"You never know when and where he might land, and what curse he'll deal first. But he wants me, Tonks. He won't try and hurt you first."
"He won't hurt you either," Tonks said back. "I'll make sure of it!"
"I trust you with my life," Remus said back.
"A…are you afraid?" Tonks asked.
"Yes. Very much. Afraid for you, and your mother, and Teddy. You need to be the one to get back to them safely when I…"
"I meant…are you afraid for yourself?" Tonks said.
"No. With you here with me, I'm not afraid at all. Like I said, I trust you, Dora."
Tonks shot up, her heart racing, her mouth gasping for breath. The flashback seemed so real, so terrifying. This had been the worst one yet, bad enough to physically wake her up this time. Every night since the final battle at Hogwarts, Tonks had seen his eyes from behind her eyelids. They haunted her, knowing that he did, indeed, trust her with his life. And what had happened? She'd gotten knocked out cold by her own spell rebounding, leaving Remus vulnerable, and ultimately, in death's hand.
But all of this thought was quickly overruled by a new thought in Tonks' head. Where the hell was she? What had just happened.
Then she remembered…the young man on the broom who had broken her fall, the dragon that she had fallen onto…the violent storm, Teddy's sickly coughs, Andromeda being swept away in an updraft. Tonks thinking that she was dying when she thought she saw Remus on the broom, saving her.
Now Tonks was sitting safe and sound in a warm bed. The room was dimly lit and fairly large, yet simply furnished. A lamp beside the bed was on, and the window outside showed that the rain from the storm was still falling in sheets outside. She looked around. She must have been in the house of her mysterious savior. After all, she certainly wasn't dead if she was still breathing. The man on the broom couldn't have been Remus. But who was he, then?
On the nightstand by Tonks' bed was a small picture frame that gave a huge hint. It was a framed picture from a Daily Prophet article with the Weasley family in Egypt, waving gleefully to the camera. Tonks quickly put two and two together. Weasleys, dragons, Eastern Europe…
"You're awake already? I'd have thought after the hell you'd just been through, you'd be out cold for a week!" said the (clearly redheaded) man who'd saved Tonks, coming into the room with a tray of tea and scones. Tonks smiled. The face was familiar enough. She'd gone to school with him.
"Charlie!" Tonks gasped lightly in surprise. "How did…why did…what?" was all she managed to say after identifying Charlie Weasley as her hero. Charlie smiled his youthful Weasley grin (he and his father had that in common) and set the tray down by the window.
"I'm afraid you'll have to answer my questions before I answer yours…" he grinned.
Tonks refused to take that for an answer. She denied him a grin back. "My mother? My son?" she squeaked out, surprised to find how weak her voice was. Her throat was dry and hurt whenever air passed through it.
"Both are here and safe. Your baby has one hell of a whooping cough, but I have Healer who's visiting from Vilnius taking care of him. Now, would you be so kind as to tell me what the bloody hell you were doing riding a thestral in the middle of a thunderstorm a thousand miles from England so soon after a war?" Charlie asked. Tonks crossed her arms and pouted her lips.
"You speak as if I was going for a joyride!" Tonks said. "Anyways, why I was there is none of your business!"
Charlie laughed. How could the man be so cheerful? After all, he'd lost a brother two weeks ago just as Tonks lost her husband! "Well, you were about to fall to your death, while I was chasing after a runaway Horntail and happen upon your mother flying about the wind current. I had Neilson take her back to the farm, then I saw you fall off a bucking thestral and went to make sure you were alright—"
"—who's Neilson?"
"A Finnish Crimson-Snout Dragon, one of only two here, the other being his mate, Amphitrite," answered Charlie. He poured some tea into a cup and handed it to Tonks. "It'll fix your strep-throat in an instant!" he promised. Tonks took a sip. The hot liquid was more than welcome in her throat.
"Thank you," Tonks nodded. "Where's my mother?"
Charlie looked out the window and paused a moment before answering. "She's a little shaken up, but she'll live. She's still sleeping in the room next door."
"So, we're in Romania?"
"The one and only!" Charlie said. Tonks snorted. So much for Vienna. "We're on the dragon farm I've been working on for a few years. Wonderful place when it's not raining like this. Summer time is mating season, and two of our Horntails are due to give birth in a few weeks. Should be exciting if you and your mother plan to stay around."
"Well, we don't," said Tonks coldly. Charlie gave her an odd look. "As soon as Mum and Teddy are alright, I'm afraid we have to be moving on!"
"Well, you'll have to keep going on foot, I'm afraid, if you insist on going forward that quickly," Charlie said. "Your thestrals are exhausted and dehydrated. They need at least a week for their strength to build up again."
"Wait…you can see them?" asked Tonks, curiously.
Charlie nodded. "I fought in the Battle, didn't I?"
Tonks nodded. Charlie sighed. "Well, Tonks, I find it interesting that you're asking so much about me, yet you yourself won't tell me anything about why you were out there yesterday!"
"Fine," Tonks groaned. But before she could begin her story, a short, squat little woman in a Healer's uniform appeared in the doorway and cleared her throat.
"Mr. Weasley, Mrs. Tonks is awake and asking for you," she said in a Cyrillic dialect Tonks couldn't really make out other than the mentioning of names.
Charlie answered back in the same language and turned to Tonks. "I have to attend to your mother, but don't think you're getting off so easily!" And with that, Charlie Weasley left the room.
