Tonks (doratheauror) wrote in disorderic, @ 2017-11-11 12:14:00 |
|
|||
Entry tags: | dedalus diggle, nymphadora lupin |
WHO: Dedalus and Tonks (mentions of Leon and Alicia)
WHAT: Investigating the cabin where Remus was abducted.
WHEN: Sunday, November 5, 2017 (backdated)
WHERE: Hunter's cabin in the Highlands
Despite reassurances from both others and herself, Tonks couldn’t shake the feeling of dread that had persisted ever since a half-hour late had turned into an hour and two unanswered calls into ten. She’d both heard of and experienced too many disappearances not to know how they usually ended, and it was no secret Remus was despised by many demented and dangerous individuals. All the same, Tonks refused to sink into despair; she had to do something to help and take control of the situation—it wasn’t in her nature to stand idly by when the people she loved were in danger, and Remus was one of the people she loved most. And so, Tonks trekked with Dedalus, Leon, and Alicia through the damp and gloomy Highlands—or at least they seemed gloomy from Tonks’ admittedly gloomy perspective. They probably made an odd group from the vantage point of a non-Order member, and Tonks suspected Leon likely knew what it was that connected the three generations, but he was good enough not to acknowledge it. Tonks had a general idea of where they were going, and when she saw an old cabin that looked at once rustically glamorous and thoroughly dilapidated, Tonks knew she’d found the right place, because everything the Black family had once owned now looked like this; rotted and forlorn with remnants of bygone grandeur. Ironically, with her hair its natural brown and expression distinctly pale and cheerless, Tonks had perhaps never resembled her mother’s family more as she stepped onto the grounds of Alphard Black’s cabin. “Right,” she began. “Alicia and Leon, could you start by checking the perimeter for any signs of a disturbance?” she asked, her voice warming slightly, because in spite of her wretched nerves, she really did appreciate their being here and wanted to articulate that. “Dedalus and I will take a look inside, and we can meet back here in a half hour or so.” With a round of determined nods, Tonks removed her wand from her pocket as they entered the cabin. She didn’t really expect to find anyone in here; the Death Eaters would know they’d find it too easily, and yet, well, constant vigilance. “Normally we scope it out for signs of disturbance, but as you can see…” Tonks said to Dedalus with a sweeping gesture of her free hand. The cabin was a total mess, and they’d have a hell of a time just discerning what was Death Eater mess and what was no-one’s-been-here-but-wild animals-for-over-a-decade mess. Dedalus raised his own wand, illuminating the vicinity and bathing the empty room in an eerie glow. His brow creased with concern as his eyes swept the room; this certainly didn’t look good. This entire situation didn’t look good—he’d seen too many situations like this turn tragic to be overly optimistic—but that wasn’t the sort of thing you said to someone searching for their missing loved one. Still, he tried to think of something hopeful to say without sounding patronising or disingenuous. Tonks was a smart woman, and she’d see right through any false reassurances. “Perhaps we should see if he left his phone behind,” he suggested, searching the floor for any sign of the device. He caught a hint of movement out of the corner of his eye and turned suddenly, whisking around to confront his assailant—which turned out to be a thoroughly-startled squirrel. Dedalus let out a sigh of relief. “You know, I once read a story about a Hitwizard who solved a decades-old cold case after finding a clue in a squirrel’s stash. Perhaps he knows something we don’t,” Dedalus said, only half-kidding. “Often hints come from unexpected places. Between the two of us, we ought to find something—you’re an Auror, I’m persnickety. We both have all our eyes. We’re on top of this!” He tried his best to sound encouraging, though he didn’t sound entirely convinced, himself. Tonks instinctively turned her wand in the direction of the noise, just about ready to blast whatever it was into oblivion; she felt very silly when it turned out to be a squirrel. Animal cruelty seemed more a Death Eater thing than an Order one, so she lowered her wand and gave a snort at Dedalus’ Hitwizard story, “Are you volunteering?” she teased lightly. She nodded in a determined sort of way at the pep talk, but part of her was just made more anxious at being reminded that with her training, she should be more in control of this than she felt. Tonks was an Auror, for Helga’s sake, she was specially trained for exactly these