On the Joyous Science, in Wartime

On the Joyous Science, In Wartime

far between sundown’s finish and midnight’s broken toll

Swish. Flick. Expecto Patronum!

This is all the work we do now. We are the front lines, the protectors; we watch as the dementors lurk in the shadows of the night, and drive them forth when they approach too closely.

Swish. Flick. Expecto Patronum!

It is a repetitive motion, and like any other job it becomes mechanical. My grandmother – Gran Tonks, of course, not Spica Black, whom I never met – was a typist before she married, and even fifty years later she has certain words at her fingertips. It’s like that when you’re an Auror. The words and motions of the most common defensive spells are always at your fingertips.

Expecto Patronum!

I’m growing tired. A few rings of silvery light appear, but fail to coalesce into their proper form.

The dementor glides closer. A woman’s voice, high and cold, echoes off the stone benches: My sister should have aborted you, half-blood brat, but it’s not too late to fix that... And on the other side of the veil, the voices whisper hypnotically.

Concentrate. Good memories. The day I learned Sirius was innocent ... no, not that one, not now ... Mum and Dad and a day at the zoo...

Swish. Flick. Expecto Patronum!

This time it is strong, able to chase the dementor down. The ice splinters in my chest thaw, and I can breathe again.

No, on second thought it’s not much like typing. Defensive magic requires a particular state of mind, and it gets harder as you go instead of easier. The dementors wear you down. The chilly mist penetrates toward your bones, and good thoughts become harder and harder to summon.

It’s my fault my cousin died. If I’d been quicker on the draw...

Stop that. Just stop it. Remember you’re an Auror. We are the guardians of the weak and the powerless; we do not falter, we cannot fail...

Expecto Patronum!

I am bone-weary by midnight, when Nerissa Proudfoot comes to relieve me, shaking all over and close to tears.

 

                                                            *          *          *

the guardians and protectors of the mind

I’ve given Remus the key to my flat. In case he needs a safe place to stay in London, I told him, and I’m not around to let him in. Secretly I was hoping he might drop by for less urgent reasons – as a friend, you know, or ...

He’s there when I get home, sitting in one of my mismatched charity-shop armchairs and reading a book. He half-rises when I come in, and looks faintly apologetic. “I came by to see how you were holding up,” he says. “I hope I’m not intruding?”

“No, not at all. I’m fine. And you?”

“Very well, thanks.”

He doesn’t look it. He’s even thinner and more haggard than usual. But then, I don’t suppose I look fine, either. Although he’s too polite to say anything, he looks at me with the frown lines deepening in his forehead. “What have they got you doing?”

“Chasing off dementors. Or holding them at bay, anyway.”

“Ah.” He looks as if he understands, and I remember that this branch of Defense is his particular area of expertise. The joyous science, he calls it; the magic of light and laughter. And love.

“Can I get you something to eat?” He half-shakes his head with a slightly amused expression, as if he doesn’t trust my cooking. (Smart man.) “Or drink? Gin and tonic?” He likes Muggle drinks; he says the wizarding ones are too sweet.

“All right. No, I’ll make it – you look all in. It’s exhausting work fighting them, I know.”

“Yeah. Any tips?”

He settles himself next to me on the sofa, wraps his hand around his drink, and says, “It’s quite difficult sometimes, isn’t it? People tend to disparage this branch of magic – saying oh, happiness, how much work can that be? But they forget that happiness is something you have to fight for – you’ve got to reach deep down and find it within yourself – especially at times like this.”

“Yes.” There is a short silence as we both stare into our drinks and think about Sirius and the war.

“It’s also a delicate balancing act, because you don’t want to use the same memory too many times, or it loses its power. And memories that involve other people tend to be stronger than ones that are only about yourself, but also – riskier. If you know what I mean?”

I do. Other people can tear you apart inside if you’re not careful.

“It may help to remember that a Patronus is a protective spirit, a sort of magical guardian. So if you are ever at the point where you can’t manage a memory that’s strictly speaking happy, think of the people and places that make you feel safe, and you’ll get through.”

The trouble, as we both know, is that there are so few safe places left. And so many of the people I might have thought of as protectors – my cousin Sirius, my mentor Amelia Bones – have been killed in the last few months. There are my parents, of course, but I worry that they’re the first ones on Bellatrix Lestrange’s hit list; my time has come to protect them.

Who does make me feel safe, I wonder?

It all happens in a second. First it crosses my mind that the answer is sitting right next to me, in shabby secondhand robes, and then he catches my eye and something twists inside of me and safe isn’t the word any more. Well, faint heart never won fair werewolf. Can’t hurt to have a go.

“Remus?”

“Hmm?”

“You talked about reaching for happiness within yourself. How about reaching out?”

“What?”

“Like this.” And I lean forward and kiss him.

The inside of his mouth tastes of gin and it’s still cold from the ice, but his lips are warm and he kisses me so fiercely and feverishly that feel like I’m having the breath crushed out of me. And then, in seconds, it’s over. He puts his hand on my shoulders and pushes me away. “No. We can’t. It won’t work.”

“How do you know what will work if you won’t try it?”

“I know. And it isn’t fair to you. I’m thirty-six, I’ve got an illness that isn’t going to go away, and I’m not safe. If I bit you, you would never be able to have a normal life again – and I wouldn’t be able to live with myself.”

“You aren’t going to bite me. I can look after myself. But if it isn’t fair to you, or if you don’t feel that way about me, I’ll back off. Deal?”

