Remus Lupin (nihowlist) wrote in disorderic, @ 2017-10-15 21:16:00 |
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The sound of the tea kettle whistling snapped Tonks out of a state that had been somewhere between zoning out and actually falling asleep at the kitchen table. She was tired--sleep was an elusive thing these days for reasons both natural and unnatural. Between the generalized discomfort and strange dreams--both apparently normal--the relentless terror of the past few weeks was doing nothing to ease either problem...particularly not the dreams. Last night had been even worse than usual, which was saying something. Full moons in general had become an intense and stressful night for Tonks, but news of Greyback and his ilk terrorizing Tinworth had only amplified every anxiety and every horror. It hadn’t been easy for Tonks to just read about it happening--as an Auror, she wasn’t inclined to stand aside as others were in danger, but she new it would be too risky, too foolish. Problem was, the only other alternative was to simply watch it happen. With a sigh, Tonks rose and poured herself a cup of tea, leaving the rest in the kettle for Remus. She refreshed her phone, which felt a little bit like playing Russian roulette these days--and as the page loaded to a new Daily Prophet article, Tonks knew she’d hit a bullet. She opened it with an aggressive tap of her finger and let out a derisive snort as she read. Fenrir Greyback, the peacemaker. Tonks rolled her eyes and stewed over the revelation--it seemed clearer now more than ever that Greyback had been commissioned for this job, the only question that lingered was why Tinworth? Of course, it could have always just been random. She turned her phone over as if it was something foul, then glanced up at the wall clock--waiting for Remus always made her anxious. She could only trust that he would be okay, he knew what he was doing, of course, and all she could really do was be here with some medicinal potions, bandages, and tea--but she hated that that was really all she could really do in the face of this. “Hello.” Remus, having Apparated a few hundred yards from the house, now limped his way through their door with a weary and apologetic half smile. He wanted to normalize this process as much as possible for Tonks, to make it less of a cause for concern, but for every idea he had, there was another waiting to smother it. So he took his potion, got as far away as he could and took his licks without complaint. (The potion giving him his mind, not clouding from the instinctive wolf brain, gave him leave to know and to remember each moment.) He always tried, though. Fresh clothes, a wash cloth to the face, a practiced smile. But she was smart and his smile was watery when he sat heavily. “ … you don't have to wait up, love. I can put the kettle on.” “That’s not really the main reason that I wait up,” she told Remus with a wry smile, cupped his cheek in her hand, and kissed him gently. Tonks rose then and poured him a mug of tea, setting it down in front of him. The relief was apparent on Tonks’ face, though the concern wasn’t gone entirely--she hated to see him hurt, and it was something she had to witness all too frequently. Underlying it, too, was a dull sense of guilt; for some, this night wasn’t so easily put behind them, because their loved ones hadn’t come home last night. And it fell to her to tell Remus that. She considered, briefly, to put it off until later; he was tired and she wanted him to rest and this type of news wasn’t really conducive to that. It seemed unlikely, though, that Remus wouldn’t soon hear of what happened, and Tonks had always been a fairly direct person. She didn’t like keeping things from others, particularly not Remus. Inhaling deeply as she squeezed her own mug as if channeling it for support in relaying these grim tidings, Tonks breached the subject, “Besides...there was an attack last night, so it was kind of difficult to fall asleep with that on the mind,” she frowned, but steadily held his gaze. “A werewolf attack in Tinworth...Greyback’s doing,” she continued, “Two people were killed.” He held her hand against his cheek briefly, coveting the warmth and the safety thus represented in such a simple gesture, and smiled his thanks when he finally wrapped his palms around the mug. The tidings she provided made the comfort short lived. Having made it halfway to his lips, it was set down abruptly as his brow furrowed. Greyback’s doings were always hard to process, hard to live in juxtaposition to, but this felt like the first shoe. He waited for the other to drop. “And …?” “And,” Tonks continued, reopening the peculiarly short Prophet article on her phone and handing it to Remus to peruse for himself, “Apparently the Ministry has made some type of--ah--peace with him, which I take to be a pretty word for deal, and obviously they approve of his actions last night,” she scowled. “The Ministry conveniently failing to send any help was kind of the first clue to that, though.” There it was. Remus felt the air go out of the room and he sat back hard against his chair, ignoring the protests of his body. Fenrir had the upper hand; for all the talk of Registry, of embracing the wolf and eschewing society, he was now in bed with the Death Eating quotient of them. “They're going to sanction him to kill discriminately, if I know him at all. Probably Muggles. But that won't soon be enough. You can't make werewolves from Muggles. You can't propagate your pack.” Greyback set off any attempt for werewolves to be seen as people by another 20 years, at the very least. His fist came down hard on the table. “Damn him.” Tonks jumped slightly when Remus banged the table, but she couldn’t blame him--her own frustration sought physical relief from where it had gathered behind her eyes, and she pressed her thumb and forefinger into them, then pinched the bridge of her nose. Letting her hand fall back into her lap, she nodded faintly, because Remus’ conclusions were much the same as her own. “I’m sure there’s not much else he would’ve agreed to. Muggles, certainly, and why not just throw in anyone the Ministry doesn’t like?” she pondered grimly. Tonks was well aware that now included her entire family, and there would be a certain irony not lost on the Death Eaters to utilizing Greyback for a personal attack--it