types of crises, but she was finding now that it was so much harder when it was someone she cared about, when it was Remus. Still, Tonks didn’t really like that excuse; with her own “particular set of skills” she should be Liam Neeson-ing this whole situation, kicking arse and not missing a beat. “Phone, right,” she said, refocusing. Picturing Remus’ worn iPhone 4 quite clearly in her mind, she gave her wand a small flourish and said, “Accio phone!” with a rustle from a far corner of the room, the phone zoomed right into Tonks’ outstretched hand. She entered the passcode, but found nothing exciting; the battery was about to die from hours of neglect and all that was there were her own frantic, unanswered messages. Her throat tightened; they were actually sort of depressing to behold, so she shut the screen and shoved it into her pocket, waiting a moment before she was able to clear her throat and regularize her voice. “Right. So. Either that was just coincidental, or we’re dealing with a Death Eater who knows enough about technology to realize the GPS tracking on iPhones could be damning to their whole plot. Maybe someone young?” she suggested. Tonks preferred it when the Death Eaters were ignorant enough about Muggle technology for it to be a vulnerability, so she’d prefer to think of the phone as a coincidence, but knew better not to rule out that they were wising up on that front. “That would make sense, yes! That, or there was a struggle and he dropped it, I suppose!” Dedalus said. He took her word for it; she was the one with detective skills, not him. He continued his search of the room, but there was frustratingly little to go on. The dandy wizard sighed. “I'm so sorry about all this. I can't imagine what you're going through. We'll find him, though! He's survived this long, he'll make it through this too.” He walked over to the former and gave her his best attempt at a reassuring smile as he reached up to put a hand on her shoulder. Tonks knew as soon as Dedalus started speaking in that reassuring voice that she was about to start crying; she’d been weepy long before this morning, and now that she had something real to cry about other than her wonky hormones, it was pretty much hopeless. Surely enough, when Dedalus touched her shoulder, a very un-Liam Neeson-esque sob broke free and Tonks buried her face in her hands. “Sorry,” she mumbled, wiping her eyes as if that would make it all go away, “It’s not that I think you’re wrong, I’m just so afraid of the alternative or even if it does turn out alright, what’s happening to him in the meantime,” she took a deep, shaky breath, “And the timing is just—such shit,” she shook her head, “With the baby, I mean, we’re supposed to be doing this together, what if he doesn’t even—” Tonks touched the palm of her hand to her forehead, as if trying to push that thought back down; she couldn’t quite bring herself to say it, because that was a dark enough imagining to trap herself in. “Please don’t apologise! Let it out, my dear. It’s alright. Come here,” Dedalus said soothingly, his parenting instincts kicking in as soon as those tears began threatening to fall. He gave her a gentle, comforting hug, unsure of what else to do or say that could make any of this better. As much as he hated to admit it, most Order members had not gotten out of the last war alive; many of them would likely not make it out of this one, either. Still, that was not what Tonks needed to hear, and Dedalus was used to being the positive one, even when he didn’t quite believe it himself. “He has you and the baby to fight for; he’ll make it home. Besides—and please do pardon me for being blunt!—if he had… erm, expired, I think they’d be bragging about it by now. It’s not like Death Eaters to get a ‘win’ and not bandy about how great they are. He’s one of the smartest and most resilient fellows I’ve personally ever met, and I believe that if there’s a way to escape, he’ll find it. Or we’ll find him! Whichever one comes first.” He pulled a fresh, clean polka-dotted handkerchief and offered it to her. Tonks hugged Dedalus back, allowing herself to relax if only for a moment as she nodded in agreement. She knew they would leave no ambiguity if they’d done the worst; with a pang of disgust, she considered how they still gloated over what they’d done to Owen and Jeremy’s father. Tonks couldn’t deny Remus’ intelligence or resiliency, either—they were two of the things she loved the most about him. Tonks just hoped it would be enough. “Thanks,” she said, accepting the handkerchief and wiping her eyes and cheeks. “I’d glanced around for some old tissues, but then I remember the Black family once owned this and the majority of them didn’t experience emotions