Okay, the lack of reviews/enthusiasm about this fic pisses me off...and i will say no more.

Tonks was confused by what Sirius' portrait had just said. It was like he had spoken another language entirely. "So…there's a picture of Remus in here?"

Sirius shook his head. "I wish."

Tonks frowned and groaned. "I really hope you're not playing head games with me, Sirius. I'm really not up to it."

Sirius rolled his eyes and looked briefly at Andromeda. "Tonks, I may be a bit clownish, but I'm no idiot. I know what you're enduring. I lost my own love, many years ago. Andromeda might know her…she was killed when I confronted Wormtail sixteen years ago…"

"Bastet Pollux!" recalled Andromeda. "How could I forget? She was such a loudmouth…you two were suited perfectly."

"Yes. And by the way, she says hello to you. She and I are quite satisfied over here. It's certainly great to have her again." Sirius looked at Tonks again.

"While you two go tripping down Memory Lane, may I PLEASE go upstairs to wallow in sadness some more?" Tonks asked from behind gritted teeth.

"Didn't you hear me, Tonks?"

Tonks nodded. "The joke you made about me being able to see Remus again? I heard it too well." Tonks looked at her stocking feet. They were cold, even beneath the cloth. She wriggled her toes uncomfortably. Why did her feet hurt so much?

Andromeda looked at Sirius and frowned in a similar manner to her daughter. "Sirius, what are you talking about? I'm afraid I'm a little concerned as well now."

Sirius looked around the room, as if spies were among them, and lowered his voice only slightly. "Tonks, 'Dromeda, how much would you be willing to risk to see Ted and Remus again?"

"My life," Tonks said immediately, without any hesitation or thinking.

"Sirius, what are you saying?" asked Andromeda. "Are you saying they're not dead?"

"They're dead, but that doesn't mean there isn't a way," said Sirius. "There is a place where one can go. But it's in terribly dangerous territory, and the journey can take months, or more. No one knows where it is, so no one can Apparate there."

"But if no one knows where this 'Wonderland' is, then how can one be sure it exists?" asked Tonks, moving closer to the portrait again.

"Because I've been there many times. Bastet and I talk moonlit walks down by the river."

"So it's a river?" Andromeda asked.

"Oh for Merlin's sake!" said the portrait of a female Black just above Sirius. The woman had a hooked nose and thick eyebrows. "Sirius Black, don't you dare make these two women take such a terrible set of risks for something that isn't even worth it!"

"On the contrary, Remus is still worth everything to me," Tonks said to the portrait.

Sirius rolled his eyes. "That's our great, great, great aunt through marriage, Andromeda. I'm sure Druella told you about her while drilling the tree into your head when you were a girl—"

"—I can introduce myself, thank you," said the stubborn woman. "Elladora Black."

"Auntie Elladora," Andromeda said, nodding. She looked back down at Sirius. "Tell me more about this place, Sirius."

Sirius shook his head. "Only if it's alright with Tonks," he said, looking at her. Tonks took a deep breath and nodded silently.

"Go on."

Sirius smiled. "You're brave, just like me. It's called the Borderland. It's a valley in between two of the tallest mountains in the world, in the Himalayas. A river cuts through the middle of the valley. People can step into the river and be neither in the realm of the living or the dead. There, they can meet with lost loved ones. But they just cannot come out on the other side into the realm of the dead. Understand so far?"

"No," said Tonks. "If this place is real, then how come no one knows of this? I'd expect there to be mass pilgrimages to this river all the time."

"She has a good point," said Andromeda.

"Let me explain," said Sirius, quickly brushing his mustache with his right index finger. "Those who are dead can only be seen by living eye at night, when the moon isn't out."

"But there's never a night when there's no moon!" Tonks said.

"There's the new moon," Andromeda said.

"Oh yeah," Tonks muttered. "I forgot."

"When there's even a sliver of moon, the dead are invisible," said Sirius.

"So, you say if we go to this place, I can see my Ted again?" asked Andromeda.

"And my Remus?" asked Tonks.

"Yes," said Sirius. "But unfortunately, Auntie Elladora is quite right. The journey it long and terribly draining, not to mention dangerous."

"I don't care!" Tonks suddenly burst out. "I would die for him still," she said. "How can we find this place? Any signs?"

"Nymphadora!" Andromeda snapped. "If the trip is a dangerous one, I will forbid it. You have a son to look after now!"

"Then I will simply take him with me!" Tonks said back. She then turned back to her cousin's portrait. "What kind of landmarks show the location of this Borderland?"

Sirius looked at Andromeda and sighed. "I've said too much already, 'Dromeda. I might as well finish what I've started. Tonks, the only direction I can give to you is that you go southeast until you reach the southern cliffs of the Mediterrainian Sea, then turn due east past the deserts and such until you find the two tallest mountains in the world. The river lies between them. It will be covered in snow, but the river itself always runs."

"Thank you, Sirius," Tonks said. Andromeda noticed a different look in her daughter's eye. It wasn't completely void of sadness, but this 'news' Sirius had given her had made her eyes regain a bit of the color they had lost…

…and Andromeda knew this only meant trouble.

"Why not?!" Tonks screamed. She paced Sirius' old room, where she and Andromeda were staying. It was almost midnight now. Andromeda sat on the bed holding Teddy, who was playfully squeezing a toy and shaking it around. Arthur Weasley had brought the women tea before going to sleep himself several hours ago, but it still sat untouched on the nightstand. The rain that had been pouring continuously for the entire time since their arrival had since let up, but it was too dark now for anyone to care whether it was cloudy.

