nymphadora tonks is back from the stars. (hufflepunk) wrote in reoccurrence, @ 2020-07-14 19:14:00 |
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His housemates left and at first, Regulus was relieved to be left in peace, no one in his home tripping on things or filling the halls with laughter. He was able to focus on filling in blanks on his connection wall and adding in new tidbits of information he'd gathered from the prophet and the journals. The "Ministers" address was a popular topic, and one he couldn't help but notice people were not talking about the words between the lines. "[...] looking to figure out the cause of this reoccurrence" stuck out in a way he couldn't possibly ignore, the Ministry's focus on finding out why sitting poorly with him. "Why" was a question for the Department of Mysteries, not for the Minister for Magic. The rest of the Ministry should be focused on what to do with it now that it has happened, but since this wasn't the first time he'd seen the focus on "why" -- were they trying to stop it? Were they trying to control it? Or worse. That train of thought made it onto the wall of other proofs trying to point to Riddle being behind all of this madness somehow. Eventually, he noticed just how quiet the house had become. It was- too quiet, quiet enough to hear the crashing of waves against stone in his mind. He needed a drink, or a cigarette, or a warm body, or something- anything familiar; grounding; real. What he didn't need was to start his Mothers portrait on a verbal rampage at his expense. It wasn't the first time he'd found himself sat across from it, head tilted back against the wall with his eyes closed and a potion in hand prepared for the inevitable migraine. It probably wasn't going to be the last time either. A panic attack may have brought him there, but the familiarity of her yelling overtook the waves and kept him sitting there for hours listening to her go on and on about all he'd done to ruin her and their name; all the things he'd put them through; all the colourful ways she could come up with to call him weak and a coward. It was sad, possibly pathetic, but he felt so very alone in a world that made no sense, so he took the one thing immediately available to him that felt like 1979. Tonks arrived back in her and Remus's room with the crack of apparition and promptly stumbled forward to bash her shins off the side of the bedframe. "Ow, fuck," she muttered to herself, and rubbed at her bare, probably soon to be bruised, skin. Stupid bloody comic. She had tried to tell Teddy that they would get it for tomorrow, that she'd had so much fun reading it that she had just forgotten to bring it, but he was adamant, he wanted her to read the story from that one and could she please please get it. And, perhaps a little desperately, she had given in, and found herself back at the house to search. Her search was almost instantly interrupted by the sound of angry wails originating from the downstairs hallway. The screeches were familiar, but that didn't make them any less discordant or headache inducing. Tonks frowned, listening out for a moment. Something had to have set her off, but neither her nor Remus had been home to do it, and the noise was keeping on. If Regulus had caused it by accident he wasn't in any hurry to fix his slip. She descended the stairs as quietly as she could, slowing as she got closer to the source, and then stopping at the foot of them. It took a second to figure out what she was looking at – she almost blurted out a comment to Regulus, a joking well don't just sit there, until she realised he was, in fact, just sitting there. Listening. She swallowed, frozen in hesitation. Had he have heard her coming back early, he would have apparated back to his room to avoid being seen, but he hadn't. Regulus wasn't aware that Tonks was there until his mothers portrait acknowledged her at the bottom of the steps. She'd called him quite a number of things over the past few hours, but 'abomination' certainly wasn't one of them, so when the word hit him, he finally opened reddened eyes to see Andromedas daughter standing there. It was much too late to save any sort of face, and the migraine left him with very little energy to do much of anything, so instead, he stared at her as if that would make her go away, as his mother then turned back on him and the fact that he did have eyes, how disrespectful it was for him to have not looked at her as she spoke to him. Abomination. There she was. Tonks swallowed as he met her gaze, feeling distinctly uncomfortable with every single aspect of the scene before her. She felt strangely guilty for looking at it, like she had stumbled upon something very private and should have known better. There was also another stab of a feeling, something generally familiar that transformed into something odd and new when associated with Regulus. Sympathy, possibly? It was, objectively, an incredibly sad thing to see. She took a step towards him. "Do you want...," with a lame gesture toward the curtain. So she wasn't going to just walk away, worse, she came forward. Regulus ignored her question for a moment, his response dependent on why she was in his space at this point in the day. He could tell from the light coming in the window that he was not the one whose sense of time was faulty. "I was not expecting you back for a while yet." he managed, putting in as much effort as he could afford to spare in order to not completely mumble through his words. This, of course, had his mother go on about him apparently being able to speak as well as see. And how he could have used that voice before condemning their name to the bottom of the sea. Other than a slight grimace at a particularly