He doesn’t answer this. He swallows the rest of his drink, gets to his feet, and mutters, “You’ll thank me for this later.” He won’t meet my eyes as he walks to the door.

As soon as he is out of earshot, I give the living room wall a hearty kick and holler, “You IRRITATING CONDESCENDING PRIG, how the hell do YOU know what I’ll thank you for?” at the Flitterbloom. The plant shuts its heart-shaped leaves and cowers; I apologize to it, limp to the kitchen, and wash out his gin glass.

And then – because I have been fighting dementors all day, and I’m very tired – I go to bed and huddle under the covers with a copy of Persuasion and some chocolate. But because I am an Auror, I don’t cry.

 

                                                            *          *          *

and the hypnotic splattered mist was slowly lifting

Swish. Flick. Expecto Patronum!

It’s better to let the dementors come as close as you can bear. Every minute they’re going for a trained Auror is a minute they’re not going for somebody else, somebody innocent and defenseless.

Like Emmeline Vance. The Order recruited her because she was well placed in the Ministry, but she wasn’t a fighter. She asked me to take her shift guarding Diagon Alley that night, and I said yes. So they got her at home instead. If I had said no – maybe...

Expecto Patronum!

Amelia. I could have insisted on escorting her home – or found some excuse to keep her at work – or done something...

Expecto Patronum! The outline of my Patronus is blurry now, and it moves more slowly. Six hours on dementor duty is about as much as anyone is good for. I’ve done five already, and they’ve been the five weariest and most dangerous hours of the day, from midnight to dawn.

We are the front lines, they tell us in training. Yeah. The sacrificial lambs, is what they mean.

The dementor approaches again, sucking the warmth from the summer night and blotting out the stars with grey swirls of mist. The mist wraps itself around me gently and inexorably; it is beautiful in its way, as the Veil in the Department of Mysteries is beautiful. Sirius...

Don’t give in! Concentrate! I reach for newer and fresher memories, and come up with that gin-soaked and breathless kiss.

Expecto Patronum!

I have been working almost automatically, and the shape of a Patronus is hard to see at the best of times. In the dark it looks like no more than a silver streak or a blur. Now, in the grey light of dawn, I am shocked to see that the form of mine has shifted. I don’t know when it happened, or why.

A wolf, lean and powerful, points its silvery nose at the waning moon.

I catch my breath – because it is so very beautiful – and then, as the dementors close in again, I realize this may not be altogether a blessing. A curt, flat voice echoes inside my head. It won’t work. You’ll thank me for this later.

Expecto Patronum! I redouble my efforts, casting the spell again and again until my robes are soaked with mist and sweat.

 

                                                            *          *          *

the echo of the wedding bells

Molly keeps inviting me to dinner. She seems to think I want cheering up, and I believe she’s also hoping I’ll turn Bill’s head and distract him from his French fiancée – which is not going to happen for quite a lot of reasons, not least of which is the fact that Fleur is perfectly nice apart from having an ego the size of a hippogriff, and Bill genuinely cares for her. I dodge most of these invitations because she generally asks Remus as well. Finally, as a last resort, I tell her why.

“Oh, my dear,” she says, and then she chuckles. “I don’t blame you. Not in the slightest. If I were ten years younger and single, you might have some competition.”

I try to smile back. “I don’t think it would matter. He’s already turned me down.”

“I wouldn’t give up hope if I were you, love. I expect he just needs some time to get used to the idea. He’s at the age where people get set in their ways, and – well, men tend to be a bit thick when they get it into their heads that we need to be protected. I suppose he probably thinks he’s dangerous, or some such nonsense.”

“Yes, he does. And he says he’s too old for me. I don’t know, maybe he’s right...”

“You’re a witch and a wizard, dear. When you’re a hundred and thirty, he’ll be a hundred and forty-three.”

“Good point.”

“Then I suppose it’s no good asking you to dinner next time Charlie’s home on leave? Just so you can meet him?” Molly looks wistful, as if she’d been counting on having me as a daughter-in-law one way or another.

“I already know Charlie. We went to school together for seven years.” (Charlie also has a boyfriend in Romania, but Molly doesn’t know about this yet.)

“Oh, right. I’d forgotten.” She looks slightly disappointed. “Well, I suppose I had better get started sewing Ginny’s bridesmaid robes – though what she is going to look like next to that Gabrielle, I don’t know ... and probably all over bruises from playing Quidditch, too ...”

A man in a patched overcoat is coming up the front walk. I take a last gulp of tea, burn my tongue, and knock over the chair in my haste to get up. “I’ll be happy to see Charlie again. We’re friends, we should catch up next time he’s home. ‘Bye for now.”

Ignoring Molly’s stares, I grab a handful of Floo Powder and dive into the fireplace just before her other visitor reaches the front door.

 

                                                            *          *          *

too personal a tale

Expecto Patronum!

I’d forgotten how easy it is when there are no dementors around. A flash of bright silver streaks through the darkness.

Harry watches it curiously. “Was that a Patronus?”

“Yes. I’m sending word to the castle that I’ve got you or they’ll worry. Come on, we’d better not dawdle.”

We don’t talk much on the way back to the castle. I reckon he’s probably embarrassed as all hell that I found him immobilized from Draco Malfoy’s spell, with his nose broken and his fingers bruised. I mended his nose for him – I’ve always had a quick hand with a Healing Spell – but wounds to one’s pride don’t heal so easily, particularly not when one is an adolescent male.

