(no subject)

[metamorphical]

Continued from here

"I'll remember."

It is a nice thought, but Tonks doesn't know how this sort of magic works. So she won't blame him if he thinks it a weird dream and forgets. But her? She hopes to remember too. And hopes that what she's learned will help her understand. Whatever the outcome.

"Obviously. How could you forget me?" She asks cheekily, grinning as she grabs the bedknob and his hand. The former is pocketed and the latter is squeezed gently. She motions her head toward the door then, signaling that they should get going.

Before they do though, Tonks disappears for just a minute, grabbing a napkin and pen (some Muggle inventions do have a one up on Wizarding techniques), and scribbles something down on it. She pockets that as well, something to give a little later, and pops back beside Remus with a smile.

"I've had a really good time. Thank you."

Comments

[metamorphical]

"You shouldn't have been alone. Not with news like this." At some point, she looks down at the hand in hers, fickle thoughts running around as they do when she sees how cold he is. This causes her to bring his hand up toward her mouth, breath warm against it while she tries to breathe color back into Remus' nailbed -- into him as a whole as well, in general, but she knows metaphorically now may not be the time. Semi-logically, she wonders whether half memories and half ghosts can have full color.

But as she explains the truth -- defends Sirius -- Tonks looks up and stares for a moment. "Peter Pettigrew did it. He shifts into his animagus form and hides with the Weasleys for years." Ask the Weasleys about their new pet.

[lumenrelegandus]

"How… I mean he… Was he serving Voldemort? When would he have the nerve to approach… Though if they approached him, he wouldn't have been able to withstand…"

The picture reluctantly unclouded in his mind… and, an anchor in the storm, he looked again at Tonks. "How do you know these things?" —whether their previous meeting had been too hard (out of the timestream) to hold perfectly in his mind, or he was just in shock, or… needing everything restated, rechallenged, reproven, about any reality.

[metamorphical]

"I don't know exactly, but there was a spy yeah? And you all suspected..not him." She supposes that Pettigrew's unassuming manner -- his cowardice -- was a point in his favor on this.

"I'm twenty-three." She reiterates her age for him, understanding the need for confirmation. "I'm a much more colorful Ghost of Christmas Future, aren't I?" A small smile appears then as she considers that more. "With Christmas Present's attitude."

Tonks looks around then, bringing Remus's hand down with hers into her lap where she begins absently playing with his fingers. "You oughtn't be alone." She reiterates that as well, looking at their hands before looking back up at him. "It's no good alone."

[lumenrelegandus]

Remus's mind was reeling. Not yet able to think of any of them as a 'traitor' rather than a victim. I should have been there I should have been there… If he had, he would have seen it, would have noticed… he was the one who paid attention to Peter, the others didn't, he was why they'd brought Peter in at all from the beginning, after Remus; but to James and Sirius, Peter'd always mostly been an audience… Maybe no wonder he would then— but no he'd loved… But then the animagus scheme, he'd never really gotten that it was the wolf, not Remus, who'd tried to kill him… Was that what had undone the knot? What had broken them? Was that why, after all these years? (Remus's fault no matter which way you sliced it, what part of time you looked at—)

When told that Sirius was the traitor, it had undone Remus entirely, because it had made no sense. It undid everything Remus thought he knew about Sirius and all of them through all time, stealing their pasts as well as their futures and leaving him with nothing, not only no friends, no family, but no reality; no sanity, no ground, nothing.

Being told it was Peter… it was a different kind of horrible because… through years and years of passive, organic, this-means-too-much-to-me-so-let's-not-pull-this-thread loving fragile denial suddenly snapping, it did make sense. In ways that made one feel equally insane because suddenly it was impossible not to see it, and how hadn't they prevented it long ago? Peter had done it but it was their fault, all of them.

Except for Lily. She was the only one not to blame. And she…

Yes, Remus could hate Peter for Lily. But he must still hate all of them for her. By looking closely—and not even that closely—at the toxic elements of their friendship, and Peter being at the receiving end of most of it, most taken for granted, they'd all let this happen. —with Remus often doing clean-up work with Peter one-on-one but never confronting James and Sirius to make the actual cause unnecessary, make them less oblivious—which meant maybe Remus was the only one who saw it, making this again his fault…

You oughtn't be alone

"There's no one left," Remus said. Saying almost without inflection, without any emotion at all, maybe just the faintest surprise that her statement could ever suggest an alternative. "They were everyone. They were everything. What do I… they were everything."