screechy bit, and the redness of his eyes, he didn't react much to his mothers dramatic lashing. His stare remained on Tonks. "I had to–," she scrambled about for her words, frowning, baffled by how calmly he could say his own. She shook her head, unable to finish the sentence. "Sorry, I'm – No." Unable to take it for a second longer she strode purposefully toward the portrait, and began yanking at the curtains to try and close them. Regulus couldn't help the physical wince at her cut off words taking far more energy to listen to than his mothers constant spew of insults, and then she moved far too quickly, forcing him to close his eyes against the nausea. He'd put it off long enough, and finally took to stopper out of his potion bottle and downed the contents, feeling the familiar invading warmth followed by a numbness to help alleviate the pressure in his head. He didn't really have anything to say to her, he was already exposed far beyond any level of comfort, so he sat there with a practised cool, trying to will his emotions away as his mothers voice went from muffled to silent as if smothered. Tonks didn't turn around immediately once the screams were muffled. Instead she stood facing the curtain, so close she could feel the heat of her breath coming back to her, with her eyes scrunched shut. She didn't want to turn, because to do so would deliver her immediately back into the awkwardness of the moment. But then lingering there much longer was hardly an option. She slowly faced him, a frown etched on her face. "Are you alright?" was the only question she had any idea to ask. He opened his eyes to stare at her again, despite feeling the heat on his face and knowing he was still giving away more than he would have ever wanted. He couldn't help but want to know if her question was genuine or out of awkward obligation, and the only way to know would be to look at her. He couldn't hold it for very long, however, and looked away to blink a few times before responding dismissively without making any attempt to move from his spot on the floor, "does it matter? I will live." The expression on her face could be most accurately described as a kind of bewildered sympathy; she couldn't help but be moved by the sheer melancholy nature of whatever it was exactly that she had stumbled on, but was still desperately confused as to what it really was. "Of course it matters," she said, her voice quiet. Her eyes fell to the potion bottle in his hand. "What's that for?" He only half heard her quiet statement, but he heard the tone of it, and could feel her eyes on him as he continued to away, annoyed she was still there, but for moreso with himself for both getting caught and for doing a terrible job at collecting himself. Any moment Lupin would come down those steps and then this moment would get broadcast to the people who would use it against him the first chance they got. Then again, that hardly mattered now either. "It is for migraines." he answered, twirling the empty glass vial between his fingers out of a need to do something. His reply gave her some small bit of relief. Self flagellation was one thing, but involving unknown potions could have suggested something else entirely. She nodded, though she wasn't sure why, and let out a soft, "Oh." Silence hung in the air for a moment, and she desperately wished she had the right words to fill it. Or any kind of measure on what was right in this situation. His eyes looked so red. "That, uh, probably won't help," she said awkwardly, with a gesture to the curtain behind her, and instantly regretted it once it was out. He froze his fidgeting, eyes going back to Tonks for a moment, before following where she had gestured to his mothers portrait. Part of him was tempted to to draw the curtains again, audience be damned, but he remained where he was as he was, "She remains consistent in that way, yes." Tonks cast her gaze down, feeling a little sick, but mostly just terribly sad. A strange knot of emotion formed in her stomach as she tried to parse through all she knew about him – the tense air that had come about with mention of Sirius, the strange bond forming with her mother, his attachment to the house. And now this. "Why?" she asked, before she could help herself. Regulus let out a long exhale at the question, leaning his head back against the wall again with his eyes closed as he'd been when she'd come down the stairs in the first place. "Why what, exactly? I assume you are not asking why my Mother is consistent." Tonks brought her hand to her mouth to chew nervously on her thumbnail. "Why do that to yourself?" He opened his eyes again towards the curtains, weighing how he was going to respond; if he should respond, before looking back up towards her, "Would you not?" She started like she was about to respond, initially sure of her answer. 'Course not. Wear herself down with insults and records of her own disappointments? She would have to be a masochist. But then, when she gave it a second's thought, a real one, she realised that if she had lost Andromeda she would take whatever glimpses of their most terrible arguments that she could get. And that, even then, Andromeda's memory would be too filled with love for that to make any dent in how she pictured her. She shut her mouth, mulling on it. When she spoke again she found herself unable to meet his gaze. "I don't know. Not really comparable, is it?" He kept his eyes on her as she thought it through, curious about the places she was going in her mind, and almost...appreciative that she had bothered to give it as much thought as she was. She could have easily answered as impetuously as she had asked. "Perhaps not entirely, no. She is still my Mother." a