Nymphadora Tonks (bd_tonks) wrote in beyond_dark, @ 2008-05-11 02:58:00 |
|
|||
Entry tags: | * may 2006, - complete, nymphadora lupin (tonks) |
Narrative: Family History
Date: May 11th, 2006
Characters: Nymphadora Lupin
Location: Her classroom at Hogwarts
Private/Public: Private
Rating: PG
Warnings: None
Summary: A bout of depression sets in.
"Professor Tonks, are you… back?"
The voice gave Dora a bit of a shock, to be sure, and she didn't bother to hide her surprise when she turned around to look in the doorway. Bent over and digging around underneath her desk, she'd been completely oblivious to anyone who might pass by and see that the oft absent Defense Against the Dark Arts professor was back in her classroom. More often than not during the past few weeks, it had been Professor Lupin. To see a pink head bopping around was quite the surprise.
Dora fumbled with the books in her arms as she spun on her heels and awkwardly smiled at the teenaged girl standing in her doorway. "Um, sort of… almost. Hello… Holly!" Holly Rooper. It took her a moment to remember the name of the Ravenclaw fifth year and she couldn't help but feel a bit triumphant when she did. She'd always been horrible with names, and she had many students. "Hi, I didn't hear you knock. I'm sorry."
"I wasn't sure if it was you," the girl said, sounding slightly sheepish. "You're shorter."
"So I've heard," Dora's smile turned a bit sheepish herself and she set her pile down on top of her desk. She beckoned with her free hand. "Come in, no need to stand in the hall." She found she was in the mood to be at least somewhat hospitable, and she walked over to close the door behind Holly after the girl had walked in. She'd been lucky only a student walked by and knew that with everything that was going on she really did have to be more careful. Being lax was unacceptable.
There was a silence for a moment, broken only by Dora's mutterings when she knocked her hip against the corner of her desk. There was another flaw of being as short as she was– sharp corners were so much more accessible to those bits of bone that jutted out just so. Dora would be sure to add that to the ever growing list.
"I'm sorry about what happened."
Dora rubbed the sore spot tenderly. "Sorry?"
Holly nodded. "About your mum. I heard what happened… I'm sorry."
"Oh, thank you." She'd always been bad at this sort of thing. She simply never knew what to do when people offered sympathy, not because she wasn't thankful, but because she'd just never been very good at it. Even Remus sometimes had trouble breaking through her shell; it was her own fault.
"You're welcome." Another pause. "But I'm glad you're going to be coming back."
Dora smiled. "Aye, but you've had Remus –er, Professor Lupin– now. I likely won't measure up."
"He's very good, but you promised quintapeds and kelpies!" The students had longer memories than she did at times, though as she thought back, Dora could vaguely remember promising kelpies and quintapeds. This had been, of course, before Delores Umbridge. She could only wonder how absolutely insane she'd been the day she'd promised quintapeds to her fifth years. Not her best decision, but one that she wouldn't have minded following through on in different circumstances.
"I think we're going to be doing wand movements for the next few weeks," Dora finally admitted, shooting Holly an apologetic smile. She shuffled a few things around on her desk. "Ways to identify werewolves… that sort of lovely thing."
Holly looked at her as if something should have been obvious. "One was just teaching us."
"Yes," Dora laughed. "Though, I'm almost positive that's not the answer Umbridge is going to be looking for. Top marks from me though, and perhaps a few points to Ravenclaw. Very observant."
They shared a brief laugh together which left Dora smiling brightly, perhaps more than she had in weeks, it felt like. She really did enjoy teaching, and she loved her students. As important as concentrating on her Auror duties were to her, she'd missed her students as well. There had to be a way to balance the two things. She'd always known that there had to be a way. Umbridge was a catalyst, forcing Dora to find that center and balance faster than she'd originally planned. If she'd ever planned to at all.
She tossed her student another bright grin, suddenly quite glad that the girl had wandered past her opened office door. "So classes with Professor Lupin were going well then?"
"They were fun," the girl nodded emphatically before tentatively stepping closer to Dora's desk. She peered down at everything spread messily across it and Dora wondered if she was about to be judged for how messy she kept her thing. Techinically, she was a horrible influence on anyone who's life view was still being influenced. Still, she loved her job. "Are you very interested in history, Professor? Or, well, I guess these would be ethnographies?"
Well, perhaps not judged on her messiness, but her reading habits. Dora couldn't blame Holly; she probably would have been curious as well, seeing a pile of books on the Blacks spread out on her professor's table. "A bit a of light family history reading. You could say I'm a bit interested."
"Family history?"
"Mmmhmm," Dora nodded, fingering the spines of the books she'd taken from Grimmauld. "My mum's side of the family. She was a Black." It wasn't something she advertised to the public at large, and certainly not her students. She'd always been of the mind that if people knew, then so be it. But if they didn't, she certainly didn't go around telling people univited that her aunt was Bellatrix Lestrange. But she didn't lie when asked.