The gates are shut when we arrive, but I trust they will be opened for us when Hagrid receives my message. Patroni can be used to communicate; they don’t work well for long messages, but they can spell out a fiery word or two in the sky, like the Weasley twins’ enchanted fireworks.

And then, sometimes they communicate too much. My heart sinks when we are met, not by Hagrid, but by Severus Snape. “Incidentally,” he says between his teeth as he lets Harry inside the gates, “I was interested to see your new Patronus.”

I freeze. This is really not something Snape needs to know; and the vicious note in his voice tells me he knows what it means, too.

“I think you were better off with the old one,” he says. “The new one looks weak.”

And he turns away with a swish of his robes, leaving me standing outside the locked gate, shaking with rage.

 

                                                            *          *          *

the aching, whose wounds cannot be nursed

The chill deepens and the fog thickens as the autumn wears on in Hogsmeade. The other Aurors stationed here are putting up at the Three Broomsticks, but I’ve taken a room at the Hog’s Head. The little inn is filthy and smells of goats, but it’s run by Dumbledore’s brother and it’s as safe as anywhere in Britain. It’s also a good place to overhear things and to meet up with the other members of the Order. Sooner or later, everybody turns up at the Hog’s Head.

Including, one night in October, Remus Lupin.

I run into him in the bathroom, which is at the end of the corridor and shared by everyone staying on the third floor. He looks terrible: his face clawed and torn, and he sways slightly on his feet as he hunches over one of the sinks, retching.

“Remus! What’s the matter, are you drunk?”

He looks up and blinks. “No. Just sick. Knockturn Alley Wolfsbane ... very poor quality...” He bends over the sink again, but it’s more dry heaves than anything.

“It won’t do you much good if you can’t keep it down, will it?” I hand him a glass of water as he slumps to the floor, his back against the wall and his cheek against the cracked porcelain tiles.

“It’s after the full moon, Tonks. These are just the cumulative effects.”

“Merlin. You’re poisoning yourself. Can’t Snape –”

“No, he couldn’t. I can’t let anybody find out I’m in touch with the respectable wizarding community. It’s a risk even going to Knockturn Alley ... but it lets me keep a little control ... better than biting somebody...”

“Jesus, Remus, where have you been? What have you been doing?”

“Living among my equals.” I can’t tell if he’s being ironic or not. God, I hope he is.

“Does that mean – Greyback and his pack?”

He nods, his eyes closed. One of the scratches on his cheek is still oozing blood, and looks like it might be infected.

“Let me heal that for you.”

“Not too much. It’ll look suspicious if I go back without any visible damage.”

“Semi-episkey!” The swelling subsides and the edges of the wound join together; only an angry red line remains. “Have you got any other injuries in, you know, less visible places ... oh, for goodness’ sake, you don’t have to be modest, you haven’t got anything I haven’t seen before ... Episkey!”

“Thanks,” he mutters, flushing slightly as he draws his robes around him.

“Don’t go back there. Tell them you can’t. It’s killing you.”

He smiles vaguely. “That isn’t an option. I have made my commitments. I shouldn’t even be here in Hogsmeade, but Dumbledore was under the impression that I needed a few days’ R and R.”

“I should say you do! A few months would be more like it. I mean it. Don’t go.”

He has shut his eyes again, and speaks with effort. “And your orders ... counteract Dumbledore’s ... why?”

I hesitate a moment, and take the plunge. “Because I love you.”

“I don’t recommend falling in love with werewolves,” he says with a thin, bitter smile. “After tonight, it should be abundantly clear why.”

“Bit late for recommendations. It’s a done deal.”

“Then undo it.” He isn’t smiling now. “Listen, it isn’t that I don’t care about you. I do. That’s why I think you deserve much better than I can give you.” And he struggles to his feet as the bathroom door swings open and a couple of drunks come in. We say good night in the corridor, and I watch as he stumbles to his own room, not wanting to take away any more of his pride by offering him my arm.

If this is weakness, Severus, I hope I never set eyes on strength.

 

                                                            *          *          *

each unharmful gentle soul misplaced inside a jail

Expecto Patronum!

The light of my Patronus lends a sickly glow to the dank, slime-covered walls of Azkaban.

The Ministry – idiots that they are – have set the only two dementors they were able to recapture to guard this place. They are puny little ones, scarcely four feet high in their hoods, but I don’t trust them. The Dark Lord offers them better prey than we can.

I have seen this corridor before – once in Auror training, often in my nightmares. It used to house my cousin and my aunt, but the only food for dementors it affords now is one skinny, spotty-faced youth. I have been sent here to interrogate that nefarious Death Eater, Stan Shunpike. My higher-ups in the Ministry seem to be under the impression that the presence of an old schoolmate might induce him to confess his sins against God and crimes against wizarding society.

Yeah. I’d be tempted to laugh in their faces, but the dementors are hovering at my elbow, and they suck laughter from your chest before it starts. Expecto Patronum!

The guard slides the heavy iron bolt aside and swings the cell door open. Both door and bolt are stiff with rust, as if they have not been touched for some time.

The prisoner has lost weight since the last time I saw him, on the Knight Bus a few days after New Year’s. But it is his eyes that have changed the most: they are dull, and stare at me vaguely. “Hello, Stan.”

“‘Allo, Tonksie.” The side of his mouth twists in a brave attempt at a smile. “Long time no see.”

“I brought you some chocolate.” Prisoners are not normally allowed chocolate, but it’s part of the standard interrogation technique: the soft touch that is supposed to gain the suspect’s confidence.