was too grizzly a thought to give voice to, and so she shoved it back into a dark crevice of her mind. They weren’t going to get caught, anyway. They were smarter than that--they had to be. It was far easier than Remus liked to admit - giving way to full devastation when news such as this waited on the other side of transformation. His young wife, their baby, and her family would be in the crosshairs of newly minted peacemaker Greyback, too. They’d spent too much time talking together - fantasizing, really - of running. Malta, Santorini, Guatemala -- safe havens from the long reach of You-Know-Who and Greyback himself. And a sick thought twisted his gut that he could want for their child what he did to Lyall’s. He took a breath, schooled his features into gravity, and leaned in. “Pack up, Tonks. We’re going.” Maybe it was because she only got about two hours of sleep, tops, but Tonks really didn’t know if Remus was joking or not. She tried to read his expression, but all she saw there was the same exhaustion and tension that undoubtedly lined her own face in this moment--there was no real hint of humor that she could detect. “Going where?” she asked, if only to see where he was going with this. “I suspect the passages between Le Havre or Nice are watched and the Chunnel is rather not an option. There are friends in Scotland. I think we can get from the Orkneys across the sea to Sweden and Norway.” He took a breath, standing and roundly ignoring the trembling in his knees and wrists. “We leave in an hour.” Tonks stared at Remus in amazement; truthfully, her gut instinct wasn’t exactly no, this is wrong. Most days, it felt like her life was veering off in two different directions--on one side, there was Remus and the baby and things that she wanted for herself and was suddenly obtaining, but on the other...it was war and vigilantism and violent criminals who really seemed to despise her and Remus in particular. The trouble was the two paths weren’t isolated from one another, and the thronier, more treacherous one looped around and threatened to overtake the other entirely. But she could leave the other behind. Tonks was tired, after all; tired of feeling threatened, tired of feeling like the good things in her life were less real than the rest, because they’d been rendered so fragile now by the new powers that were. The trouble was, Tonks knew she wasn’t the only one feeling this way; she knew the rest of the Order felt it, too, and they needed her, needed Remus, as much as she needed them. They’d already lost so many of their ranks so quickly, they couldn’t afford to lose more. Tonks rose, held Remus’ wrists, steadying them, then looped her fingers with his. “We’re not going to run,” she told him. “As tempting as it sounds, and believe me, it does sound tempting,” Tonks said. “But we have to see this through.” He pulled their palms close turning them over so that he could press his lips to the back of her hand. “Please let me take you away from here,” he whispered, willing himself to hold her tight enough to say yes. But ultimately, even as the humanity kept seeping its way back into his body, he knew she was right. They were too far into it to be extricated. He met her gaze. “Afterward. We get this done, then we leave England behind us for good.” It would be so easy to say yes, but then, it would be easy only in this moment, it wouldn’t be easy for either of them to turn their backs on what they knew was the right thing to do. So Tonks closed her eyes and let herself be held, but stayed otherwise resolute. She looked up at him as he pulled back, contemplative. Tonks hadn’t thought too in depth about the specifics of what would come after all this, other than the obvious that she’d be glad for it to be over and they’d be busy raising a child. She’d mostly just assumed that things would click back into their proper place once more, because it made her feel better to think so; she could be an Auror again (there would be Aurors again, too) but this was a rather idyllic vision of what might come to pass. What if it wasn’t so easy to just transition back to how life had been before? What if they lost? “It’s worth serious consideration,” she said, finally. “If things don’t get better...if they let too many Death Eaters off the hook like the last time, then there’s no way we can raise this kid in a place like that,” she reasoned. And they had let too many off the last time, due to favors or information or status or lies about imperius curses or whatever else--and look where it had gotten them. She wasn’t going to speculate on what it would be like if they lost, and she knew it was surely on Remus’ mind, anyway. It would stand in his mind - fleeing, leaving the war behind, giving his small family the room to grow within their own time - for longer than today. Perhaps a fantasy or a dream that he could take out and examine at will. “I’m about up to here with my love of England,” he admitted. The country had done nothing for him and now endangered Tonks and their baby with the one thing that scared him more than sociopathic Death Eaters. But for the moment, it was his body that needed his attention. Phasing under the moon with wolfsbane gave him his mind, certainly. But it also didn’t turn off the wolf’s instincts. And this moon had been particularly brutal. “But before we go further, perhaps a lie down? I’m not going to be good for you or the Order until afternoon.” Tonks couldn’t disagree with the frustration over the state of their society and country at large, and she knew Remus had suffered all the more from it. Tonks’ childhood and adolescence had been mostly safe and happy, but it had proven illusory--they’d never faced their problems and prejudices head on once they thought they were “over,” and Tonks had no doubt that was a large part of the reason they’d descended into such a state so quickly. Tonks didn’t want their kid to get trapped in the same cycle of denial and violence. She gave a small, tired smile, “I think so,” she agreed. “Try to rest, and I will too.” “I’m going to have a shower, then lay down.” Hot water and cool sheets could perhaps depress the thought of Fenrir Greyback England’s darling from his mind. He smiled gently, an apology of sorts, and extended his hand in invitation. Tonks reached out and took his hand, giving it a little squeeze. “Sounds like a plan.” |