FIC: Pretending That Isn't (Harry/Tonks) NC-17 Title: Pretending That Isn’t Author/Artist: Ivy Riddle Rating: NC-17 Prompt (the full prompt): “When I needed sunshine, I got rain.” Pairing(s): Mainly Harry/Tonks, mentions of Sirius/Tonks and Remus/Tonks Word Count: Around 1,500 Warnings (if any): Mentions of incest and sex with a minor. Author/Artist's notes: None, really. Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.
It was raining.
Rain. In London. Who would have guessed it?
Nothing was ever sunny anymore, not for her. Even when the sun was out, it was as though a dimming haze followed her around, shrouding her in misery and despair, stripping her of hope.
Hope. Hope was joke. Hope didn’t exist for people like her. Hope was for little boys and girls who grew up not fucking their cousins and sneaking drinks from the fire whiskey bottles. Hope was for people who didn’t work for a corrupt government while double-crossing them with a secret resistance. Hope was for people who didn’t lose their werewolf lovers to a battle that would never end.
She sighed and downed another shot of whatever it was that the inn-keeper had set in front of her. She was far too tipsy and not nearly drunk enough. She was tired and lonely and disgusted with herself for letting this continue. She checked her watch and sighed again. He was late. He was always late. Moreover, she didn’t care. This was what happened when you used people.
She’d had exactly three lovers in her life.
The first was her cousin Sirius. That relationship was sick and twisted and wrong and it felt oh-so-right because he hurt her in all the wrong places and nothing was ever too extreme or out there for him. From the time she was fifteen, she’d been screwing him. Then he went away. Then he came back and she told him (and herself) that she wasn’t that girl anymore, that she wasn’t going to do those things with him anymore, and that she cared for another. The next morning she couldn’t talk because of all the screaming and moaning and yelping and keening she had done the night before.
He died.
Her second lover was Remus Lupin. He was a fine chap. Safe, normal, not her cousin. He was a werewolf, sure, but hey, if anyone could relate to not being their best a few days a month, it was her. Remus was reluctant, but eventually gave in, one night over a drink in Sirius’s memory. With Remus it was tenderness, often brutal tenderness, but tenderness nonetheless. There wasn’t pain or humiliation and every time afterwards, she felt the little hole inside her heart grow a little bit wider. He was loving and gentle with her, and that hurt because she wanted to be punished, not loved.
He died too.
Her latest lover was perhaps the worst of all.
Harry Potter was a broken man. He was a lonely man. He was a man who felt nothing but indifference, and she knew that better than anyone.
She’d changed during sex with Sirius all the time. He liked her to look young and innocent while fucking her senseless. She never seemed to really mind. Anything to take her mind off of the names she was called at school and the way her mother never really seemed to look at her in the eyes.
Harry made her change too. She was never allowed to look like herself, with the flashy hair and violet eyes.
If she wasn’t brown-eyed and freckled with flaming red hair that he could wrap his hands around and pull then she was silver-eyed with long straggly dirty-blond hair and a small waist that his rough hands could span and bruise.
With Harry, everything was about lying, while not lying. Everything was about pretending that they weren’t pretending. She could be anyone, so long as she wasn’t herself. She tried to tell herself that she understood why he wanted it this way, but she didn’t. She doubted she ever would. All she knew was that his owl had appeared at her bedroom window the night before, as it had for nearly three years now.
Same time. Same place. Be someone classy.
H.
And like a tired dog who didn’t know anything else, she showed up. Her hair was sleek and shiny and honey blonde and wrapped up into an intricate knot at the back of her head. Her eyes were a subdued blue…the twinkle would never come back into her eyes, she knew. And her clothes were the kind that her bigot family would wear: the latest style, with a few family heirloom pieces of jewelry.
She sat in her chair, and told the inn-keeper to give her something that would make her insides burn and mind float. Shooting her a look he reached under the counter and brought out a bottle that was probably older than old Dumbledore himself.
“On the house, ducks.”
So here she was, waiting and drinking and despite her best efforts, getting hornier than hell in just waiting, thinking about him and what would happen.
And she felt him enter the building, and he walked up behind her, sliding his arms around her waist and leaning in close to whisper in her ear.
Sirius had made her feel deliciously wicked. Remus had made her feel cherished.
When Harry did this, he made her feel cold. Numb. Nothing.
And the bastard knew it.
“Ready to go? I’m going to make you sing for me tonight.”
“I’m ready. Don’t count on the singing.” She knows it’s a lie and he does do. But that’s their relationship: a lie that wasn’t.
They left and Harry tossed a few galleons on the counter then gallantly placed her arm in the crook of his elbow. They strolled out side, the Man-Who-Was-A-Prick and a nameless woman that would be forgotten come morning.
His flat was small, cozy, Spartan. It was dark and depressing and it never failed to make her sick at her stomach.
The bedroom is worst of all. The bed was too large and the covers were rough on her skin, no matter how she changed. No mirrors…no chains…no scarves…no toys. Nothing like Sirius. Nothing like Remus.
It was for sex with her (and possibly a few other birds, she never kidded herself) and sleeping. It was for his comfort only and they both knew it.
He stood in front of the door, blocking her exit and she began to undress, just the way he liked when she was playing someone with class, someone who would never lower herself to this. She undid her hair and let it spill around her face and drape over her shoulders and down her back.
He walked around her, taking her in, his eyes distant and cold. He finally nodded his approval and motioned for her to lay on the bed, in the center. She did so and positioned herself the way he always had her do it and watched him as he methodically undressed and folded his clothes.
He was already hard, and his shaft was standing fully erect, so she must had done okay so far. He got into the bed with her and straddled her. He took his time, not entering her, just caressing her and squeezing her breasts (perkier than her usual pair) and sucking at her neck. His touch was detached and she was almost thankful because anything was better than feeling actual emotion.
Her body responded, as it always did, the betraying little tramp. She giggled in her head, for thinking of her body as a separate entity. That was what she did; she took her mind away as her body was aroused. If he noticed, he didn’t seem to care. While her mind was filled with a long ago time of being taken roughly from behind on an antique bed by her cousin, her body grew wetter and hotter and slicker.
Finally he was in her. He didn’t do anything, just stayed there, his eyes blissful for a moment before the emotion left and he began to thrust steadily into her…in and out…in and out…in and out…
…And she was sixteen again and spread out on the bed like a sacrifice as his dark gaze devoured her and he roughly took her, thrusting harder and faster and telling her that she was his good, sweet little girl, his sweet little cousin and that he was going to fuck her so hard, make her beg so pretty…
Harry groaned and his rhythm broke and she started arching up into his thrusts moaning and keening and they grabbed and pulled at one another trying to do away with the searing ache inside of them. Harder and harder they grinded, Harry pinched her clit and she sucked at his neck.
Harder and faster they moved, doing anything to take away the pain, to forget.
And scream and beg she did.
Finally they broke and climaxed together. Harry shot his seed inside her. She clenched and shuddered around him.
The names they called out weren’t each others, and the lie that wasn’t, shattered.
Eventually they put themselves to rights, not looking at each other, each too haunted to speak, each wanting anything other than the other.
Tonks left, shooting him a glance, catching his eyes with a pointed stare. She transformed, her hair shortening and turning a hot pink, her eyes turning violet. He stared hard at her, before his eyes deadened, and he turned his back to her.
Stepping outside, she was hit with rain, pounding down.
It figured. Every time she needed sunshine, she got rain.