By Tonks's time… did she know what he'd done between this moment and teaching Harry's third year? Had he ever talked about it? Had anyone? To offer him the DADA position, Dumbledore had found him, or sent for him, living very humbly (alone) on the outskirts of a muggle village. Sometime before that, had he really been homeless or had someone just assumed…? No one knew, or had asked—or at least told her. Maybe no one had gotten close enough again.

[metamorphical]

His thoughts, the blame that he places on himself in overly exorbitant doses, are precisely why he should not be alone. But the unasked question is a good one. Where would he go? The memory she just watched shows that Dumbledore didn't think to offer condolence or solace in an actually helpful way.

Anything Tonks knows about their current in-between time is only known from what she's asked of Remus in her own timeline. He fell off the map, so to speak, between now and Hogwarts, so she's had no one but him to ask. And even the year and a half between him leaving the school and her becoming part of the Order is only understood through however much she's been able to sneak past his defenses.

It could be different. It should be different.

She stays quiet for a moment, not having an answer. At least, not an answer that she has words for. But as she stays quiet, still staring at their hands, the magic of the bedknob speaks for her.

The scenery changes, the dark quiet of the ramshackle little building washing away into the brighter colour of a living room in a cozy house. The bed magically fits within the space, giving them both a view of a small dining area and its table.

At the table is a woman with patrician features who, on first glance, bares a striking resemblance to Bellatrix Lestrange. Standing just behind her, a hand gently on her shoulder, is a fair-haired man. They both are watching their daughter, by now eight and a half and with one green pigtail and one blue.

"Dora," Andromeda starts quietly. "We have to tell you something."

Dora, the child version, stares at her parents innocently enough, at first taking their solemn features for a game.

Because they're both so solemn, Dora tries to play their usual game, where she makes silly faces until somebody straight-faced starts laughing. Her nose scrunches and dog ears sprout from the side of her head, floppy just underneath the pigtails. And she aims for a matching nose, but doesn't quite get there, instead creating a cartoonish button nose. Andromeda and Ted smile a little, though the action doesn't reach either of their eyes, and it's then that she realizes something's different. The child doesn't know how it's different, or why, but she can tell something's off.

Andromeda reaches out, smoothing the crown of her daughter's head. "We need to talk about Sirius. He won't be coming again." While the visits had been few and far in between, Sirius knew that his cousin's home had been open to him, a little space to take refuge during the War, one with as many charms and wards as he could hope for. And Dora delighted in each visit, no matter the length of time she got with him.

"Why?" It's her favorite word even as an adult, and more so as a child. Dora squirms in her chair, trying to puzzle out what's going on.

Andromeda, having never discouraged that word, takes a steadying breath. Even knowing her daughter, and knowing that would be the first word out of her mouth, it's still difficult to answer. "He did a very bad thing, and has to go somewhere that he can think about what he did."

Ted continues to stay quiet, but moves to rub his wife's arm as she deals with this. Dora looks obviously confused and tilts her head. "Is he in trouble?" When her parents nod, she thinks about it but then shrugs. "But then he'll say sorry and can come over!"

"No, darling. He can't say sorry for what he did. He hurt people."

That information doesn't match up to what the little girl knows, so she frowns, growing cross with whatever game this is. "Mummy, why are you being mean?"

"I'm not--" Andromeda starts, but she's interrupted by Dora's compelling argument of 'You are too!'

She reaches out to gather Dora in her arms then, but the girl wrenches away. "No! You're a liar and it's not nice!"

"Nymphadora. Go to your room. Now." Ted butts in now, firm and pointing to the hallway. Wide-eyed and upset, Dora jumps out of the chair with it clashing to to the floor and runs to her room.

Andromeda, generally one who keeps her composure, collapses against the table and starts crying.

Tonks, having being watching her mother for a while now, glances over to Remus. "I think I can count on one hand how many times I've seen my mum cry." She says thoughtfully.

