Alright, so after Chapter 2, things start to go downhill. Dialogue really isn't my cup of tea, so keep that in mind as you read. Oh, and once again, please excuse the grammar and other mistakes I've made because I don't have a Beta, and I don't particularly want to proofread right now. Maybe some other time.
I love reviews. I am a Review-aholic. Its a clinically diagnosed condition which requires many many reviews for every chapter I upload, so you can help by sending my every thought you have while reading this. Alright, so I guess I'll let you read now.
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The sudden end of the monotonous droning was what snapped Tonks from her daze. It was boring being made to sit quietly in one place while someone pontificated about the death, carnage, and destruction caused by Voldemort and his followers. She much preferred debating the pros and cons of grabbing Snape by his black hair and ripping off his robes where he sat. On one hand, she would finally have at least a moment of what she wanted; then again, he would probably hex her to death before she could take her next breath. All in all, she decided as his smirk deepened and one eyebrow leisurely rose, it would be a much cleaner, kinder death than what she was expecting. The pointed stares from across the table and the almost instant roar of chairs scraping across the floor alerted her to the end of the meeting. At last she was free to wander about her merry way. She thought of her dark and empty flat and the heavy briefcase she had to drag home and sort through tonight. Perhaps she could linger here for a bit. Maybe Snape would wander off into the library to peruse the shelves again tonight. It was a thought she decided worth pursuing.
The delicate swish of heavy fabric against her hip as she rose from her chair begged her to turn her head. The soundlessness and the fluidity of his every move demanded she follow him with her gaze at the very least. The weariness artfully hidden away in every line of his body as he retreated from the emptying room caught her attention. She was worried about him. The hesitant shuffle of his feet across the heavy wood floor alerted her suspicions. Something was wrong with him. She didn't know what, but she was willing to bet that no one else did either. Her lips pursed and her forehead crinkled. She started to rise to her feet, but the long shadow of Remus Lupin stretched over her and pinned her where she was.
"I thought you were going to wait and talk to me this morning," his low voice stated. It was an almost emotionless tone; it was devoid of the hurt and the anger and the melancholy she had expected.
"I'm sorry, Remus," she shrugged as she staggered inelegantly to her feet. "I must've forgotten. My head was killing me, and I looked like hell. It was probably better that I left; really, Remus. No one should have to see something as horrible as I was this morning when they wake up," she smiled maladroitly. Her cyclone hair still flared around her head in a neon blue halo while her black as pitch eyes stared intently at the carefully folded collar on Lupin's shirt.
"Really, Tonks, I wanted to talk to you – it was important. I wouldn't have cared what you looked like first thing in the morning, and I could have found you something for your head." The irritation glazing his eyes made him seem much more intent than she would have found him otherwise. Therefore, she lifted herself onto the top of the old table and gestured for him to continue. Something about the way he was running his hand through his hair and the way he had just talked to her made wonder what he was so desperate to say.
Suddenly, Lupin stopped pacing stiffly and stared directly into her eyes as if he was preparing himself for a duel to the death. "We can't go on like this, Tonks. You're one of my closest friends now, but I can't help but think of you as a younger sister I never had. You are young and vibrant; what could you want with an old werewolf like me?" His chest expanded and contracted so quickly the breath rattled as he expelled it. His gold eyes flared in determination. He had decided this was the end of the game; he was sorry, but he just wasn't interested.
Tonks crinkled her brow and cocked her head to the side. She really was confused. Halfway through his restless pacing she had decided to brace herself for the declaration of his feelings for her instead of his refusal to reciprocate her supposed feelings for him. "But, Remus, I just want to be your friend." Her voice sounded strange to her ears. Somewhere in the ancient house of Black she could hear the trilling of someone's laughter. Whoever it was sounded so far away from her. She pulled her attention back to the movements of Remus as though she was drowning in molasses and something rotten caught in her head. The feeling remained as Remus turned a fatherly gaze onto her.
