation, and then barely containing their relief at the moment of parting. Nowadays she preferred her steps with Kingsley, who was unfortunately not here tonight, or even McGonagall, who always managed to amuse her by the respect and cooperation that she commanded from the wayward students, the passing spectres and sleepy portraits they encountered. She would even have preferred Bill Weasley, though these days he seemed a more than a little stiff with her, either thinking her a bitch who cheated on a decent werewolf, or a slag who used his younger brother for…whatever reason. Either way, they had lost their previous easy, flirtatious relationship.
Every so often, the four of them would meet up at the same time, reporting their various findings. It was during one of those rendezvous that something surprising happened. Ginny, Ron and another boy came bursting out of a darkened corridor, babbling incoherently about a group of Death Eaters in the castle. Momentary chaos ensued, but Remus quickly took control of the situation, managing to wrest the necessary information from the three teenagers, then formulating a plan for locating the group of invaders.
Within five minutes, the Death Eaters had been located and Tonks found herself battling alongside Remus for the second time in a year. Clearly, the group had not expected to be discovered so quickly, so the Order members had the advantage of surprise, which allowed them to win their first skirmish with Voldemort's followers, who scattered quickly. But the Death Eaters had the advantage of greater numbers, which became apparent when they again caught up with them. One of the things that Tonks had been taught and learned for herself about Death Eaters (or, not to put too fine a point on it, Slytherins as a rule) was that they would secure their own safety first, starting out on the offensive but more than willing to bolt quickly when it looked like their side might lose the fight. This lot, however - once they surrounded the stairway leading to the Astronomy tower - seemed positively determined to stay put and fight, even to their own demise.
The hooded, masked figures stood their ground, and the Order members and teenagers fought back with increasing desperation. Tonks looked up at one point to see Fenrir Greyback - whom she recognized from the photos that she found in the library - illuminated by a flash from a passing curse, bending over a very still form, blood dripping from his mouth. She panicked, throwing out a stinging hex at her opponent, trying desperately to locate Remus. There he was, fighting a large dark hulking shape of a wizard, his face pale - almost gray - and fierce, illuminated by the bright moonlight coming in through the window. The hulking wizard was stubbornly fixed in a spot between Remus and Greyback, and Tonks knew how desperately Remus would have loved to break free and pounce on his nemesis, reducing him to a bloody pulp.
She wondered, with a sense of renewed panic, who it could be that Greyback had attacked, when suddenly, a beam of moonlight caught the glint of flame-coloured hair pooled on the floor beneath the savage beast. Bill, or worse yet Ron, or Ginny. The physical pain that overcame Tonks was not only for herself, but also for her beloved Molly and the devastation that Tonks knew was in store for her friend. She found herself overcome with rage, not only for Molly but also for Remus and for the years of pain that the evil creature had caused him. With a burst of righteous anger, Tonks threw out a jelly legs jinx to her opponent, giving her time to scramble around him, hoping to take Greyback by surprise. She wanted very much to try out some of the hexes that she had picked up in great aunt Wallburga's horrifying book collection at Grimmauld Place, but she decided to try a body bind first, reckoning that Greyback had to be Remus' to do with as he saw fit.
But before she got a chance to approach him, Greyback had disappeared up the same staircase that Draco Malfoy had managed to slip into a few moments before. Now that she looked around, she realized that at least three of the group of Death Eaters had had left the fight.
Before she could follow him, however, a dark shape streaked past her, sprinting up the stairway in pursuit of Greyback. Tonks assumed it was Remus, but after a blinding flash of purple light, the unknown person was hurtled backwards, slamming into Tonks and nearly knocking her off her feet. She laid him down gently on the floor, for it was clear at this point that it was a 'he' - a boy, really - and she found herself looking into the familiar face of Alice Longbottom. Her son, then. Seems to be quick to jump into a fight, this one. He's already lived up to his parents' reputation and he can't be more than seventeen.
"Longbottom! Can you hear me? Are you ok?"
"Fine," he groaned, then started mumbling, clutching his stomach, "Some kind of barrier…don't try it."
She turned with a heavy heart to the body lying about a meter away on the floor and caught a glimpse of the dragon fang earring that Bill wore in his left ear. He lay very still in a puddle of blood. Molly's firstborn; oh, fuck, it's going to kill her.
