A / N : Requested by no-one and written on a whim, this is set, very obviously, during Harry's fifth year, when Bellatrix and co break out of Azkaban. It's dedicated three ways – to xoxLewrahxox, to Expecting Rain, and to Jacalyn Hyde, and you all ought to know why . . . . . . :)
The Remus / Tonks stuff here . . . . I've just realized I find Remus and Tonks rather cute, though I disagree with aspects of how their relationship plays out in canon. (Namely, that they both DIE.) And it's about time Azkaban had indirectly good effect on a character's life, or I wouldn't be very fair, would I?
Reviews are love. Enjoy my random mind. Etc. :D
Nympadora Tonks
She is in the kitchen of No. 12, Grimmauld Place, when news of the breakout reaches her. She hates this house, though she will never say it unless Sirius says it first. She doesn't want to make him more miserable than he already is – much as she loves Sirius, he's been a lot less fun since Harry went back to school, and this house, that portrait, and that house elf are all topics of conversation which send his mood into an immediate downward spiral. But she hates it. Hates the gloomy rooms and pokey staircases, hates the musty air and . . . . everything about it, really. This place is pure poison, and her body knows it. She can't set foot inside the front door without tripping, she slips on the varnished floorboards and walks into cabinets and . . . . She knows she's clumsy, but she can't help but feel that the house is out to get her, a feeling ranting Great-Aunt-Whatever-She-Is-Walburga does nothing to refute.
It's four'o'clock, and they are talking over tea – just chatting really, her and Sirius, and she thinks – she thinks – he's in a good mood, that her tall tales about Mad Eye's paranoia are cheering him up.
She doesn't remember, afterwards, how it all happens. She only sees snatches of the scene – Remus' white face as he holds up the Prophet, and Sirius' rage – the sound that fills the kitchen is one that gives her shivers, that shocks her more than the chair hurled across the flagstones or the inhuman anger on her cousin's face. The sound reminds her that Sirius will never be the person her mother remembers, or the one she gets occasional glimpses of, mostly when he's with Harry. Azkaban took something away from him. Part of him died there.
The person he could have been, maybe.
She doesn't remember leaving. Doesn't remember her trainers slapping against the pavement as she runs, doesn't remember that first, clear lungful of winter air outside. But she remembers why – remembers the reason for her flight.
That face, staring and straining and screaming, as though the woman can scratch through the lense of the camera if she only fights hard enough. And she has, her niece realizes with a jolt. She's free. Pale, with wild dark eyes and snarling curls – darker and fiercer and utterly, utterly mad, but still . . . .it's her mother. Tonks swallows, suddenly and inexplicably sick. Of all the tales her mother told her, all the uncomfortable truths uncovered at her urging . . . somehow, it had never really hit home that this woman, these people, came from the same place as her mother, or were anything like her. Her mother, kind and soft and wary, but always understanding. Her mother, who is comfort and love and security, and this woman, this monster, who is fear and incomprehension and hopelessness . . . .
How could two people look so alike but be so different inside?
Tonks has spent years playing with her own appearance, but has never stopped to think about what it all means. How?
She shivers. January. The air is sharp, and frost crackles beneath her feet. Her bobbly pink jumper (a Christmas gift from Molly she is wearing today simply for the horrified look her mother had given it) was cozy in the kitchen but seems much too thin out on the street.
She jumps when something warm and heavy settles unexpectedly across her shoulders. A jacket, threadbare and old, but so comforting. A rush of relief sweeps through her. It smells like home, and for a moment – a split second really – she expects to see a parent when she looks up. She feels stupid and naive and in need of comforting.
"I thought you might be cold," Remus says mildly. His voice is hoarse, and he smells like hot lemon and honey. He must have a cold. Nymphadora feels her cheeks burn, wondering why she has noticed this, wondering why it matters, why that husky note in his voice sounds so appealing to her.
"Thanks," she mutters. His jacket smells like lemon too. Does he have lozenges in his pockets or something?
She pushes the thought away and waits for him to break the silence, to say something about her disappearing act, or to comment on the weather, or the breakout. He doesn't. He watches her, as though the intensity of his gaze alone can warm her through and through, but he says nothing.
No-one has ever looked at her like that before. It makes her feel scared and oddly safe, all at the same time.
She shivers again, though she isn't cold anymore, and sits down on the kerb, not caring about the ice soaking her jeans. Remus doesn't seem to care either. He sits beside her, still silent.
"Were you scared?" Dora whispers, staring at her knees. "In the first war, when you realized it was all real . . ." A lump is forming in her throat. "When you realized you'd really have to fight, and you might not win . . . ." Another shiver. She has never felt more like someone fresh out of Auror training, has never understood the sheer terror inherent in the phrase 'new blood' before. "Were you scared?"
There is a long silence. When Remus breaks it, there seems to be more than a cold colouring his voice.
"I'm still scared, Dora" he murmers. "We all are."
And something breaks inside her.
Somehow – later she won't understand that either – but somehow, the world shifts with his words, and when it settles back to rights again, Remus has an arm around her, holding her tight, and she is crying onto his shoulder like a lost little girl, something wholly unchildlike swelling her heart. They are standing, though she does not remember getting up. Her jeans are damp and her cheeks are as pink as her hair, and when she kisses Remus on a sudden, strange whim, it feels half like sanity and half like beautiful, beautiful insanity.
It is a moment too good to last, a fairytale played out in the cold with war hovering above the hero's head, but Dora can't quite bring herself to care. She kisses Remus in the cold, and the air crackles with something more than frost.
Below them, her sanity long lost and her screams a silent and too-easily ignored objection, the newspaper-Bellatrix lies crumpled in the snow.