“Thanks, luv.” He crams about half a bar of chocolate into his mouth, and a little life returns to his eyes. “‘Ow’s the Auror business? You comin’ to let me out o’ this ‘ell’ole?”

“I wish I could, Stan, but I don’t have the influence.”

He gives me a blank stare, and I imagine what I must look like in his eyes. I am Ministry; I can do anything.

“I’ll see what I can do for you, but I can’t make any promises. I’ve come to ask what you know about the Death Eaters and what they might be planning. Anything at all.”

“I don’t know nuffink! I didn’t do it!” He looks around desperately. “I was just braggin’ a bit, to chat up some girls, like, an’ I already told the warden a ‘undred times that’s all I know, but ‘e don’t listen! But you believe me, doncha, Tonksie?”

“I believe you.”

“Then are you goin’ to let me out?”

“I’m sorry, Stan. I can’t.” The bitter irony of the situation hasn’t escaped me: if he had been a Death Eater, and willing to rat out his comrades, he might be walking free by now.

“You don’t believe me.” He looks hurt and betrayed, and I reckon he’s right to be.

I don’t meet Stan’s eyes as I go out, and the dementors hang close at my heels as I follow the warden down the corridor.

“What did you find out?” asks the warden, sounding none too interested.

“He’s innocent.”

“Everybody here is.”

The dementors draw closer; I can feel their foul breath on the back of my neck.

Expecto Patronum!

My guardian spirit does something that I have never known a Patronus to do before; it rubs its silvery head under my hand and tries to lick me with an insubstantial tongue, for all the world like a domestic dog whose master is ill or depressed. “Thank you,” I whisper, although I don’t know whether it can hear me.

 

                                                            *          *          *

tolling for the rebel, tolling for the rake

Harry gave me a tip-off that Mundungus was selling off Sirius’ things. I suppose I’d better check it out, though it hardly seems to matter; my cousin hated the Black family heirlooms, and he all but gave them away to Dung while he was living. Still, they’re Harry’s property now, and knowing the Blacks, some of them may be cursed.

I slip back into Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place one evening. I come intending to count the silver and end up sitting in front of the cold fireplace, not counting anything at all. I’m thinking of Stan, and of another prisoner who spent too many years in Azkaban, armed only with his wits to fight a battle against despair and madness, a battle that I can barely manage with my wand.

At the sound of footsteps I jump to my feet and prepare to disarm the intruder. If I’m lucky, it’ll only be Mundungus, but I am half-expecting Bellatrix.

“... Remus? Cripes, mate, you startled me.”

“I’m sorry.” We both lower our wands, and he gives me a tentative smile. “I come here sometimes. When I need a few hours away from – well. It isn’t precisely civilization, but it’s better than how I’ve been living.” He glances at me and kneels down in front of the grate. “You’re shivering. Let me kindle a fire.”

“I wasn’t planning to stay – I mean, you don’t have to go to any trouble...”

He places both hands on my shoulders, gently but firmly. “You’re staying until you’ve warmed up and had some hot chocolate. You need it; you’re looking a bit blue.”

It’s clear from the worn, drawn look on his face that he needs it too, so I don’t argue. He goes into the kitchen and returns with two mugs of cocoa. “Cheers. Is everything all right with you?”

“I’ve been missing Sirius,” I say, because it’s the first thing that comes to mind. I don’t add, And you, although this is closer to the point.

“So have I.” He turns toward the fire and taps his fingers on the rim of his cup. “I think it would have been easier if we’d had a proper funeral ... It still doesn’t seem quite real.”

“I know. I keep expecting to see him bounding down the steps two at a time – or thinking he must be upstairs sulking. One or the other.” Almost as soon as the words are out of my mouth, I wish I hadn’t mentioned my cousin’s mood swings. Not in front of the man who looked after him through that last hard year, and not while the effects of the dementors are showing in every line of my face and strand of my hair. The whole damn problem with being a Metamorphmagus is that it’s impossible to keep any secrets, even from yourself.

“You remind me of him,” says Remus slowly. “So much that it scares me, sometimes. I wish you could have known him when he was younger...”

“What was he like?”

“One of those people who seem to fill up the room by sheer force of personality. Quick-witted, a fast talker, and usually had half a dozen girls hanging on every word, although I think the only female he really cared about was his motorcycle, which was named Cicely.”

“Cicely?”

“Don’t look at me, I didn’t name it. Anyway, he’d walk through fire for you if he liked you, but if he didn’t ... well, look out. He threw a mean Slug-Vomiting Hex, and he actually used it on Sturgis at an Order meeting once – I forget why, but Sturgis never forgave him.”

“You must have got up to so much trouble with him at school.”

He smiles reminiscently. “Oh, we did. Did I ever tell you about the time we convinced the whole school that an invisible poltergeist had moved in...?”

After a second cup of cocoa and an hour in Remus’ company, I’m feeling more cheerful than I would have thought possible. I could probably Metamorphose right now, although I’m afraid to try in case I’m wrong about this. “Wouldn’t it be great,” I murmur drowsily, “if we could sit in front of the fire like this all the time?”

He tenses slightly. I hadn’t meant to bring up a painful subject again, but it’s clear he’s taken it that way. “You’ll find someone better to sit in front of fires with. A man your own age, a man who isn’t – damaged.”

“You’re not damaged! You’re about the least damaged person I know – well – after you make allowances for different life experiences!”