AAAAAH thank you so much for your patience with me!!!! <3

[lumenrelegandus]

Remus watches the scene blankly, face slack, body limp. …But some clockwork had been sparked behind all that. A reality outside himself, grounding. —and he didn't like seeing others suffer… but knowing this was real, not just himself going insane… It helped.

"You knew the truth," he said finally. He could have meant her instincts as a child. Then he said, "What you've told me. That must mean the truth will come to light?"

Psh!! No worries!!

[metamorphical]

At first, she thinks he means the child version of herself, who was unable to wrap still black-and-white thinking with the concept of Sirius being a Bad Guy. So she shrugs with a wry uptilt of her mouth, “Stubborn is all.” But then Remus finishes his thought and she nods.

“You find out first, actually.” Tonks pauses for a moment, then adds, “About Pettigrew, too. Something about a map?” Sadly, the infamous Map had stayed dormant in Filch’s office for most of Tonks’ school career.

<3 <3 <3 !

[lumenrelegandus]

"When I do…" His mouth went dry. He didn't know how much he could ask… Is it too late, is Sirius still alive, is the wrong made right, how could it possibly be…

"The way you're traveling," he said suddenly. "Can you take me back? Can I prevent all of this?"

Nevermind all the Theory of Magic he studied at school, the Philosophy of Magic, and the muggle time travel literature he'd absorbed as a child. The idea that always stopped him from fantasising about changing anything were not the usual ones: fear of paradox or divergence or any of those. What drew him up short was the fundamental selfishness of it. How did one choose… going back to change a tragedy in one's own life but not trying to change bigger tragedies in the world, for others… while in so doing essentially committing genocide of all the people who would subsequently never be born into the changed world… plus the Playing Divinity thing, one small mortal brain trying to anticipate all the causalities which likely wouldn't be less tragic and tangled than the first. Anything burnt to the ground would still need to grow and be worked on, just like what came before.

He fisted his hands and pressed his knuckles to his closed eyes.

"Don't answer that," he whispered. "I'm sorry."

The last words as much to them as to her. "Oh god oh god I'm sorry I'm sorry."

The Map. What had become of the Map… he'd lost track… he thought one of them must surely have kept it, or maybe passed it along like they'd casually suggested before graduating… last he remembered, Filch had confiscated it but they'd never have left it languishing in a drawer, they'd raided Filch's desk many times.

…But the other way to look at time travel was that it had already happened. Tonks had just read ahead. She was doing him this great favour of telling him… he'd live and it would get better. Don't ruin it with selfishness.

All he could do now was… survive.

He didn't want to survive. He wanted to go with them.

Remus was kneeling on the floor. He had no memory of getting there. From there, he let his hands fall again in his lap.

"I was in love with Lily," he muttered confession. "I never told anyone, though Sirius plainly could tell. But big deal… most of our class was in love with her. I just… maybe was… in different love with James too. I'd never get in the way. Actually, she told me once she never would have given him a chance if we hadn't been mutual friends. I tried to help them. I tried to help everyone and never did good to anyone…"

He looked up at her again. "Can you get me out of here?" he begged. "Out of this moment?"

[metamorphical]

“I don’t know.” She answers honestly, even if he says not to, because she feels that she should. She glances about themselves then focuses on the object with a mind of its own. “It started with just a wish for a small holiday and companionship.” And has grown by its own accord into something beautiful and tragic and frustrating. While Remus’ thoughts of time travel selfishness may feel fleeting or random to him, similar thoughts haven’t left Tonks’ own mind the entire time. She supposes that’s the danger of being able to view one’s travels linearly.

Too, as she has already acted upon impulse and attempted to change things, she supposes that there are certain things that little bedknobs and witches can’t change. Things put in place for reasons beyond her understanding. “It’s all a bit fucked up, innit?” She asks quietly, more to herself than to her friend. “What’s the point if we can’t--?” But then she trails off, half because there’s no good coming from that line of thought and half to listen, and shakes her head. “I don’t think that’s true. I think you’ve done as good as the world’s allowed you to.”

As for getting out of here, Tonks crawls over the side of the bed and offers her hand to help him back up as well. “What do you think? Some beach in Greece might be lovely this time of…time.” Since seasons and years don’t exactly matter.