There was a shout behind her. A spell whistled past her ear and ricocheted against the wall in front of her, landing at her feet. The Longbottom kid nodded at her and she jumped up, spinning in place, wand ready. Remus was still locked in combat with his opponent, but hers had managed to break free of her jinx. He sent a series of curses toward her and she fired back spell after counter-spell, drawing him away from the two injured young men on the floor. Her opponent was sending powerful, nasty hexes her way, but her training had been clear and concise. Simple is better. Simple spells take less time and require less magical energy, allowing an Auror to win an endurance battle. Her opponent's face, revealed since the mask had been knocked away, showed the effort he was putting into it - the sweat dripping down his flushed cheeks, his breathing labored. His aim was worsening the more tired he got.
Moments later, she managed to send a disarming spell his way, which had him scrambling off in the dark for his wand. This gave her a chance to survey the battle for a moment and then her eyes picked out a dark shape coming through the smoke of the corridor. Tonks grinned, never having imagined that she would be happy to see Severus Snape - and although she found it hard to imagine Snape running for any reason, he appeared to be doing so then.
He swept past them, robes billowing behind him, without a word of acknowledgement. She didn't get to see which of the Death Eaters he chose to do battle with because her opponent - who was beginning to remind her of a particularly stubborn garden gnome - was back, and clearly very angry.
Somehow Tonks found herself more hopeful than before; the thought that there was at least one reinforcement - and possibly more - reminded her that Dumbledore had to be coming back soon. She also remembered that there had been more than three members of the so-called Dumbledore's Army - most of whom were probably still within the castle - who would rush to their fellow student's aid. And surely somebody had managed to notify Dawlish and Proudfoot about the battle. Harnessing her strength, she sent a stunning spell at the exhausted wizard, smiling triumphantly when it hit him square in the chest. Once again, she looked around, wanting to survey the situation and hoping to ask Snape if he had contacted the Ministry.
Snape was nowhere in sight, but she managed to look over just in time to see Remus flung backwards in the very same manner that the Longbottom boy had been, but he ended up thrown against a wall, collapsing on the floor in a heap. With a shriek, she rushed toward him, but was halted by a near miss from Remus' old opponent. The enormous man seemed almost to have been hit with a Confundus Charm – he kept throwing out powerful spells, which completely missed their intended targets but did considerable damage to the walls and floor. Tonks did her best to deflect his curses, but she realized very quickly that this Death Eater seemed to really mean business. The only curses that she knew that resisted deflection that easily and did that much damage were Unforgivables, and he was throwing them out like candy. It became imperative to render the ruddy bastard unconscious at the very least. He appeared to be a prime candidate for 'Auror code number 1487, or the use of deadly force in extenuating circumstances.'
Summoning her strength, which was a bit easier to do when she saw Remus begin to stand up gingerly, she prepared to throw out a few Unforgivables of her own. However, the stupid lump tripped mid-curse, his wand falling to the floor- but first sending out a blast of green light that missed Ginny Weasley by a hair's breadth and flew into the arch above the staircase. There was a rumble like an earthquake, and large stones began to fall from the ceiling, creating great clouds of dust as they shattered on the floor. The wand blast illuminated the formerly invisible barrier with a greenish hue, and then dissolved into nothing.
Everybody seemed to move at once, running toward the tower and for the second time, Snape emerged from the smoke, this time holding whiny Cousin Draco's arm protectively. He shouted out something that Tonks couldn't understand, and hurried back down the corridor. Suddenly the number of Death Eaters seemed to have doubled, and Tonks assumed that Snape's shouted orders had been to detain the enemy, so that he could get Draco to safety - possibly into Dumbledore's office. Everybody else seemed to have the same idea, because they fell upon the Death Eaters with enthusiasm. But the Death Eaters now seemed to want nothing more than to get away, either to pursue Snape or to escape.
Tonks, while fighting with the same, stupid, overgrown garden gnome, whom she now decided would have been better off Confunded, like his comrade - because he seemed to be randomly throwing curses on purpose. She thought she caught a glimpse of Harry on the floor and wondered where he had come from, and when he managed to distract her opponent by a hex in the face, she could have kissed him. But then her opponent went off running, and Harry ran off in the same direction. For a few moments Tonks also gave chase, but she quickly lost track of them and stopped, feeling confident that Snape would have made arrangements for them to be detained at the gates.
