A/N: This chapter is going to be particularly shorter and more of a filler, but rest assured, the next few chapters are going to be more than making up for it as a new character enters our story….hints of this new character come in at the end of this chapter, see if you can guess who it is (it's going to be kind of obvious)! Enjoy!
"NYMPHADORA, STOP WORRYING! WE'RE FLYING WITH THE WIND!!" hollered Andromeda, raising her voice so her daughter could hear her above the roaring wind at their backs. The sky was overcast, with even darker clouds racing at them from behind. The air was cold and wet. Teddy was sneezing in Tonks' arms every few kilometers, and Tonks feared that the frequent flying and chilly mountain-range weather were getting her son sick. Andromeda had insisted from the start that they fly low, and they couldn't travel as far if they flew lower. And as fast as Tonks and Andromeda pushed their thestrals, the storm was clearly winning the race.
"MUM, IT'S GAINING ON US!" Tonks warned. "AND TEDDY'S SICK!!"
"KEEP IT UP! VIENNA'S NOT FAR OFF! YOU'RE FLYING JUST FINE!" Andromeda called back. Tonks groaned and pulled slightly ahead of her daft mother, and also climbed a little higher in altitude. While the air was turbulent with wind and near freezing cold, the morning still had an ambience of calm to it, particularly closer to the ground. Tonks decided to disobey her mother's order to keep low in altitude and flew higher and higher, hoping to break through the cloud cover.
"NYMPHADORA!! WHAT THE BLOODY HELL DO YOU THINK YOU ARE DOING?!" Andromeda called. But Tonks was too high up to hear the woman. She picked up speed with her thestral and finally hit the clouds. Hunching Teddy even deeper inside Andromeda's thick black cloak, Tonks suddenly took a face full of water. Ick. Holding her breath, Tonks suddenly popped out on the other side of the cloud that had just soaked her.
The sky above the clouds was absolutely gorgeous. Tonks held her breath again, this time out of pure awe for the vision. The early sun reflected off the clouds, making the tops of them turn orange and pink. The high cirrus clouds above Tonks looked like someone had lightly dabbed their blue ceiling with white paint on a thin little brush. The higher winds weren't nearly as bad as below, and instead of howling and cursing in her ear, these winds whispered a soft song. Teddy, who had been coughing and sneezing, suddenly stopped, his olive-colored hair turned to match the color of the sky, his happy blue. Tonks had to smile. It was a relief to see him happy, after a few hours of him coughing into her bosom. The peaceful sight looked nothing short of a masterpiece painting and the clouds from above looked almost good enough to eat.
A small flock of high-flying swans swerved up above the overcastting clouds (which seemed to wrap around the earth like a tight-fitting skin from horizon to horizon) and caressed the air, making the breeze hit Tonks slightly harder as they flew by gracefully (seems she was more than right when arguing with Remus why her Animgus form would NOT be a swan). Tonks' thestral called to the swans, fri9ghtening them for a moment. But soon, they seemed to realize the thestral meant no harm, and they lurked nearer the travelers, while, of course, still maintaining their distance. One particularly daring swan flew very near Tonks and Teddy and nipped at a bit of Teddy's blue hair. Instead of crying, Teddy giggled, delighted at the swan's kiss. The swan honked playfully at Teddy before he flew back to join the flock with his prize. Tonks sighed calmly as she watched the flock dip below the clouds again to land safely before the bad weather hit. Tonks weakly smiled. Teddy had made a friend.
Tonks wondered of this was what heaven looked like, and if this was what Remus saw whenever he had the notion to go for an early-morning stroll.
She then looked over her shoulder in the opposite direction, and a huge tower of black clouds loomed behind her. The storm was certainly almost on top of them, and from up here, it was even more obvious. The mass of clouds stretched much higher than the overcast clouds carpeting the space below Tonks and Teddy. Its darkness deeply contrasted the light blue behind it, almost like mother nature's version of a Dark Mark (this thought sent chills up and down Tonks' spine). Every so often (Tonks couldn't keep her eyes off the massive structure) a flash of light from within the cloud lit it up before quickly dying. Lightning. Considering that she was FLYING, that certainly wasn't a good sign at all.
Tonks dove back below the clouds (getting soaked again as she passed through the layer of cloud) to warn Andromeda about the lightning.
"MUM!! IT'S LOOKING REALLY BAD!! WE'RE NOT GOING TO MAKE IT TO VIENNA!!"