"My mum always said the Blacks were craz— er, I mean…" Holly quickly pushed strands of hair from her face and blushed a deep red. Dora could only laugh underneath her breath and reach out to lay a hand on Holly's shoulder.
"Crazy? Off in the head? Completely mad? Your mum's right. They're absolutely bonkers." No, she really didn't lie when asked. Dora was quite ready to tell the full truth.
"But your mum—"
Dora shook her head, cutting Holly off. "Was the exception, not the norm. And believe me, I loved her for it. I think she was more Tonks than Black, like me."
"I'm sorry," she apologized quickly. "I didn't mean to… I'm sorry."
"It's alright, really. My family's crazy." Her smile was meant to sooth. She'd not meant to make things awkward, though she was quite good at that with adults. Why should students be any different? "It's just the truth. Personally, I think it runs in the family. And of course, it doesn't help being sent to Azkaban. That only speeds it along, you know." She glanced towards the ceiling as her mind briefly drifted from the class room and again to thirteen Grimmauld Place. She didn't think about Sirius often, but when she did the thoughts tended to stick with her. She'd not be pleasant company for Remus later.
He only came to mind because she thought of the supposed Black madness. Supposed. Dora didn't really like to think that there was an insanity which ran through her blood line, but she'd seen it with her own eyes in Sirius and Bellatrix and was reading about it now. It wasn't referred to as insanity in the books of course, but Dora could see it for what it was. People didn't just suddenly decide it was alright, and even fun, to begin decapitating house elves after all. Something had to be innately wrong with a person like that. Something had to be innately wrong with her family.
And she was curious about it. Could it really be blamed?
Dora knew that Remus worried about what his lycanthropy would do to his mental state; Dora was beginning to wonder what being a Black would do to hers. Her depression hit hard at times –she knew a new bout was approaching – and she could only wonder if it was connected to the rest. Sirius had been prone to it as well. She'd watched him skulk around Grimmauld all those months before his death. There'd been few things to make him smile other than the occasional yelling at Kreacher. She felt the same way sometimes, though yelling at house elves tended not to cheer her. The books had started as a way to learn and develop a character for a possible spying mission for the Aurors. Now they were something of a window into the workings of her mind. She could have asked her mother, yes, but she'd never wanted to upset her. Besides, it was too late now and there was no one left to ask who wouldn't kill her on sight.
"Did she really cut up elves?"
"Huh?" Dora had to shake herself out of her thoughts before she could really acknowledge the question she'd been asked. She blinked a few times, drawing her eyes back down to Holly. The girl had flipped open one of the books and appeared to be skimming a page on Sirius' mother, Walburga Black. "She did; they're on the wall. That'd be my… aunt. Of sorts. I've never been good at this sort of thing. She blasted my mum from the family tree and I don't think I was ever allowed on."
Holly shuddered. "She sounds lovely."
"Beastly," Dora corrected. Sirius was still in the back of her mind as she continued. She bit down on her lower lip, turning her back for a moment to gather everything on her desk together. Gently, she slid the book from Holly's hands and closed it before stacking it atop the rest.
She knew this feeling. Pleased one moment and coming down to crash the next. Her smile to Holly was weak, and she turned quickly again to open a compartment in her desk and shove the dusty tombs inside. The spells she cast next were of the harsher variety, but she needed the drawer to be inaccessible to those who had no business touching the books.
"They're a good place to look for lesson inspiration. There's some nasty stuff in there," she started, looking back awkwardly at Holly. The lie was ill placed and ill told. "I'm sure I'll find something eventually."
"You will." The girl nodded again and Dora attempted another quirked smile. It didn't quite shine through. "I'm really glad you're coming back, Professor Tonks."
"Thank you." She wished she could have offered a genuine smile, but part of the damage had been already done. She needed to get home. "You should likely go before you're late for dinner."
That was simply the easiest thing to say to get the office to herself. Holly excused herself soon after that, saying a polite goodbye and again expressing her excitement at the thought of Dora coming back. It was nice to know she'd been missed, it really was. But it wasn't enough for the mood she could feel crashing down upon her. There was a moment as she let her body collapse down into her desk chair when she wondered if she was just being stupid, letting her emotions play too much into her life. But there was no way to avoid it. This was just the sort of person she was.
Dora scrubbed a hand across her face just before tears began to fall down her cheeks. It had been a long time since she'd cried for Sirius, and even now it wasn't only him she cried over. He was simply one of many things her mind was choosing to dreg up in her mind. Funny, how it wasn't even her mum which inspired this jag of tears. Of course, her mother's death was a large part of it, and even just thinking about it made the tears fall harder and faster, but there were other things. She just did this sometimes, fell into moods where crying seemed to be the only answer. And sometimes it was.
What else was she supposed to do?