Strangeways, Here We Come

Birth…

He watched Tonks tie a pink ribbon ("It's cheery, isn't it?") around the letter she was owling. Strange, the things that could prompt the most vivid recollections of instances and events long past… She shooed the bird out the window, then turned towards him and caught his distracted look.

"What is it?" she asked him, curious.

"Oh, nothing," he replied quickly, a tad embarrassed at the direction his thoughts had taken. But of course, he should have known the inquisitive Auror wouldn't let him change the subject. Sighing, he revealed, "This will probably make me appear every inch the lecherous old man, but I was actually remembering the day you were born."

To his surprise, she didn't appear put off by that declaration. Instead she plopped down on the seat beside him and begged him to tell her the story.

It had been a particularly bad day, Remus began, after considerable wheedling on Tonks' part. One of those days where everything went wrong, and though separately they were merely small annoyances, they compounded until it all seemed utterly awful.

To start, he had still been recovering from the full moon a few nights before, meaning he ached all over and looked rather peaky. His friends had been kind enough to let him sleep in, but then they'd forgotten to wake him up; consequently he'd been late for breakfast, and the only thing the bottomless pits that called themselves Gryffindors had left was some porridge. To Remus' queasy stomach it looked all too much like the armadillo bile in the Potions classroom.

Aching and hungry, he was forced to soldier on as things just kept going badly. He was late to class, dropped his books, forgot his essay in the common room, ruined the Shrinking Solution he was supposed to be brewing, endured Severus' sneers, got caught in the cross-fire of the food fight Sirius initiated at lunch…

And that was all before Divination, which was sure to send the day even further downhill. Remus wasn't especially good at it, but that wasn't the problem; no, rather the trouble came from his being partnered with Sybill Trelawney. The girl had a tendency towards the melodramatic, and constantly predicted he would fall victim to either a horrible death, chronic illness, or (and this always put the other Marauders in stitches) wild animal attack.

Tonks snorted at that. "Well, I suppose that's another correct prediction we could chalk up to her, no? It was true, after all – only late." Then she prodded him on again, eager to hear about her role.

He had been resigned to more of the same fatalistic forecasts as the class progressed to crystal balls, and groaned when she told him, "Relax your Inner Eye and gaze into the Orb. What do you see in its shadows?"

The swirling mist inside hadn't appeared to be much of anything. He squinted, but then the colours merely blurred together – by the furthest stretch of his imagination the closest thing it resembled was a sort of rainbow, and he told her so.

"A rainbow?" she had echoed, sounding intrigued. That prompted her to peer in herself, and her eyes widened. "How interesting! The dominant colour by far is… Pink. And a shape is taking form – a lizard of some kind? Ahh, a chameleon! Remus, this means a great change will be coming your way!"

He was relieved at having received no new ominous portents but still didn't think twice about Trelawney's predictions, even when Professor Delphi had commended her on the good reading. When was she ever correct? It only crossed his mind again later that evening, when an owl swooped in through the dormitory window grasping a roll of parchment tied with pink ribbon.

"Moony, you heard Trelawney – she saw pink, so that must be for you! Is there a secret girlfriend you've been hiding from us?" James had chuckled, but the owl swooped over to Sirius instead.

Unrolling the letter, the boy skimmed it over and then burst out into an exuberant whoop. "Brilliant! My cousin Andromeda just had a baby girl!"

Remus felt an odd jolt at that news. Although he wanted nothing more than to curl up under the covers and sleep for a week, he couldn't help but smile. "That's excellent news. Send her our congratulations." Despite such a horrid day, things somehow seemed undeniably brighter then.

"What's the kid's name?" James wanted to know.

Sirius read further down the letter, and then snorted when he came across it. "Nymphadora? Now that's a mouthful for the poor tiddler."

"I think it's quite nice…" Lupin had mused, mostly to himself but overheard by the others.

"You're absolutely barmy!" Sirius gaped, and Peter quickly nodded his head in agreement. "She's going to grow up hating it, mark my words. Aside from Andy – and I'll have to owl back and ask her what she was thinking – you're probably the only one who'd ever like it."

"And right he was!" Tonks hooted, quite amused by his tale. "I can't believe you actually liked my name even back then – what thirteen year old boy wouldn't make fun of it? I certainly had to endure the heckling in my Hogwarts days…"

"I wasn't about to make fun of a baby," Remus responded indignantly, and then gazed at her oddly. As she had done countless times before, she surprised him with her reaction. "You're all right with this? You don't think it's… strange that I recall that? That I was almost halfway done school when you were born?"

She just laughed, leaning in to plant a smacking kiss on his cheek. "You daft man, I was perfectly aware of our age difference before this, and it hardly matters," she told him matter-of-factly, and then smirked. "Besides, it's rather sweet you remember that. But now that I know you've such a good memory, I won't accept any excuses about forgetting birthdays or anniversaries…"

And I won't accept any excuse about not reviewing! Leave me a few words, if you don't mind? ;)

Toodles,
- ish -