statement he was fine to repeat as he had mentioned it before, "That painting is all I have- of anything, and even then, I suppose it more accurately Potters. How fitting." Tonks exhaled, a sad, crumpled look on her face. She couldn't help but think (as she had been, the more and more she stepped into parenthood, and particularly since her argument with Andromeda) of her dad. Of the way the grief kept creeping up unexpectedly, now that things were, at least in the world at large, relatively more settled. She did have things: a jumper her mother had quietly retrieved on request, the photographs of the three of them in happier days, all the assorted mementos and treasures that she had piled up and kept tucked away in her memory box that Andromeda had thankfully saved. She was a person of things, a borderline hoarder, and felt uncomfortable even now, with most of the worldly possessions she had before stripped away and lost to time. Placing herself in his shoes for even a moment made her own eyes sting and she blinked rapidly. "I'm sorry," was all she could think to say. The way her thoughts seemed to play on her face had him all the more curious about his estranged cousins daughter, a trait that did not reflect said cousin, but did reflect other members of the Black family. Other than being quiet about it. Those Blacks who wore their thoughts, were certainly never the ones known for being quiet. It struck him as oddly familiar, while serving the purpose of distracting himself from his current state. "It is what it is," he shrugged, returning to fiddling with the bottle instead of calling her out on the meaning behind that apology. Silence fell again, and it made her agitated. It was in her nature to want to offer some kind of comfort in these situations, but for once she had no idea how to give it, and suspected it wasn't anything he really desired. Especially not with that response. It is what it is. She wished her mother was here, because she would know what to say, but was also glad she wasn't so she couldn't see her floundering so poorly. With a little sigh and a frown, she asked, "Would you prefer to be alone?" If ever there was a complicated answer to a question, it was where his own mind went then. He wanted to be left alone, but he didn't want to be left lonely. It too was a familiar dilemma he'd known for eighteen years, but there was something far more dramatic about it now. "I am whether you choose to continue to waste your time or not. As I said, I was not expecting you back yet. I will make myself scarce, so you may both roam about freely. I only need another moment." "No, I'm – I was just back to get a comic for Teddy. I forgot it and he really wanted it, so I... yeah." Her words came out an awkward ramble and ended on a sigh. She highly doubted he wanted to hear about their son's burgeoning behavioural issues or his love of superheroes, but it felt important that he knew she wasn't thinking that way, didn't want him to make himself scarce. "Take all the time you need," she mumbled, finally looking at him properly again. A mother that went out of her way to grab her son something simply because he wanted it- what a concept. Regulus couldn't hide the surprise and confusion on his face at that admission, having far too many questions than was appropriate- if any questions about it would have been considered appropriate. Her parenting choices were none of his business, and besides, if they had a terrible outcome, he may be likely to hear it from Andromeda anyway. He nodded at her telling to take his time before he added "I imagine he has waited long enough as it is. You are free to blame me." There may have been a double meaning to the first part, but it was said far more encouragingly than antagonistic. She had a family to spend time with, a happy one at that, she gained nothing by being away from them. He may not have been a warm person, but family was something he cared deeply about. Perhaps too deeply. Tonks swallowed and smiled sadly, agreeing only with a soft, "Yeah." The layers of meaning didn't go amiss. It felt wrong to just leave him there, and the feeling weighed her limbs down so that when she did step away and towards the stairs, her movements were slow and reluctant. She twisted her lips about for a moment, considering. "Do you wanna have dinner again with us sometime this week?" she blurted out, and then continued rambling, as if it would make the moment less uncomfortable. "Mum keeps sending back heaps of leftovers, I think she thinks I'm too thin, we could do with some help eating them all." She went to step away and Regulus could feel he obnoxious emotion pushing at his chest as he tried to take a deep and quiet breath to stuff them back down only for her to continue her rambling through the uncomfortable space. This part of her she must have inherited from her father- or took to mirror off of her husband, either way, it was certainly the least familiar part about her. "I will have a look at my schedule and get back to you," he nodded with a tense smile at trying to push through the moment she kept elongating. She already had too much on him, she didn't need to see worse than his reddened eyes. "Right." Tonks gave a single nod of her head, quick, final, and then ascended the stairs. Once out of sight she scrunched her face up, swearing under her breath. The thought crossed her mind that she should probably tell Andromeda what she had seen, but the moment seemed too intimate, too raw, that sharing it would be spilling a secret that wasn't hers. With a quick accio she retrieved the comic and hurriedly apparated away, her mind focusing on excuses to tell her son rather than dwelling further on what she had accidentally witnessed. |