She turned back to the remains of the battle, which were more than a little discouraging. One Order member down, and one - possibly three, injured - against one fallen Death Eater. Her first impulse was to throw herself sobbing into Remus' arms, but apart from a long, intense look that passed between them, they pretty much ignored each other. Everybody had gathered around the wounded - Bill Weasley in particular.
Miraculously, he was still alive (though his face was a bloody mess) and suddenly Remus was the most likely person to grill for information because nobody had ever heard of a werewolf savaging a human while still in human form. Remus, clearly distraught, had no answers but quickly and carefully levitated Bill in front of him, heading towards the hospital wing and Poppy Pomfrey's unmatched expertise. The devastated Weasley children followed, with Hermione bobbing between an angry Ron, who was stoically trying to hold back his tears, and a weeping Ginny, who nevertheless held her head up with determination.
McGonagall was clearly torn between her duties to the school in Dumbledore's temporary absence and her concern for the welfare of the students in front of her, and the student body as a whole, and a favorite former student. Tonks took the matter out of her hands, telling her to go and see to the needs of the rest of the students. She levitated the Longbottom kid in front of her and found herself followed by the misty-eyed blond girl she had seen him with at the beginning of the year, who remained silent and seemed to be walking with a great deal of discomfort. They then headed for the hospital wing, just moments behind Remus and the Weasleys, and as they walked through the corridors, they passed by groups of students mulling about, frightened and curious. She heard the words 'Dark Mark,' and 'Death Eaters,' coming from almost every group, but also heard 'Neville,' and 'Luna,' fairly often, so she correctly assumed that those were the names of the teenagers that she walked with. It seemed to her -- for a moment -- like a sick parody of a parade; as they marched down the corridor with injured persons floating along in front of them and students watching anxiously from the sidelines.
Luna appeared perfectly willing and able to answer the students' questions, although she never allowed herself to lag too far behind her levitated friend. (And it was pretty clear to Tonks that Luna considered Neville her friend, if not something more, based on her anxious questions to Tonks and her calm reassurance of Neville)
Toward the end, the march to the Hospital Wing felt more like an endurance race, and when Tonks finally turned Longbottom over to Poppy's expert care, she collapsed into a chair which had a good view of Bill without even considering how near she was to Remus. Though her relationship with the eldest Weasley was a little strained at the moment, she took all of the fear and worry that his mother and fiancée were about to deal with upon her own shoulders until they arrived to unburden her.
Bill really was a mess. Tonks would have dismissed his wounds as easily healed were it not for the concern in Poppy's eyes. Then she started to envision the possibilities. Bill had been bitten, savaged, really, by a werewolf. Even though the full moon was not for at least ten days, the wounds could not be dealt with in the usual manner. Remus' face, though she tried not to look at it too often, also showed grave concern. Tonks thought of that shallow bit of pretty fluff that Bill had chosen to spend his life with, and felt even sorrier for Bill. Tonks didn't expect Fleur Delacour to last five minutes alter she took a look at Bill's (possibly permanently) ravaged face.
Her speculation was interrupted by the arrival of Harry and Ginny. Harry seemed to have aged three years since the last time that Tonks had seen him. When Ron - who was trying his damnedest not to show the room at large how frightened he was about his eldest brother's injury - berated Dumbledore for not arriving on the spot to help Bill, neither Tonks nor anyone else in the room was prepared for Harry's response.
"Dumbledore is dead, Ron."
Impossible! Tonks felt the earth falling away from under her feet and looked at Remus for something to hold on to. His eyes were wild, frightened, incredulous, and filled with agony.
But Tonks listened, and saw that Harry didn't have it in him to lie about something like this. In fact, if she was going to be completely honest with herself, she had felt it in the castle, during the battle. It had been a release of sorts, but it was a feeling that left her frightened and full of dread. She knew at that moment, just before Snape had returned to the bottom of the stairway that something catastrophic had happened.
"How did he die?" she whispered to Harry. "How did it happen?"