"Nymphadora, the journey is dangerous and exhausting, as Sirius said himself. After all that's happen, we are both drained enough. You are acting completely irrational!"

"I? IRRATIONAL?! Of all people, I would have thought YOU'D be the one to understand where I'm coming from! Mum, our husbands are DEAD! If we don't take this journey, we will never see them again! Doesn't that frighten you?"

Andromeda rocked Teddy back and forth in the lap. He began to doze off. "And if we do take the journey, we could both die ourselves, and then your baby boy, Remus' last gift to you, will be all alone in the world! Doesn't THAT frighten YOU?"

"If I make the trip, Teddy is coming with me," Tonks said. "That's not debatable."

"Like hell," Andromeda said. "I refuse to allow you to make the trip, and that's final!" Tonks scowled and shook her head.

"I am a woman, Mum. I will not allow myself to be grounded like Sirius was. Because if I do, then I will simply waste away like he did. I must tell you now. I will travel and find the Borderland, with or without you. You can't stop me."

Tonks and Andromeda stared down each other for a solid minute. Andromeda noticed that Teddy was asleep in her arm, and broke the eye contact in order to gently put him in the crib Arthur had quickly put together. But before she could lay Teddy down, Tonks thrust something in Andromeda' path of vision.

It was a photo of Andromeda and Ted Tonks, along with Tonks herself as a toddler. The photo was of Andromeda sitting up in bed on Mother's Day. Ted held a tray full of breakfast foods, and Tonks stood next to him, a single daisy in her hand. All three people were grinning, Ted using his free hand to grip his wife's hand. Tonks' hair was a bright, happy pink. Andromeda felt a shocking chill shoot down her spine as she looked at the photo.

"What about Dad? You may say all you want to try and protect me, but don't forget, Daddy's waiting there for you too," Tonks said, her voice considerably calmer. Andromeda didn't reply. The picture mesmerized her. She'd use to pray that the scene in the photo would come true for Remus, Tonks, and Teddy as well. Now that it sunk in that it wouldn't, Andromeda felt a pain in her chest form. Tonks saw the hurt in her mother's face.

"It may be a hard trip. But it will be even harder for Teddy and I to endure it without you riding beside us on your broom," Tonks said. Andromeda looked from Teddy, now deeply sleeping happily in her arm, to her daughter, a sad and pleading look on her face.

Andromeda sighed, defeated. "You know, brooms would be inefficient for such a long journey. We'll take Ted's and my thestrals."

Tonks didn't smile with her lips, but her eyes certainly beamed for the first time in five days. "Mum!" she cried, her eyes welling up with tears. "We're going to see them again! We'll make it, I swear!"

"I don't doubt you," Andromeda said. She laid Teddy down to sleep in the crib. "We'll wake at dawn tomorrow, pack some food, and then we'll Apparate to our house and round up our thestrals," she planned. Andromeda climbed into bed, and Tonks got in beside her. Andromeda quickly put out the light. "Get some sleep, we'll need it."

"Mum?"

"Yes, Nymphadora?"

"I've never seen a thestral before."

Andromeda found this strange. "But, all those times the Order used thestrals to accomplish missions—"

"—I always used my broom, and I never saw the ones they used myself."

"Oh."

Before dawn the next morning, both women got up to began packing. They had to pack lightly, as Andromeda mentioned that the thestrals they owned were older. Tonks packed a small basket with things for baby Teddy, including a blanket, several washable diapers, some food , a few bottles, and a toy to keep him calm. She then awoke Teddy, bathed him, fed him, and changed him silently.

Meanwhile, Andromeda went downstairs to the kitchen quietly, so as not to wake the Weasleys (Percy and Molly had come home with Arthur when he went to take Ginny over to see Harry and Ron). She packed a rucksack with food for herself and Tonks. She then emptied her purse of all money, and hers and Tonks' Gringotts keys. Once she finished, she put on her black hooded cloak and waited for Tonks to appear with Teddy. She did soon enough, and they quickly Apparated to the house where Tonks had grown up.

Tonks stayed out on the lawn as Andromeda went around to the back of the house to get Ted's thestrals. Looking up at the house where Tonks had been born, raised, married, and had her own child in was a painful, yet pleasurable sight at the same time. The sky around her was still grey, but the rain was gone, and the sky promised a sunny twilight hour this evening. The air was cool and wet, not at all summerish.

"Teddy, this was where Mummy was born, too," Tonks said to Teddy. His hair turned a bright, vibrant orange. Tonks figured that either cotton-candy blue or vivid orange was his 'happy color' as pink was hers. Teddy also seemed to prefer his hair shaggier and a bit longer. Tonks looked at a lock of her own hair. It was still a muddy, mousy brown, but it had grown shorter. Not as short as she liked it, though. Her hair brushed her shoulders. And that was just fine for now. Tonks hair was short only when she was happy. And while the prospect of seeing Remus and her father again was comforting, Tonks had a long way to go before she was happy again.

Tonks turned her head to see if she could get a glimpse of her mother's old garden, when suddenly this…wrinkly, ugly, scary, unnatural FACE appeared before her. Tonks screamed and stepped back, drawing her wand out of her pocket. What the hell WAS it?

"NYMPHADORA! STOP!" Andromeda called, running with a second one of the…the THINGS trotting behind her. They were like…horses that had died and rotted and then suddenly been given life again. Tonks was about to use a spell against this thing when Andromeda yelled again. "LOWER YOUR WAND, NOW!"

Tonks did so, trusting Andromeda. Andromeda ran up to her daughter and used a softer tone of voice.

"Congratulations, Nymphadora. You've just seen your first thestral."