The Long Fight of Nymphadora Tonks

Chapter 11: You Charmed the Heart Right Out of Me

It was Christmas Eve. It should have been a cheerful day. There was no need to spend any more time with Greyback and his followers until after the holidays were over. Everyone had gathered at The Burrow for a nice time. Molly's cooking was as wonderful as ever. Harry was there. But Tonks wasn't.

This had been the first thing that Molly Weasley had informed him of, rather coldly, when he had arrived. He supposed he owed it to his rather weak and sickly appearance today that she had not berated him for long this time, merely made a few harsh comments and then fed him hot soup and cocoa. Of all things, cocoa. As if she had known about that day when Tonks had slipped in the sleet, and he had made her cocoa, and taken it up to where she was sitting on his bed, wearing his sweater.

Remus sat staring into the fire, which flickered and crackled with warmth just as the fire at Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place, had done on that day, and listened to the distant sounds of the people around him. Fleur talking volubly to Bill. The twins and Ginny playing Exploding Snap. Celestina Warbeck on the wireless, singing 'A Cauldron Full of Hot, Strong Love'. He wondered if Molly's only motive for insisting on listening to this concert of love songs tonight had really been nostalgia alone, or whether she was determined to make him feel as guilty as possible.

Oh, come and stir my cauldron,

And if you do it right

I'll boil you up some hot, strong love,

To keep you warm tonight.

Tonks, sitting on his bed, shivering until he covered her with the blanket. The soft, slightly tremulous touch of her skin against his fingers. Her big, dark eyes, sparkling in the firelight ...

Molly was saying something to Arthur now about having danced to this tune when they were eighteen, and Remus could not help but remember when he had been eighteen. When, with Sirius and James and Lily and Peter around him, he had met 'little Nymphadora' and they had gone to Fortescue's for ice-creams.

Harry's voice interrupted his thoughts briefly. He was asking Arthur something about work and Stand Shunpike. But then Celestina Warbeck started on a ballad, 'You Charmed the Heart Right Out of Me', and Remus found his thoughts drifting again.

Oh, my poor heart, where has it gone?

It's left me for a spell ...

He felt suddenly as though he would burst, both from wanting Nymphadora and from not wanting to let her close, for fear of hurting her. It was a sickening feeling, and just for a moment he wondered if it made her feel as weak and ill as it made him. But then he caught a name in Harry and Arthur's conversation, and he listened to them more closely.

"Has it occurred to you, Harry," Arthur was saying, "that Snape was simply pretending -"

"Pretending to offer help, so that he could find out what Malfoy's up to?" Harry said. "Yeah, I thought you'd say that. But how do we know?"

Tearing himself away from the fire and his own melancholy, Remus broke into their conversation, knowing that he must do so now or be left to dwell on his problems for the rest of the evening. Better to avoid that, better to focus on a bit of good, solid reasoning with Harry.

"It isn't our business to know," he said. "It's Dumbledore's business. Dumbledore trusts Severus, and that ought to be good enough for all of us."

"But," said Harry, "just say - just say Dumbledore's wrong about Snape -"

"People have said it, many times. It comes down to whether or not you trust Dumbledore's judgement. I do; therefore, I trust Severus."

Yes, safe ground indeed. No danger of drifting onto painful subjects here, and he could just ignore the music ... couldn't he?

... and now you've torn it quite apart

I'll thank you to give back my heart!