"Snape killed him," said Harry, and as he told the story, Tonks had trouble hearing it through the roaring in her head. Snape. Fuck, no, not Snape! Harry's words, and Ginny's after his, blurred together after the earth-shattering account of Snape's betrayal. For a long time after that, Tonks' mind went blessedly blank as the Phoenix song focused her shock and fear into something beautiful and terrible at the same time. The entrance of Professor McGonagall ended the trance-like, temporary peace, and with Minerva's anxious questions to Harry, the horror and devastation of the evening were brought to the surface again.
Dumbledore was a fool. And something like that just isn't possible, is it? Because if Dumbledore was a fool, what chances do the rest of us stand?
"Snape was a highly accomplished Occlumens." Remus' words broke through her thoughts, and Tonks wondered if anybody else could tell how close to murder his voice betrayed him to be. "We always knew that."
"But Dumbledore swore he was on our side!" whispered Tonks. "I always thought Dumbledore must know something about Snape that we didn't…" And that, it occurred to her, was probably the hardest thing of all for her to let go of. Because she realized how much she had wanted this to be true. How comforting it had been to know that even someone as…vile as Snape was not completely beyond redemption. And if Snape had been lying all along…
"He always hinted that he had an ironclad reason for trusting Snape." Professor McGonagall was clearly having the same struggle, and Tonks was startled to see the tears leaking out of her eyes. "I mean…with Snape's history…of course people were bound to wonder…but Dumbledore told me explicitly that Snape's repentance was absolutely genuine…Wouldn't hear a word against him!"
"I'd like to know what Snape told him to convince him!" said Tonks, refusing to accept Dumbledore's apparent myopathy
"I know," said Harry, and Tonks turned to look at him along with everyone else in the room. "Snape passed Voldemort the information that made Voldemort hunt down my Mum and Dad. Then Snape told Dumbledore he hadn't realized what he was doing, he was really sorry he'd done it, sorry that they were dead."
"And Dumbledore believed that?" Remus said incredulously. "Dumbledore believed Snape was sorry James was dead? Snape hated James…"
Tonks remembered all of the stories that Remus and Sirius had entertained her with around the kitchen table at Grimmauld Place, starting with that very first night. Snape's hatred of the Marauders -- James in particular, had been indisputable, and she could not understand how Dumbledore, after witnessing it firsthand for all those years, could have overlooked it.
"And he didn't think my mother was worth a damn either," said Harry, "because she was Muggle-born….'Mudblood,' he called her…."
Tonks looked back to Remus, who was staring at Harry with a white face and an angry set to his lips. She remembered a conversation the previous fall where she had called Snape an asshole, and Remus had tried to soften the phrase in his response. He always tried to defend Snape. She wondered how he felt about that now.
"This is all my fault," Minerva said suddenly, and Tonks wondered why human nature always forced people to take a helping of guilt along with their grief. She listened; curious to hear which imaginary sin her former teacher felt she had committed.
"My fault," Minerva continued. "I sent Filius to fetch Snape tonight. I actually sent for him to come and help us! If I hadn't alerted Snape to what was going on, he might never have joined forces with the Death Eaters. I don't think he knew they were there before Filius told him, I don't think he knew they were coming."
"It isn't your fault, Minerva," Remus said firmly. "We all wanted more help, we were glad to think that Snape was on his way…."
Everybody seemed to want to blame themselves for the devastating losses of the fight as they went over various accounts of the events of the night. Remus was always the first to reassure each person, in turn -- that it wasn't their fault -- that nobody could have foreseen the disastrous finale of the evening. Tonks wondered how he had gotten so good at taking regret and self-hatred away from others when he was so eager to take those very things on himself. Harry had just asked the group to tell him about the moment when Snape joined the fight. This was where Tonks rejoined the conversation.
"We were in trouble, we were losing," she said in a low voice, searching her memory for details as if she was giving a report to her superiors. "Gibbon was down, but the rest of the Death Eaters seemed ready to fight to the death. Bill had been savaged by Greyback….It was all dark….curses flying everywhere…The Malfoy boy had vanished, he must have slipped past, up the stairs…then more of them ran after him, but one of them blocked the stair behind them with some sort of curse….Neville ran at it and got thrown up into the air—"
"None of us could break through," said Ron, "and that massive Death Eater was still firing jinxes all over the place, they were bouncing off the walls and barely missing us…"
"And then Snape was there," Tonks interrupted, remembering with shame and anger how relieved she had felt at the sight of him. "And then he wasn't—"
"I saw him run straight through the cursed barrier as though it wasn't there," Remus said. "I tried to follow him but was thrown back just like Neville…."