[lumenrelegandus]

He opened his mouth to answer.

He closed it again.

Going somewhere beautiful wouldn't get him out of here. He'd still be here in his mind.

Only going back and seeing them again. But he'd know what was in store.

Going forward? Seeing Sirius's name cleared? But what happened to Sirius himself?

Remus stared at nothing. Then he doubled over, curled on himself like a wounded animal, and pressed his hands over his face in her lap.

[metamorphical]

Her fingers move without thought, pushing quietly through his hair as she chews on her lip. Again, the thought strikes her of how unfair so many things are. How many things could be, should be, changed.

The bedknob takes its cues once more, not from what is said, not even from what might be wanted, but from what might be needed. As Tonks sits there as if protecting the curled-up man, the scenery changes like a gaussian blur. From one kitchen, cozy even with its sad news, to one bigger in size but less warm.

At the small table is Tonks' relatively recent past and Remus' mildly-distant future, both sitting at the table and chatting. Remus stumbles in his chair and Tonks reaches out to steady it with a cheeky smile and remark. But the volume is only turned up after that, with a question posed.

"Is it difficult? Being in this situation again? Seeing him again?"

"See… Sirius, again?" He chooses that one because he can look her in the eye and feel his mouth curve, and though it's a slight smile, it's a fully, genuinely warm one. "It's only difficult seeing him go stir-crazy and only being able to help so far. But for me… That Halloween… It wasn't just losing those friends, that family, in the present and future. It was losing our shared past, as well. Our only explanation for what happened could not be reconciled with my experience of these people and where our lives intersected. So my experience had been wrong. Sirius must never have been who I thought he was, and that shared time of our lives must also have been a lie. And since that time had meant… everything to me… It was loss upon loss, each alone already immeasurable.

"It doesn't make the loss of Lily and James any more bearable. But to finally have the truth, and to have Sirius as I knew he'd really been, that past, for all of us, restored… The tragedy that it did not break it to have this be true of…" He still couldn't speak Peter's name… "But no. It's not difficult to have Sirius back. In the present or in the past. I'm furious at so much of how it happened… can't help wondering if things could have been changed, if I could have changed them… but so many more powerful forces and figures were involved… and now, finally, my gratitude is greater than my anger. I can actually do as I would wish; I can have this gift of more time with Sirius and not lose it to resenting having lost other time. …That is a much, much longer and… more laden answer than you were probably after for someone you barely know."

The Tonks sitting on the bed watches their future and past selves, listening to those words with a different point of view now. It's never enough time, even at that moment when they thought they could finally make up for all the years lost.

It won't be enough. And the pieces of the past have no idea.

[lumenrelegandus]

Remus!now had sat up at the voices and now stared at her choice of destination, to show him them!then. He watched wide-eyed, like a wolf, but for the first time, like a wolf cub. Without seeming to notice, he was gripping her hand, like an anchor to reality; this wasn't a dream. He recognised 12 Grimmauld, he recognised Tonks herself. He could not recognise the man he would become. Signifiers, yes: the scars most obviously, the camouflaging dress sense (originally necessitated by being whatever hand-me-downs McGonagall could provide him, but continued in order to be the polar opposite to the wolf) sure. But that calmness, that centredness, that maturity, what he was saying…

But it was him.

Tonks was a genius. She had taken him far away from here. If only by showing him how far he'd go.

And that, by context: yes, he would get to be with Sirius again.

Now!Remus blinked, blinked again, discovered the tears in his eyes he was failing to blink away, turned to Tonks, found himself capable of part of a smile.

"If it leads here," he said softly, "then I can go back. I can get through it. …If you promise to visit me again on the way."



[OOC: He could even help her for a scene! <3 [

[metamorphical]

She looks over then, a smile slowly tugging a corner of her mouth in return, and tugs gently on the fingers still in her own. “I certainly promise I’ll try.” How that would work, Tonks has no idea, but suspects – now more than ever -- that magic has a way of surprising even its most seasoned of users.

Turning back to the other versions of themselves, she grins a little as she watches them. “I mean, it was right this moment that I decided you’d be fairly hard pressed to get rid of me at any rate. Can’t disappoint my past self, can I?” Tonks asks with lifted eyebrows.