He laughs ruefully. “Well, unfortunately it’s the ‘different life experiences,’ as you call them, that are the problem.” He takes a sip of the cocoa and hesitates a moment, his thin cheeks flushed in the firelight. “I am not going to lie to you. If I were ten years younger and I hadn’t been bitten, my answer would be very different. But I am trying to do what’s best for you.”

“I can decide what’s best for me, and I don’t care about any of that, Remus, honestly.”

“Well, I care. I care entirely too much to let you throw away every chance of having a normal life.”

“But –”

“I see no point in discussing this further.” His voice is almost as frosty as Snape’s, and his eyes are on the Doxy-eaten carpet. I’m furious with him for patronizing me and lying to himself, and then suddenly he looks up with an expression on his face that makes him seem younger than his years and terribly vulnerable, and I’m not furious any more. “Are we friends?” he asks, and I catch a pleading note in his voice.

“Yes. Yes, of course we are.”

But we leave the house separately, and we don’t see each other again for months.

 

                                                            *          *          *

the disrobed faceless forms of no position

Expecto Patronum!

Dementors reserve the darkest and most terrible of their powers for the long weary hours between midnight and dawn. In the daytime we relive the worst of what has happened to us; at three o’clock in the morning we imagine the worst that may be yet to come.

Harry dead, his wand still clutched in his still cold hand, and the enemy victorious. All the children dead, and Molly weeping for them and refusing to be comforted...

Expecto Patronum! EXPECTO PATRONUM!

Only a thin wreath of mist holds the dementors at bay. Concentrate, girl. Think of your family and friends.

The tagging of the Muggle-borns: my father shunted into some menial job, cringing and scrounging for food. The execution of part-humans: Hagrid dead, Fang licking at his master’s face, unable to understand. Herds of centaurs lying in a tangle of broken legs. Walden Macnair raising his silver axe over a werewolf’s neck...

Oh my dear God. Expecto Patronum! Think of Remus – alive and well and being a completely stubborn ass as usual – even though it hurts –

The faint outline of a wolf rises through the air and snaps at a dementor or two; but too soon it dissolves into the cold night air.

Yes – think of Remus, you foolish girl. Running with Greyback and his pack, forced to kill or be killed – maybe feasting on human flesh. Or refusing to, and being torn limb from limb. Think of him dead and unburied, with the carrion crows circling...

Expecto Pat...

The suffocating mist sticks in my chest, and I turn and stagger back to the castle. I can’t do this any more. I can’t.

 

                                                            *          *          *

the searching ones on their speechless seeking trail

The first time I came here, I ran into Harry, who looked at me as if I’d gone mad. I didn’t care; all that mattered was that he said he hadn’t heard from Remus and he didn’t know where Dumbledore had gone.

The second time, Hagrid lets me inside the gates after curfew. The only person in the corridors is Snape, on patrol with a candle in one hand and his wand in the other.

“Severus.” I try to keep my voice even. “Have you heard from – anybody in the Order lately? Is there news?”

He raises the candle so that I can see his face, pale and unearthly in the circle of light. “A five-year-old boy,” he says deliberately, “was found on the outskirts of Dead Man’s Moor with his belly ripped open and one leg torn to shreds on the morning after the last full moon. He died in St. Mungo’s a few hours later. The Ministry has granted permission to perform the Kiss if the werewolf responsible is captured.” After a moment he adds, as if it were an idle digression in a classroom lecture, “It is believed that Fenrir Greyback requires new werewolves to kill before he will accept them into his pack.” Another pause. “Was that the sort of news you were looking for, Nymphadora?”

I catch my breath and restrain myself from hexing him into next week. “I want to see Dumbledore.”

“The Headmaster is away.”

“When will he be back?”

“I cannot tell you.”

I grab him by the shoulders and give him the shaking he deserves. “Do you mean you don’t know, or you won’t tell me?”

“Unhand me, Nymphadora. The Headmaster’s whereabouts are unknown to me, but in any case I should hardly be inclined to confide them to a person who appears to be of questionable mental stability.”

He lowers his candle and stalks off. When Dumbledore returns a few minutes later, he finds me swearing eloquently at the gargoyle that guards his office.

“None of those is the password,” he says with a wheezy chuckle. “I must say they were very imaginative guesses, but I try to keep my selections more appropriate for eleven-year-old ears.”

“Oh, er – excuse me, Professor – I went looking for you, but I didn’t know you’d be back so soon.”

“Come in.” He turns to the gargoyle. “Ice Mouse.”

I follow Dumbledore up the stairs. He moves more slowly than he did even a few months ago, and his withered hand is tucked underneath his robes; but his old-fashioned courtesy is the same as ever, as he ushers me into the office and pulls out a chair for me. “It is a pleasure to see you here, of course, but – if you will excuse me – rather an unexpected one. What can I do for you?”

“What can you tell me about a werewolf attack on a five-year-old boy?” I blurt out without preamble.

“Ah. The Montgomery child. A terrible, terrible tragedy. Greyback’s work, of course.”

“You’re sure – that it was Greyback himself...”

“Ah,” he says again, and looks at me through his half-moon spectacles. “I have asked many things of you and your colleagues in the Order – most of them difficult and some, no doubt, unfair – but I have not asked a decent man to turn monster. Nor has he done so. We are in contact, and I am as sure of him as I am of myself. Does that answer your question?”

“Yes. Is he safe, then?”

“For now. There are always risks in war. You know that.”

“Yes.”

“There are risks in love, too,” he muses, “but that does not mean we should stop loving. Indeed, I believe it to be the only thing that can see us through these difficult times ... Sherbet lemon?”