Tonks tried to eject the memory of Remus crumpling against the stone wall from her memory.
"He must have known a spell we didn't," whispered Minerva. "After all – he was the Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher….I just assumed that he was in a hurry to chase after the Death Eaters who'd escaped up to the tower…."
"He was," said Harry savagely, "but to help them, not to stop them…and I'll bet you had to have a Dark Mark to get through that barrier – so what happened when he came back down?"
"Well, the big Death Eater has just fired off a hex that caused half the ceiling to fall in, and also broke the curse blocking the stairs." answered Remus. "We all ran forward – those of us who were still standing, anyway – and then Snape and the boy emerged out of the dust — obviously none of us attacked them—"
"We just let them pass." Tonks said in a hollow voice, wishing fervently and pointlessly that she had cultivated the gift of foresight. "We thought they were being chased by Death Eaters – and next thing, the other Death Eaters and Greyback were back and we were fighting again – I thought I heard Snape shout something, but I don't know what – "
"He shouted, 'It's over,'" said Harry. "He'd done what he meant to do."
Tonks felt a hollow spot in the pit of her stomach. They had been played. They had been had by the most brilliant double agent ever to call himself wizard. And they had all underestimated him. She added another name to her list of people she hoped to kill before she turned thirty. Snivellus and Auntie Bella now fought for second place just above Peter Pettigrew and two slots above Uncle Lucy. She suspected -- based on the faces around her -- that she would have to wait in a very long line to get a chance at Snape, though.
The doors opened suddenly, startling her out of her reverie. Tonks registered a flash of red hair through her tears, and suddenly the other victim of the evening filled her thoughts. Victims, really, because a very large family loved the young man in question dearly. Not to mention a certain young woman who was probably about five minutes away from calling off her engagement.
Minerva jumped up. "Molly – Arthur – I am so sorry -- "
Molly only had eyes for her eldest baby, and Tonks felt a twinge of pain for her friend as Molly whispered, "Bill," fearfully, then cried out, as she got a look at his face, "Oh, Bill!"
Tonks jumped up to get out of her way, as did Remus, allowing Molly to bend over her son and kiss his bloody forehead.
"You said Greyback attacked him?" Arthur asked Minerva. "But he hadn't transformed? So, what does that mean? What will happen to Bill?"
Minerva looked helplessly toward Remus as she answered, "We don't yet know."
Tonks noticed Remus straightening his shoulders before looking Arthur in the eye and saying, "There will probably be some contamination, Arthur. It's an odd case, possibly unique….We don't know what his behavior might be like when he awakens."
Arthur seemed to accept this more stoically than his wife did, and then hesitantly said, "And Dumbledore, Minerva, is it true…. Is he really….?"
His eyes widened as Minerva nodded her head, and he took a deep breath, exhaling, "Dumbledore gone…."
Tonks wondered if the confirmation of Dumbledore's death was the thing that finally made Molly break down, or if she had just held back for as long as she could, but she started to sob; her tears falling down onto Bill's mutilated face. "Of course, it doesn't matter how he looks….It's not r-really important….but he was a very handsome little b-boy…always very handsome….and he was g-going to be married!"
Tonks waited for Fleur, was looking at Bill with a horrified expression, to run out of the room in terror, and give proof to all of Remus' fears about the worst of human nature. Sure enough, an explosion did come out of Fleur Delacour, but not the one that Tonks -- and apparently everyone else in the room -- had been expecting. "And what do you mean by zat?" Fleur said suddenly and loudly, "What do you mean, ''e was going to be married?'"
Molly raised her tear-stained face, looking startled. "Well -- only that -- "
"You theenk Bill will not wish to marry me anymore?" Fleur demanded. "You theenk, because of these bites, he will not love me?"
Tonks had an absurd urge to laugh at Fleur's outraged face and Molly's incredulous one. "No, that's not what I— "
"Because 'e will!" said Fleur, and Tonks was momentarily blinded by Fleur's flashing sapphire eyes, her luminous skin -- which was taking on an almost electric glow from the anger that she was radiating -- and the silvery mane of hair that she threw over her shoulder in indignation. She really was spectacular. "It would take more than a werewolf to stop Bill loving me!"