"NYMPHADORA, WE'RE GOING TO BE THERE VERY SOON! NOW CONCENTRATE OF DRIVING, THE WINDS' REALLY PICKING UP NOW! WE'LL BE OKAY, I PROMISE!" Andromeda replied with an even more strained shout. Tonks wished she could fly back above the clouds and weave in and out of the flock of swans again (she could vaguely see them landing on a lake that had just passed beneath her).
The race between Tonks, Andromeda, and the approaching front was a losing one for the travelers. Before they had a chance to make an emergency landing (Tonks had been pleading with her mother for an hour since she saw the swans land), the storm caught up with them, and hit in force. They visibility range was next to nothing, the rain was cold and hard, the wind was ten-times as fast as even before, and the fact that Andromeda and Tonks had to dodge lightning bolts as the same time made it even worse. The visibility made it too dangerous of them to land anywhere, so they had no choice but to fly on. Andromeda was surely regretting her choice now.
"TRY TO AVOID THE—"
"—WHAT, MUM?!?"
"DON'T GET CAUGHT IN THE—"
"—I CAN'T HEAR!!"
It was no use. Andromeda couldn't communicate with her child now. Andromeda squinted to make sure Tonks could still see her, and signaled with her arms as if to say "keep flying straight through!" Tonks nodded roughly and dipped her head low to provide minimal wind resistance.
For a solid hour, Andromeda and Tonks struggled to keep aloft long enough to spot a safe landing place down below. Tonks' thestral was nearly hit with an airbourne lightning strike and she nearly lost her life, along with Teddy's. This was when Andromeda decided that they could start their descent no matter where they were, as long as it was slow and steady.
"KEEP LOW, CHILD! KEEP LOW!" Andromeda called to Tonks as a sudden burst of particularly fast wind nailed them.
"WHAT?!" asked Tonks, keeping Teddy, who was sneezing and suffering again, beneath the cloak, which was nearly soaked down to the lining anyways, and therefore, didn't do much good.
"KEEP STEADY, OR ELSE WE'LL BLOW OFF COURSE!!"
Ha! As if they weren't off course enough. Andromeda predicted that they could possibly be as far off-course as central Germany or even Poland. The thestrals weren't flying anymore. Literally, it was the wind beneath their wings that kept Andromeda, Tonks, and Teddy aloft.
Andromeda squinted her eyes shut and prayed to her husband to help her family out "Ted, please be here for us and make this storm go away…"
Meanwhile, Tonks herself muttered a silent prayer to Remus to keep her and her mother and baby safe. "Remus, oh Remus, help us to safety! Please lead us out of this storm and guide us to a safe place! Help us! Help your wife and son!" But no sooner was the prayer spoken than a huge upburst of wind smashed into them. Tonks smartly bucked her thestral so the upburst wouldn't catch them. But Andromeda was thrown completely off guard. Tonks screamed and Andromeda and her thestral were swept high up into the clouds, out of sight of Tonks.
Gulping for any icy breath she could suck into her lungs, Tonks swallowed her fear and decided that while she didn't know what was below, it would be a hell of a lot better just to make a beeline for the ground. Tonks turned her thestral downward and began flying towards the ground. But another strong gust, more forceful than any gust yet (though not an upburst, like the one that had caught her mother), knocked Tonks completely off the thestral, which then took off to find safety on its' own.
But Tonks didn't fall straight down. The strong wind actually carried her with it as she tumbled over and over in the clouds. Teddy was screeching. Tonks was frightened and exhausted at the same time. She realized that this had to be it. This was going to be how she died. She and Teddy both. The moment the wind would let up, she and Teddy would fall to their deaths, if they weren't lucky enough to get hit by lightning beforehand. Tonks used her last bit of life to kiss her son's forehead in an apology for being as stupid as to taking him along on this horrendous journey.
Tonks felt her strength leave her, and she let herself go to the winds, still gripping naturally onto Teddy, nestled in her bosom. As she felt herself slip into unconsciousness, she heard a faint, masculine voice say "Wingardium Leviosa!" Suddenly, Tonks' body felt weightless.
Out of her fading eyesight, she could see a silhouette of a male body with light hair (Tonks couldn't make out of it was strawberry blonde or light red) pointing a wand at her whilst riding a broom, casting the spell. Tonks squinted and felt the air leave her lungs.
"R…Remus?" she whispered airily. She really was dying, then.
Suddenly, the man on the broomstick let go of the spell just as Tonks felt something steady slip beneath her. Again, she could hear the beating of wings like that of her thestral.
But what she was on was no thestral. Turning her head weakly to the side, Tonks saw a huge mass of lizard-like scales and the face of what suspiciously looked like a dragon.
That last overwhelming image was what put her deep into unconsciousness.