“No thanks.” I can feel myself blushing; first Snape, now Dumbledore. Are my questions that easy to see through? “I need to be off. Thank you, Professor.”

“Thank you, Nymphadora. It is always a joy to see an old student return to this office – well, most old students, anyway. I hope I shall see you again soon. I like the pink hair best, by the way, should you be in the mood to change it for your next visit.”

As the door shuts behind me, I hear Phineas Nigellus’ drowsy drawl. “You couldn’t have talked a little more sense into her, Albus? I should much prefer for my great-great-great-great-grandchildren not to come into the world with bright pink fur, if it’s all the same to you ...”

 

                                                            *          *          *

each and every underdog soldier in the night

“Young feller’s come to see you,” mumbles Aberforth when I come in after my shift. “Knew all the Order passwords and countersigns, so I showed him up to your room. No sparkin’, now. This here is a respectable establishment, and I got a reputation to keep up.” He waves his hand around the front room of the Hog’s Head, which is strewn with dirty straw and has a couple of goats tethered to one of the tables.

“I’ll keep that in mind, Aberforth,” I promise, hiding a smile. If it’s anyone but Remus, there won’t be much chance of sparkin’, and if it is him – there’s not much chance either, for a different reason.

“Lumos,” I whisper, and ease the door open, making sure I’ve got the drop on the man just in case he isn’t an Order member at all. “Remus?”

But the man standing by my window is more solidly built, and he turns to me with an exuberant and highly unprofessorial whoop. “CHARLIE!?! You’re home!”

“Just for a couple of days,” he says, enfolding me in a crushing hug. “Debriefing, and a bit of strategizing about how to win the Eastern European wizards over. Dolohov got there first, so it’s not going as well as I’d like.”

“How’s Ion?”

“Fine. He says hello.”

“When are you two going to give me godchildren?” I ask in my Molly-voice, although it falls a little flat without the red hair.

“As soon as you invent that male pregnancy potion you promised me.” This has been a standing joke ever since we suffered through Snape’s N.E.W.T.-level class together, and it’s wearing thin. I give him a feeble smile. “You all right, Tonks?” he asks. “Mum’s been worried about you. She says they missed you at Christmas, and they haven’t seen much of you since.”

“I’ve been busy. And there’s a war on. You know how it is,” I explain vaguely. The truth is that I don’t feel like facing Molly and Remus, particularly not at the same time. Apparently she took it upon herself to lecture him on my behalf – something I found out third-hand, through Verity, the twins’ shop-clerk – and as much as I’m fond of Molly, that’s the sort of help I can do without.

Charlie opens a bottle of some sort of Romanian plum brandy that has a powerful kick, and we toast all the members of the Order, far and near. Aberforth downstairs in the bar. His brother at the heart of the castle on the hill. Mundungus in Azkaban for petty theft. Molly at home, with all nine hands of her clock pointing to “Mortal Peril.” Olympe in France. Hagrid at the castle gates, standing between the children and the gathering storm. Emmeline and Sirius, wherever they may be. Remus forced to live like a beast, with Fenrir Greyback for company...

“Would that be your professor?” Charlie asks slyly. “The one my parents keep praising to the skies?”

“He’s not my professor. Far from it.”

“Mum seems to think it’s only a matter of time.”

“Your mum also thinks it’s only a matter of time before you marry Myra Stebbins,” I point out.

“True, but she’s missing a few key data points about my love life. And I gather she’s been talking with your professor, and your name’s come up more than once, so she should have a fair idea how he feels about you.”

“Talking with him, or talking at him?”

“Touché. That I don’t know.”

By this time the bottle is more than half empty, and I’m so drunk I barely notice the peck-peck-peck of a post-owl tapping insistently on the glass. Charlie pries the dirty window open and the owl drops a large brown envelope on the windowsill. There’s no return address, but I know the writing at a glance. I sober up in an instant and tear open the envelope.

“Is that from your professor?” asks Charlie, watching my face.

“Yes. I don’t believe it. He’s sent me an article from the bloody European Journal of Defensive Magic.”

“Maybe he thinks that’s the best thing he has to give,” Charlie suggests.

I stretch out on the bed, giggling. “You know something? You’ve never even met him and I’d bet ten Galleons you’re right. He would.”

The article has been published anonymously, but the title – “On the Joyous Science, in Wartime” – tells me all I need to know. A scrap of parchment flutters out from between the pages, and I try not to show how very, very pleased I am to see that he sent a note.

Dear Tonks,

You may think it strange that I can make time for scholarship under the circumstances, but in this hellish place, my work is the one thing that keeps me certain that I am a sane and civilised man. I thought of you often while writing this. I am sending you a copy in part because it would not have been written if I had not known you, and in part by way of an apology. You asked me for help with dementors once; I fear that I may have made it harder, rather than easier, for you to fight them. I hope you can find it in your heart to forgive me someday, but at the very least, I expect this article will provide some more immediate and practical help.

R. J. L.

Charlie has always had this knack of translating mad things boys say so girls can understand them, so I hand him the note. “What do you make of this?”

“He’s got you on his mind, but you confuse him. So he’s going to make sure you’re confused too.”

Charlie hands the parchment back and I read the first sentence over, noting every blot and catch in the handwriting. “He isn’t a complainer, so it has to be very bad if he’s let that much bitterness slip ... Charlie, do you ever wonder if what we’re doing is worth it? I don’t mean that it isn’t a just war, but half of the things we’re being asked to do seem completely futile, and some of them are just plain wrong...”