like us lesser mortals,” Tonks sniped. Her eyes swept the cabin once more over Dedalus’ shoulder. She wasn’t quite ready to give up on this yet. “Right. Anyway. Back to the task at hand,” she said. “We’re not looking for anything big. They wouldn’t be as stupid as that, but people leave all sorts of things behind naturally...if we could find a strand of hair or something, that could tell us a lot.” Dedalus chuckled at her sniping, understanding all too well the impulse to deflect anger or sadness with some well-placed quip. He followed her line of sight, turning to look where she was looking—she knew what they were looking for, after all. He listened intently, nodding as she explained. “Something small, hmmm,” he said thoughtfully, taking a pair of eyeglasses out of his never-ending pockets and putting them on with an expression that suggested he meant business. He stooped to take a closer look at the floor, squinting as he tried to spot some tiny clues. “Hair, you say?” he said finally, carefully picking up a teensy strand he’d spotted sticking up from between the floorboards. “What’s this? Oh, wait—is this squirrel hair?” Tonks observed it carefully, taking it gingerly between her fingers from Dedalus. “Could very well be,” she admitted reluctantly—it had a silvery kind of quality, but would squirrel hair be so soft? She held it up to the light, squinting a bit, “If you look at it in this light, it looks sort of...blonde,” Tonks decided. “And I can think of at least one blonde Death Eater and another sympathizer,” she remarked, slipping a vial out from her pocket and dropping the hair into it. “In any case, a potion or two should tell us what it is,” she said in a determined sort of way. It wasn’t much, and there was still the potential of it being squirrel hair, but it gave her a renewed sense of control. “Let’s look for a few more,” Tonks said, then paced through the cabin for likely places, removing possible strands from the couch and floor, not really knowing if it would turn out to be decades old remnants from the previous owner, the Death Eater, or even Remus. Indiscriminately, she placed anything that seemed likely into its own vial. Dedalus followed suit, gathering or pointing out whatever he could: a shred of fabric, a fingernail clipping, a likely too-old print from a boot, some indeterminate grey fur caught on a wood sliver in a door frame. When he had checked everything several times over and found nothing else, he stood and turned back toward Tonks. “What do you think? Is there anything promising?” he asked hopefully, deferring to her expertise. Tonks had vialed everything Dedalus had found, contemplating the lot of it. “I think the odds are decent that one of these things will lead us somewhere,” she said. “It’s just a matter of figuring out the right potion to reveal what we need to know,” Tonks added thoughtfully. “Polyjuice comes to mind...bit cumbersome, but if we were to turn into the person, we’d certainly know who they are,” she said. “But Molly might know something better and quicker,” she added hopefully. Something caught Tonks’ eye from the corner of the room just then—it easily could have blended in with the other long forgotten rubbish lying about, but Tonks recognized this object. Walking over to it, she found that surely enough, it was Remus’ pocket watch, enchanted to warn him of any breaches in their wards. She frowned. The watch had apparently been trying so hard to do its job, it was pretty thoroughly busted from the exertion. “This was Remus’,” she told Dedalus. “Charmed to warn of breaches in the wards, so I think that’s why it looks this way,” Tonks said, holding it out for a closer look. “Guess we knew that already, but could be useful,” she said, pocketing it protectively; even if it didn’t yield any information, Tonks didn’t want Remus’ things left behind. Dedalus noticed the past tense, but chose not to remark on it. “We’ll get it fixed and ready for him when he gets back. My watchmaker does excellent work,” he assured her. After one more cursory glance around the room, he added, “I suppose we should go see if the others need any help.” Tonks gave Dedalus a wane smile and a nod, “That would be great,” she said, making a genuine, internal effort to look past the horror of the present to a future time when this was all over. She gave the cabin one last glance herself, her eyes catching on the recently used tea kettle; it made her throat catch to see such an everyday sign that Remus had been here, that this was really happening to them. Turning abruptly back to Dedalus, she gave a curt nod, her throat still too tight to get words past. Tonks followed him out of the cabin to see if Leon and Alicia had discovered anything. |