They don’t linger in Grimmauld for long, the bed instead whisking them away for another small adventure. It’s Hogsmeade mid-spring, with the sun shining and people bustling about in the village. A good number of those people are, admittedly, students from Hogwarts, all laughing and moving about the area in that loud way that teenagers tend to be.

Tonks looks confused, but entertained at the current choice. And as she doesn’t see any version of Remus immediately, she assumes that it’s a small break. A reprieve from the harsher parts of their lives and an opportunity again to just be, similar to the beginning of their travels. “Wanna have a go?” She grins again, motioning with her head toward the hustle and bustle.

Her companion doesn’t fully get a choice in the matter, since she’s scrambling up and tugging him off the bed to have a nice bit of a walk. “C’mon then. I’ll show you my favourite spot back when I was younger.”

[Oh we’re getting there! :D]

[lumenrelegandus]

The magic was transportation. Inside and out. Suddenly the gravity well inside him had calmed. It wasn't unbearable to exist. There was distance, as if he'd lived with it a long time and survived.

Thank God thank you thank you thank you thank you

Able again to breathe, Remus takes a moment, closed eyes to the sky, to feel the sun. It feels like it's been years—and in a way it has. Then he turns to the other, still brighter light: Tonks's eyes. If he can't quite smile, his expression is… less not that. And he returns the grip of her hand with relief, following her off the bed and wherever she'll lead.

[metamorphical]

As they walk, Tonks vacillates between idle talk and companionable silence, keeping their air between them light enough to continue to be able to breathe.

The students running amok don't pay the older duo much mind, running past them with bravado talk of going up to the old shack and knocking on the door. Tonks chortles softly, remembering when she and her friends did the same, but glances over briefly at Remus. The shack takes on an even more different connotation now.

What Tonks does not notice is that the students running past would be at least vaguely familiar if she paid attention. Instead, she steers them toward a less well-beaten path, away from the village as well as the Shrieking Shack.

Up ahead is a little grove covered by treed and their newly blooming leaves, bright green, and little buds of flowers in various colors. "I liked the colours--" Tonks starts to explain, but stops mid-thought. Someone is already up ahead in that little area, a student by the look of things.

And by the visibly bright pink hair, it's a student that she knows all too well.

Tonks pauses, obviously having not expected to see her younger self there. The younger Tonks has her wand out and is practicing a spell, but then acts in a frustrated manner when it doesn't come to fruition.

"I was trying to teach myself the Patronus charm." The older one recalls. "I wanted to prove to myself that I could do it. That I wasn't like..them."

[lumenrelegandus]

[OOC: I do that AAAAALL the time. Happy New Year!!!]

Seeing the younger Tonks puts a feeling in Remus's chest he's not sure he's felt before. A bursting swirl of… many good things at once. Relief that he's not going to run into himself (or the others)… delight at her at any age… recognition of his favourite magick and wishing he could help her, but he'd rather stay with this Tonks so no good, but it's still fun to watch.

"I'm sure you'll get it," he said, then instantly abashed. That was for her to tell him. Just hard not to fall into tutoring mode, especially for that charm.

[metamorphical]

"It takes me a while," she admits with a small and wry smile. "Half of my frustration is that I know I've had a good life..happy memories..but I just worry, you know?"

The teenager that they're watching takes a breath and starts talking to herself, though it's too quiet to hear. Tonks shakes her head a bit and looks over.

"As much as I love my weirdness, it's still lonely. And scary sometimes."

[lumenrelegandus]

Remus nodded. "Whenever things were good was when I got the most terrified of losing them. Sirius—" Starts to stop himself, then stops himself stopping himself. Timelines overlapping; but with her, the correction was made; Sirius remained who he thought he'd been, the ally and friend. "—he'd try to get me to 'enjoy them while they lasted', and I agreed in theory, but tell that to how it feels."

To the latter, he couldn't help saying, "Someone in the muggle world said, 'The only 'normal' people are the ones you don't know'. I don't know how to define 'weird' in anyone compared to anyone else. I know what you mean about how scary and lonely. I don't mean to underrate that. But for whatever it's worth, I like yours so much more than most." Without stopping to overthink: "Maybe anyone's."