Tonks flopped back down on the bed and quickly shut her eyes, hoping to go to sleep and wake up in her bed in England with Remus snoring away beside her.
Of course, after two weeks of hoping for the same thing, why should tonight be any different?
The smell of hot batter cooking on a griddle was what awoke Tonks next. She had to say, this sensation was much preferred to wake up to instead of the nightmares she'd been having. Finding her throat no longer aching and throbbing against her neck, Tonks was eager to get up and stretch, and it was when she was about to do so when she discovered the tender spot she had in her left lower back. It didn't paralyze her so much as it just made it awkward to walk with. Just the same, Tonks left the bedroom and followed the smell. She was led downstairs (this was a rather big house) into a large parlor, then from there into an even larger dining room, where, sure enough, cinnamon pancakes were being served. One long table divided the room in half, almost like if the four tables of Hogwarts had their own dining rooms. Andromeda was sitting and sipping a cup of tea and talking in Russian (since when did she know a Slavic language?) with a dark-haired woman. The table was about half-filled with people. Tonks wondered who they were.
Charlie saw her coming into the dining room as he set a plate of bacon on the table. He rushed to her side without a moment's notice.
"Good to see you feeling better," Charlie said.
"Who are these people?" Tonbks asked, pointing to the half-dozen or so other people sitting around the table.
"Oh, these are my colleagues in my dragon studies and research. They are the best witches and wizards in our field, and I am just a lowly rookie in their prescence!" Charlie said dramatically.
"Oh hush up, Charlie!" barked a loud girl with red-blonde hair and a hard American accent. "You're just as good as us!" Andromeda cringed at the girl's unique voice.
Charlie nodded at the girl, who had to be younger than Tonks. "This is Kelly Morton, from Queens, New York in the United States. She's only 18 and yet knows more about the mating patterns of dragons and their evolution over the centuries than anyone else in the field! She spent a few years studying at Beauxbatons before we recruited her."
"Pleased to meet you," Kelly said, nodding at Tonks. Tonks took a seat next to her while Charlie introduced everyone else. Andromeda smiled at Tonks comfortingly as she sat.
"This is Mayu Kawasaki from Hyogo, Japan," Charlie pointed at a petite, Oriental girl, who nodded silently. "She's excellent with dragon-related injuries. And Ngola Imbele from Senegal," Charlie nodded at a young black man with dreadlocks and a handsome face. "He's current on break right now from excavating for ancient dragon fossils in New Zealand, and he's a second cousin of Kingsley Shacklebolt."
Charlie kept going on like that for a short while, but Tonks zoned out, what with so much on her mind. She ate very little and spent most of her time in between thoughts about Teddy's illness and where she was to go from here. Great, they were already going to have to spend a solid week just…wandering around with dragons until their thestrals recovered. Stupid thestrals….supposedly built for long-distance travel…
"Tonks? Can you hear me?" Charlie made Tonks snap out of her haze. Everyone was gone now from the table. How long had she ben out of it?
"It's a nice warm day outside. We still need to talk about you and why you're this far south," Charlie said. Damn it, Tonks had hoped that he'd forgotten all about last night's awkward conversation.
Tonks looked up at him with a neutral face. "I would like to see my son first."
Charlie shook his head. "He's too contagious still, but the Lithuanian Healer spent all night with him. He's doing much better this morning, she assured me."
Tonks, seeing that she wouldn't be able to avoid talking to Charlie much longer, stood up and sighed. "Fine, but I'm tired of telling this story out loud, so pay attention…"
Indeed, the day was warm, but not hot. It was perfect. Tonks' story impressed Charlie greatly, and he personally admired her courage and strength along with the strength of her mother. Not that he wasn't always smitten by Tonks, because he was. Being the same age, right down to the same month, Charlie had always felt a small twinge of love for his friend. Of course, things got complicated with she began seeing his older brother, and then even more complicated when they broke up. Marrying Remus Lupin was possibly the most complicated part of all. Now that she was a widow at twenty-five years old, Charlie saw no chance. After all, she was traveling halfway around the world to see him again.
"So, Charlie, you and your dragon-studying friends all live in that house?" asked Tonks.
Charlie nodded. "For most of the year, it's a boardinghouse for us. Olga Kashyminova, the local girl, actually owns the house. But during the Christmas holiday, we'll all go to our respective parts of the world, except Kelly, of course. Because she was a foster child before she went to Beauxbatons, she usually goes to Japan with Mayu or to stay with old schoolmates in France."
"Sounds like a fun life."
"No, it's actually harder than you think. Many of the local Muggle village communities are ganging up on us, saying that those dragons must be destroyed as they will set their towns on fire, blah. blah, blah!" Charlie moaned. Tonks nodded.
"That's terrible," said Tonks. "Many people treated Remus that way."
"I'm sure he managed to pull through with a girl like you to keep him on his feet."
Tonks almost laughed. That wasn't exactly how things went. But she didn't say anything. "You're really loyal, too, seeing as you've risked your neck many times over in the past week alone just to see him again," Charlie said.
"It will give me closure," Tonks said, again resuming her unfeeling voice. Truth be told, that was only a one-hundreth of what she wanted this journey and reunion to bring her. "I never got a chance to say goodbye to him, and nor did Teddy."
Charlie didn't speak for a few moments, as if he was getting some idea. "Charlie?" asked Tonks, breaking the silence after a solid minute.
"Closure with a loved one. That's a very good point, Tonks," said Charlie. "That's why I've just decided to go with you to the Borderland."