"I know this is difficult, Tonks; and awkward. Actually it's very awkward and slightly degrading, but we have to have this conversation. I don't love you like you love me. I just want to be friends, as clichéd as that is, and I don't want you to be hurt."
Tonks was sure he was going to continue in much the same vein, but she interrupted the steady flow of his voice, "Wait, Remus, I'm not in love with you. I don't know where you got the idea, but believe me; I'm in love with someone else. And I'm not stupid enough to think that he could ever actually love me too. Actually, Remus, I have to go find him; he didn't seem well when I saw him, and I'm worried about him. We can talk more later, right?" She slid from the worn surface of the table without waiting for confirmation. She was tired and Snape wasn't likely to linger here long.
Her footsteps on the threadbare carpet seemed to echo like an avalanche through the narrow corridors. A soft light spilled irregularly from the library and she could smell the intoxicating scent of fire and melting wax. Praying it was him cloistered in the claustrophobic space packed with dusty tomes from the ages when the hate amongst wizarding kind first bloomed, she stepped out of the shadows into the murkiness of the room.
Snape was reclined on one of the moth-eaten couches farthest from the fireplace with his feet resting on one arm of the couch. In one hand he clutched a green glass of something that reeked of alcohol, and his other hand languidly massaged his forehead as he tilted his face toward the ceiling. She almost didn't dare to enter and intrude upon his moment of weakness. Because that is what he would refer to this moment as. Right now he was not terror and hate. He was just a man with too many thoughts and a duty that was ripping him apart. Moments like these were why she loved him. And she did love him, which was why she slid as quietly as she could into the ring of soft candlelight he had created around himself and his small island refuge in the grand library.
"What is it that you want, Miss Tonks?" he queried without stopping the movements of his hand or opening his black eyes.
A strangled sound tinged with hysteria half-way between a whine and a giggle ripped through her teeth as she tried to force the sound from emerging. Resigned to the nonsensical mess she became around him, she said, "I thought you hadn't heard me."
"On the contrary, Miss Tonks, the entire continent would have heard your traipsing through the hallways. I would have to have been both dumb and deaf to have not heard your approach."
"I tried to be quiet," she sighed, disgusted with herself as she sunk into an armchair beside the couch Snape had claimed.
"Indeed, Miss Tonks," he replied resting the palm of his hand across his eyes. She could have sworn he sounded amused. The trick with talking to Severus Snape, she had learned after several attempts, was to listen to the lilt in his voice. While usually impossible to discern a difference in his tone, whenever he meant to say something he said it in the way he spoke instead of the words he used.
"You know," she crooned and leaned slightly forward in her chair, "I think I may just be running out of ideas for my hair. Pink is great and all, but it's just not…," she made a frustrated face and sank back into her chair. She was just trying to lighten the mood, not debate the status of her mental and emotional stability.
"Sometimes," he almost purred as his wrist slowly turned so the ice spun along the edge of his glass, "the most simple, natural way is the best." His wrist kept turning and the clink of the ice against glass was the only sound in the musty room. "But I would not know," he continued, "I am, after all, a man with no face; none at all."
She couldn't help the undignified snort, but she did attempt to hide her face so he wouldn't see the mirth still shining in her eyes when he turned to glance at her. "Really," she was trying so hard to keep from laughing, "are you always this cheerful or is it just me?"
He rolled his eyes and slowly pushed himself into a sitting position. A wince creased his brow, and his dark eyelashes pressed against the pallid curve of his cheek in pain. Worriedly, Tonks leaned forward and pressed her hand against his arm. His head swung around to face her faster than she could blink, and his eyes ripped through her. Rage seethed beneath his every surface. His fury swallowed her, but she dared not look away from his smoldering gaze.