He places a hand on my shoulder and refills my glass. “I know. I feel the same way myself, sometimes. But think of the alternatives.”

I have thought of them. After enough hours with the dementors, I see them in my sleep. “Right.”

“I’ll leave you alone to read the article, but you’d better keep the rest of the plum brandy. You might need it.”

I sit by the window for a long time without reading the article. The moon is almost down. It is waxing, just past the half, and I think of him watching it swell night after night, wearing away the last fragments of his human-self. And yet, somehow, finding the time to work and write and hope.

 

                                                            *          *          *

the warriors whose strength is not to fight

Expecto Patronum!

My swift, silver-footed wolf drives the dementors to the edge of the village and lopes back toward me, triumphant.

Remus was right. It’s easier to cast a Patronus once you understand how and why it works. Most of his article is written in dry academic prose, and given over to some new discoveries about the technical details of the Patronus: the conditions that allow a wizard to cast one most effectively, the speed at which they move, the fact that they double as a secure method of communication. But the writer’s own voice shines through in the conclusion – which I have all but memorized.

Finally, I should like to say a word or two in response to those who consider this branch of magic weak and argue that we need to use the Dark Arts against the Dark Arts. (See Karkaroff, Snape, et al. for a fuller discussion of this position.) I contend that such a battle can end, at best, only in stalemate. Darkness breeds darkness, even when it has been enlisted into our service...

The dementors have stalked back to the dark alleys between the sleeping houses. They always come back; the most we can hope to give Hogsmeade is a respite, a little space to breathe and to dream.

... The only way we can win this war is to pit reason against madness, joy against despair, laughter against terror, love against hatred. Those who would argue that our weapons are poor and fragile ones should consider the power of a single candle’s flame, and remember how much more effectively the light of a single Patronus scatters the darkness ...

Swish. Flick. Expecto Patronum!

I am less weary than I was, and so, it appears, is the wolf. It surges forward in a glorious burst of light and scatters the dementors a little farther away this time, a little closer to the outskirts of civilization. We will have a longer respite this time, Hogsmeade and I.

And slowly, the hour creeps nearer to dawn.

 

                                                            *          *          *

with faces hidden as the walls were tightening

Dead.

Albus Dumbledore, dead.

I never did go back to see him after that night. I was waiting until I could manage pink hair.

After the chaos of battle the silence rings my ears, and everything seems muted and a little unreal. There is only the hospital ward with its white walls and clean sheets, and time seems to hang suspended for a moment: Madam Pomfrey stops tending to Bill’s wounds, and the people who are gathered here look around numbly at each other. It’s Remus who breaks the stillness. He slumps down into one of the chairs, face buried in his hands, and somehow that is the worst of all. I’ve never seen him cry before, and this is the desperate helpless grief of a man who has lost his anchor.

I don’t trust my own voice above a whisper. “How did he die? How did it happen?”

The next few moments are a confused jumble. Dumbledore dead, Snape a murderer, Snape a traitor, the girls hiding their mouths with their hands, Madam Pomfrey in tears. And a burst of phoenix song like a clamor of church bells against a clear sky.

We try to put the pieces together. Where was Snape, and when? And why did he do this to us?

Slowly, painfully, we sift through our scattered recollections to retrace his movements; I remember seeing him almost at my elbow in the fog of battle, and then disappearing – and Remus saw him run through a barrier that none of the rest of us could penetrate. And then he was back and we let him pass, and over the noise of rapid-fire curses I heard him shout something. Harry tells me his words were It’s over, and then he rounded up the other Death Eaters and left...

The bigger question, why, remains unanswered and unspoken. Perhaps Remus came closest when he said, still dazed from the news, Snape hated James. Hatred breeds hatred, even when it has been enlisted into our service.

Still the phoenix song echoes through the night, reminding the rest of us that we followed Dumbledore out of love.

Molly and Arthur and Fleur arrive. I get up and stumble away from Bill’s bedside – I don’t even remember when I sat down – and so does Remus. He seems almost back to his usual self, comforting McGonagall and Hermione and – Damn. Why didn’t any of us comfort him a minute ago?

The full impact of something he said hits me – one of the Death Eaters was hit by a Killing Curse that just missed him – and my legs begin to shake. So close. He would be lying cold at the foot of the stairs instead of calmly explaining to the Weasleys about Bill’s injuries.

Molly bursts into tears and murmurs something about how Bill was going to be married, and Fleur, who has been in a perpetual standoff with her future mother-in-law since July, flies into a passion and announces to a startled roomful of people, “It will take more zan a werewolf to stop Bill loving me!” The teenagers nudge each other and wait for the fireworks.

Then Molly offers to lend Fleur her Great-Auntie Muriel’s tiara, and they both collapse into each other’s arms, and the whole room goes a little mad. Almost before I know it, I’ve grabbed Remus by the shoulders and I’m trying to shake some sense into him – because Fleur doesn’t care that her man has been bitten, and he ought to know by now that I don’t care either, because God knows I’ve told him often enough, and if the Death Eaters are on their way back I may never have the chance to tell him again.

And of course he’s being all noble and idiotic again, and he won’t even look me in the eye. “And I’ve told you a million times that I am too old for you, too poor ... too dangerous.”

The room turns out to be full of unexpected allies – not just Molly, but Arthur and, to my utter shock, McGonagall. “Dumbledore,” she informs him shortly, “would have been happier than anybody to think there was a little more love in the world.”