"Well, yes, I'm sure," Molly replied, and Tonks knew how much of her opinion she was holding back, and what it cost her to do it. "But I thought perhaps – given how – how he -- "
"You thought I would not weesh to marry him? Or per'aps, you hoped? What do I care how he looks? I am good looking enough for both of us, I theenk! All these scars show is zat my husband is brave! And I shall do zat!"
Tonks was flabbergasted to say the least, and clearly, so were Molly, Arthur, and just about everybody else in the room. Surely…but no. Fleur really loved him. And what is more, she understood what love truly entailed. And suddenly, though Tonks had always dismissed Fleur as shallow and flighty, she liked her -- admired her, even. And hated her at the same time. Because Bill would not be stupid enough throw true love away when it was offered to him. And Remus…well, did.
"Our Great-Auntie Muriel," said Molly, after a long pause, "has a very beautiful tiara – goblin-made – which I am sure I could persuade her to lend you for the wedding. She is very fond of Bill, you know, and it would look lovely with your hair."
For a moment, Tonks wondered Molly's words were going to be enough to make up for her previous lack of faith in her new daughter-in-law. "Thank you," Fleur said stiffly, "I am sure zat will be lovely."
Tonks watched Molly and Fleur embrace, both women weeping copiously, and she was filled with happiness and hope, and then, just as quickly, hope was replaced by envy. She almost felt like Fleur had stolen her thunder -- that by publicly standing by Bill when the rest of the world might be against him, by offering him her strength and her tenderness…
Suddenly she found herself doing the very thing she promised never to do again. She turned to Remus and said, "You see! She still wants to marry him, even though he's been bitten! She doesn't care!"
Remus grew suddenly pale and looked mortified, barely moving his lips as he responded, "It's different, Bill will not be a full werewolf. The cases are completely – "
Tonks had had enough of his rationalizations. "But I don't care either, I don't care!" She moved toward him, seizing the front of his robes and shaking them in frustration. "I've told you a million times…."
He wouldn't even look at her, and Tonks wondered if she had scared him away for good this time. He said, "And I've told you a million times, that I am too old for you, too poor…. too dangerous…."
Molly spoke over Fleur's shoulder, "I've said all along you're taking a ridiculous line on this, Remus."
"I am not being ridiculous," Remus said, using his patient teacher voice. "Tonks deserves somebody young and whole."
"But she wants you," said Arthur with a small smile, "and after all, Remus, young and whole men do not necessarily remain so."
If Tonks had not been preoccupied with searching Remus' face for signs of surrender, she would happily have kissed Arthur Weasley full on the lips, making his ears turn scarlet. Remus, however, kept his face inscrutable, protesting, "This is….not the moment to discuss it. Dumbledore is dead…."
Minerva's brusque voice interrupted Remus' attempt to distract attention from himself. With her usual knack for getting to the point in a hurry with very little fuss, she said, "Dumbledore would have been happier than anybody to think there was a little more love in the world."
For a moment, less than a second, really, Remus met Tonks' eyes, and the emotions that crossed his features were clear for her to see: pain, mortification, longing, and denial. Then Hagrid walked in with important news and once again, Tonks lost her chance to force Remus to focus on her and to deal with it once and for all.
"I've….I've done it, Professor," said Hagrid, his eyes filled with tears. "M-moved him. Professor Sprout's got the kids back in bed. Professor Flitwick's lyin' down, but he says he'll be all righ' in a jiffy, an' Professor Slughorn says the Ministry's bin informed."
Remus pulled away from her, ostensibly to hear what Hagrid and then Minerva had to say and then finally to say goodnight to Harry. He still refused to look at her; and the rest of the group, while still eyeing the two of them curiously, eventually turned their attention to Bill and his injuries. Tonks watched Remus slip further and further away from her line of vision. With a sinking sensation -- more humiliated than she could have imagined feeling, even in her clumsiest moments -- she found a quiet corner in which she could let all of her overwhelming emotions wash over her.
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A/N: In case you feel cheated by the sad lack of new material in this chapter: I will let you know that the next chapter is already half-done. Thanks for sticking with me, and please let me know what you think.
P.S.: I have actually been making use of my livejournal: the address is in my profile. Occasionally I will put up updates and spoilers about this story, and I am happy to answer questions on it.