Strangeways, Here We Come
Boggarts…
"Molly, I feel like I'm drinking you out of house and home!" Tonks protested as the Weasley matriarch poured her yet another cup of tea.
"Nonsense, dear," Molly replied, as she snuck a treacle tart onto her plate as well. "You know I enjoy having the company."
Both women knew there was more to it than that, but neither said anything. Besides, Tonks did desperately need to get out of Hogsmeade for a while; patrolling the streets over and over again left her all too much time to think. Or perhaps 'obsess' was a better term...
At least now, along with the tea and sympathy, she had the opportunity to talk about her obsessive worrying. Surely that was better than bottling everything up? At least, that was what she told herself.
Well, there was no use dillydallying around the issue anymore. She'd come to the Burrow with a purpose.
"How is he, Molly? Really?" she asked.
There was no need to ask for clarification as to which 'he' she was referring to. "Didn't he come to see you over Christmas?" Molly questioned with a frown.
"He did," Tonks nodded slowly. "But… Well, you know him. He wouldn't really tell me much about his mission – so I don't worry, he said, although I've been doing nothing but worry… I just – I suppose I came to find out if he said anything more to you, while he was here."
"I understand," Molly said, sipping her tea thoughtfully as she tried to decide what to say. Finally she set her cup down and asked, "Have you run into any boggarts recently?"
The Auror blinked. "Pardon?"
"Yes, somewhat of a non sequitur, I know," she couldn't help but chuckle. "Remus did the exact same thing with me. I was talking to him about your Patronus changing, and out of the blue he brought up boggarts."
He had mentioned her Patronus change to her already, when he had (all too briefly) dropped by, so that wasn't news to her. However, Tonks couldn't pretend to understand what boggarts had to do with anything, and she said so.
"He told me that he'd met a boggart recently, and the form it usually took for him had changed. It used to be the full moon, of course – but now it's you," Molly gently revealed.
"Me?"
"Yes, you. Well, to be more specific, you dead from a werewolf attack," she winced, clearly not wanting to think of such dreadful things. "The poor dear, what a shock that must have been for him…"
Tonks gaped for a few seconds before crying, "Molly, this is awful! He'll just use that as proof that he's 'too dangerous'!"
"Oh, believe me, he tried. I had none of it, of course," she sniffed, shaking her head. "But what I told him, and what I'm trying to tell you now, is that really, it's progress!"
By this point, Tonks was completely baffled. "Progress? How is that progress?"
Reaching across the table, Molly laid a comforting hand on Tonks'. "A person's fears can tell you a lot about them. In fact, sometimes fears can be much more honest than anything else… They're that much harder to hide, you see."
Tonks thought about her words for a few minutes, turning them over in her head. The thing that Remus feared the most in the world was her being hurt…
His greatest fear had changed from being about himself to being about another – about her.
The last thing she wanted was to wish that sort of pain upon him, but at the same time she couldn't stop her heart from swelling with hope. That was love, wasn't it? He still loved her…
"Maybe that is progress," Tonks wondered quietly. "But somehow I doubt he'll see it that way."
"You know Remus," Molly sighed, although it was filled with an exasperated affection. "As clever as that man is, he can be astoundingly slow sometimes. I'm sure he'll figure it out eventually… I just hope he won't need the sight of another body to do it."
Hello all! Sorry for such a long gap between updates, once again. I blame the zillions of little distractions that have come my way… But if it's any consolation, I'll do my best to put my nose to the grindstone and work harder on the full-fledged, multi-chapter fic I've been trying to churn out.
In the meantime, I hope you enjoyed this humble offering! If you drop me a review and let me know, it will of course be muchly appreciated. :D
Toodles,
- ish -