But Remus, the only one whose opinion on this issue actually matters, won’t meet their eyes either. I give all of them a vague, glazed smile and do my best to look grateful, although on the whole I rather wish I’d been left to fight my own battles, or that I’d had the sense to fight this one in private.

Mercifully, Hagrid walks in at that moment, sobbing into his outsize handkerchief, and takes the spotlight off of us.

 

                                                            *          *          *

starry-eyed and laughing

“I think,” says Remus slowly, “that we had better have a word in private.” It is three or four in the morning and we are alone at last, standing in an empty corridor somewhere in Hogwarts. I’m not sure exactly how we got here. It doesn’t seem to matter.

“Agreed.” I’m dreading this conversation, but if I’m about to get ripped into tiny pieces at the hands of an un-transformed werewolf, I’d just as soon nobody witnessed it.

“In here.” He stops beside a statue of a hunchbacked witch and taps it with his wand. “Dissendium.”

The witch’s hump opens up and Remus squeezes inside. I follow him into a low-roofed underground passageway with a dirt floor. I’m impressed, even though my stomach is in knots and I’m about to die a bloody death at Remus’ hands. “Wow. How’d you know about this place?”

He casts Lumos and shrugs. “Old Marauder trick. But never mind about that. I brought you here because I need to say...” he pauses for a moment and takes a deep breath... “that-I’ve-been-a-complete-fool-and-also-a-coward, and-I’ve-hurt-you-because-I-thought-I-knew-better-than-you-did-what-was-best-for-you, and-I-was-wrong-and-I-hope-you-will-forgive-me-and-give-me-another-chance.” He catches his breath and gives me a crooked smile. “After everything you said in the hospital wing, I imagine I may be excused for thinking that isn’t a vain hope?”

“Oh, Remus.” I stand there in the passageway shaking my head, not knowing whether to laugh or burst into tears. “Of course it’s all right – but you haven’t done anything I need to forgive you for, honestly. Is that all?”

“No, it isn’t.” He gives me an odd sideways look, as though trying to work up his nerve, and then pulls me closer and kisses me, cautiously and experimentally at first, then much harder. Several minutes pass before we pull apart, and I discover with some embarrassment that there are tears on my cheeks.

I wanted this so badly and now I can’t really believe it’s happening. I have this odd, random thought that he might turn out to be a Polyjuiced Death Eater, only I suppose I’d be dead by now if he were.

“All right?” he whispers.

“Yes,” I say incoherently. “It’s just – Dumbledore and all – and it’s a bit of a relief. I thought you were going to tell me never to embarrass you in front of other people like that again, or something.”

He looks completely blank for a moment and then laughs nervously. “Oh. Well – as a general rule I shouldn’t advise it, but I can’t deny that it was what I needed at the time. I – I don’t think I really believed you until you said it in front of the world – Forgive me, but I kept thinking that it’s one thing to say you care for somebody in private, and quite another to face down the social stigma, day after day – That sounds like I’m judging you horribly, but it’s happened too many times in the past for me not to think about it.”

There are a million things I want to say, but they keep crowding each other out and I can’t manage to get the words out.

“And then what Arthur said knocked me for a loop, and I started imagining how Bill would take it if I were to suggest that he break off their engagement for Fleur’s sake. Somehow one always does get a more sensible perspective on these things when they’re happening to other people.”

This is the Remus I know: detached, wry, self-deprecating. Definitely not a Death Eater, then. I try another kiss, this one gentler and less urgent.

“I’m sorry to ask you again,” he says, “but you truly don’t mind? I mean, in my case it’s not just the lycanthropy – it’s that I haven’t got a proper job, and I’ll be thirty-eight come March and I wonder if, years down the road, you’ll think it wasn’t fair to you –”

He’s thinking in terms of years? I find my voice at last. “Of c-course I don’t mind. I’ve been telling you so all year, and besides – I am young enough for zee both of us, I theenk.” I do my best Fleur Delacour imitation, although I’m sure Fleur doesn’t end up hiccuping when she tries to laugh and cry at the same time.

“Tonks!” His eyes are as wide as if he’s seen an Inferus behind me, but he’s smiling.

“What?”

“Your hair. Look.” He reaches out and twines a strand of it around his fingers to show me. It’s veela-colored, silvery-blonde.

“Oh, that.” I try to sound nonchalant, which is difficult to do when your heart is exploding with joy and you’ve got a bad case of the hiccups to boot. “Apparently the Meta-hic!-morphosing is back. Sometimes it comes and goes.”

“Do try to take care of it, won’t you? I like it.” He thinks over what he has just said and shuffles his feet awkwardly. “I don’t mean that I like the veela look, particularly – just that you can have fun with it.”

“I understood that, thanks. You do know - hic! - the only reason I picked you is because I didn’t think you’d ask me to Metamorphose into - hic! - Arden Zabini, right?”

“Somebody asked you to do that?” Remus looks genuinely appalled – although I’m not sure whether this is a sign of true gentlemanliness, or just horror at the idea of waking up next to Arden Zabini, whose husbands tend to be poor insurance risks. He lets the lock of veela-hair fall from his fingertips. “Brown is a nice color, I’ve always thought. So is pink.”

I manage a proper smile. “I do take requests if they’re reasonable. I’ll see what I can do.”

“You don’t have to. Not until you really feel like it.” He takes my arm and asks, “Ready to face the world again?” and I nod. I follow him out of the tunnel and through the witch’s hump, my face wet with tears, still a little disbelieving.

We stand and watch from one of the castle windows as the dawn scatters the dark mists and streaks the sky with color.