"I do not need your pity," his ice cold voice almost whispered. She imagined she could feel the breath his words traveled on caress her cheek as he barely maintained control on his wrath. To her humiliation, Tonks could feel her eyelashes fluttering against her skin as though they were butterfly wings in a gale. Her breath caught in her throat and she was sure her blood was cold. There was a strange ringing in her ears and her thoughts evaded her. She wished he would stop looking at her.
"I don't pity you," she choked. She imagined the walls were undulating again in time with a song only they could hear. Maybe, she decided, the bitter wailing in her ears was the tune they pulsated with. She wished she could dance with them rather than face the vehemence in his eyes. "But I'm worried about you," she whispered to the ivory column of his throat.
A cruel snort erupted from him then. "And so the sweet, beautiful maiden finds it in her golden heart to love the bitter, vicious beast. Forgive me, Miss Tonks, but I fail to see the humor of this story."
"This isn't a game, Snape!" her eyes snapped back to his before she could think through her actions. Rage didn't quite describe the fury drowning her. She imagined there was a different tune the walls vibrated with now. This was something far more consuming; it was vaguely like a wildfire, and now that she was burning with it, she was willing to pass it on to anyone she could.
"If you had any idea how much I hate you, I think even you would have mercy on me. But then I think if you avoided me, I would die. And I hate that almost as much as I hate you. Your stupid speech about not having a face beneath your mask – maybe you should try having to many bloody faces. Try having every mask you wear be your actual face until you have no idea who you are anymore." She knotted her fingers in her blue, cyclone hair and pulled. Long, red flames grew from her scalp and spilled over her shoulders and between her long, pale fingers. A strange bravery seemed to bubble through her then. The recklessness seemed to be in competition with her wildfire hair and she continued with her speech, "But I love you, dammit. I love you and I wish I could die because then you would never have to know. I thought by now I could either ignore it, or you would know. I guess I was wrong, Snape, because I still ache just as much as I have before, and you look like I just attacked you with a soup spoon."
The flames in her now violet eyes receded and left her far colder than she thought she could be. The weight of her now long hair seemed to be pulling her down so she could not look into his bottomless eyes, but she was thankful for the shadowy haven it created when it fell across her blanched and startled face. She knew he was still staring at her with that disconcerting light in his eyes. She waited and waited for him to say anything, but the surrounding silence was all that answered her. Maybe, she decided, it was enough of an answer.
"I'll just…go," she breathed as she lurched crazily to her feet. He didn't try to stop her.
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Her footsteps slapped on the empty streets and she could barely force herself to breathe. Each sob stuck in her throat and clung to the swollen tissue keeping the breath locked deep inside her. Her head ached with too many tears and her nose dripped with them. She couldn't see where she was, and she wished she could just lie down and cry alone on the cold and damp street that smelled like vomit and soggy cigarettes. The prickling rain still fell and coated her skin like an angry, stinging blanket. She could feel the cold mist sink into her skin and her sobs came harder. Her feet hit the ground in a chaotic pattern of stumbles and leaps as she staggered on into the dark. She wished someone could have told her how painful it was to spill your heart out onto the carpet in front of the coldest, most bitter man in the world. She wished she hadn't been so stupid as to let herself spew forth her feelings to the one man who wouldn't give a damn. She cursed herself and slid under the bus stop awning.
The bench was slightly damp, but it was far drier than the surrounding area. She pressed her clammy forehead against the cool plastic wall and let the sobs shake her body. The ache under her ribs seemed to have spread through her abdomen, and she was sure she would never be warm again. Through blurred eyes, she watched the clear plastic fog from her breath. The patch grew and shrank with every shuddering gasp and shallow pant. One spidery finger traced a nonsensical pattern through the moisture and she watched as fat water drops slid down the wall. She drew her knees to her chest and pressed herself into as small a space as she could. When she could feel the dull thud of her heart reverberate through her thighs, she let her head flop against the wall again. She pressed her eyelids tight and prayed as the last of her tears slid through her lashes that he would just disregard everything; just lose her in the music pounding in her head.