Snowdrops

It was a wonderful morning, clear and crisp, winter bordering on spring. All along the old brick wall, the ivy trembled as it was caught by the wind. Tonks shut the kitchen door quietly behind her and walked down the overgrown path towards the far end of the garden. It was reverting, she thought; almost as if the garden knew that it no longer had an owner, that the last true Black was dead. She picked her way through the lengthening grass, the ground hard and unyielding beneath her feet.

By the old wooden shed, now derelict, she turned briskly left, heading around and behind the shed to a part of the garden which was not overlooked by the house. Although it was unlikely that anyone would be around this early in the morning, she had her own reasons for not wishing to be disturbed.

She ducked her head as she passed under the apple and elder trees, covering her face with her hands to avoid the branches as they tossed and rattled against the wall. Nearly there...

She stopped dead.

A man was kneeling on the ground ahead of her, head down as if lost in prayer. He had his back to her, but Tonks didn't need to see his face to know who it was. Remus Lupin.

She hesitated for a moment and then walked slowly over to him. A twig snapped under her foot as she approached and he looked round sharply, hand reaching towards his wand. As he saw who it was, his face relaxed quickly back into its usual expression of friendly enquiry, but not before Tonks had seen the despair etched onto his features and then the wary hostility, as he reacted like a cornered animal to her approach. Whoever had been behind those eyes when he turned to face her, it hadn't been Remus Lupin. She felt suddenly uneasy.

'Only me,' she said, smiling nervously.

He gave a faint smile in return. Taking this as a sign that she wasn't completely unwelcome, Tonks squatted down beside him.

'Oh,' she said in surprise. He was kneeling in front of the snowdrops. She counted them: five, six, seven, tiny nodding flowers. Around them the ground was bare, as if someone had been tending this little patch of garden.

'Oh?'

She looked at him. 'I didn't think anyone else knew about them.'

'Sirius planted them.'

'Oh.' Whatever answer she had expected, it wasn't this.

After a pause, he continued. 'Your mother tried to get him interested in gardening. Regulus too. His patch is over there.' He pointed, and Tonks saw another small flowerbed, under the lime tree. Here again the earth seemed freshly turned and free of weeds, like a new grave.

She turned back to Lupin. 'It's bare,' she said.

He shook his head. 'Only in winter. Regulus preferred the summer-flowering plants. Come back in June and look again.'

'I will.' Another pause. 'You miss him don't you? Sirius.' His face closed up. 'I'm sorry,' she said. 'Stupid question.'

He sighed. 'No. Yes. I miss him.' He shrugged. 'Life goes on.'

She turned deliberately to look at the snowdrops again, cupping the smallest snowdrop in her hand as she examined it. She was acutely aware of him as he knelt beside her, and it came to her then that he was as necessary to her as water.

'There were only six yesterday,' she volunteered. He did not reply immediately and she knew without turning round that he was looking at her, and that she had his complete attention for the first time. She felt suddenly hot, as if she might catch fire under his gaze. She kept her eyes fixed on the tiny flower in her hand, unwilling, or unable, to move.

Finally he spoke. 'This isn't the first time you've been here.'

She shook her head. 'I was here yesterday and the day before. I love watching them. I come every year, when I can.' She wondered if she was babbling.

He nodded, as if he had expected this. 'Why?'

Why? she thought frantically. Because... 'Because they're a sign that winter's over. Spring is coming. Everything's coming back.' Shit. Shit. Shit. She could have kicked herself. Not everything. 'Mum used to do it. When I was little she took me to greet the snowdrops every year. I just carried on.'

He smiled then, a warm, genuine smile that reached his eyes and lit up his whole face. She had not seen him smile like that for a very long time. 'How like Andromeda,' he said. 'And how very like you.'

He looked at her affectionately, as a parent might look at a favourite child, and in that instant Tonks felt her heart break.

'Why do you come here, then?' she forced herself to ask. 'Not because Sirius planted them.' She knew suddenly that that wasn't the whole reason. 'You've been here before, too.'

He nodded. 'Or somewhere else.'

'Why?'

He said, slowly and deliberately, looking away from her: 'Each year, I wonder how many more times I'll see them.'

'That's horrible!' She was appalled. 'Sort of... counting down.'

'Mmm.' His voice was neutral. 'You learn to live with it. Paradoxically.' His smile was bitter, but there was humour in it too, and she realised he was laughing at himself. 'Don't mind me. I have a morbid streak.'

She nodded and looked down at the tiny flowerbed again, realising that she had pulled her hand away from the snowdrop without noticing. She stood up, brushing at the damp stains on her knees.

'Let me.' She looked down at him as he knelt before her, counting the grey hairs among the brown on his familiar head. There were more of them each time she saw him, and many, many more than half a year ago. He seemed to have aged a lifetime since Sirius' death. We've all been tiptoeing round him, she thought. But he doesn't talk. I would have wanted to talk.

I could be him for you, she thought wildly. You could pretend I was him and I... I could pretend you thought it was me. She knew it wouldn't work. The man who could take refuge in such a lie wasn't Remus Lupin.

He tilted his head up to look at her, eyebrows raised. 'Penny for them?'

'What?'

'Your thoughts. You were looking serious. Not like you.'

No, she thought, with a bitterness that surprised her. I don't do serious, do I? Nymphadora Tonks, the amazing comedy Metamorphagus. Roll up, roll up and see the show.

She wrinkled her nose and screwed up her face in concentration. 'Serious like this?'

'No,' he said, pretending to think about it, 'I don't think pink hair works with serious.'

She grinned at him. 'Thought you'd say that.'

'Tonks.' She stopped smiling. 'Don't worry.'

'I know.' She spread her hands helplessly. 'It's just...'

'I'm all right. Honestly.' The uncertainty must have shown on her face, because he said, 'I'm not an invalid. I don't need to be treated with kid gloves. I'm not going to break. Promise.'

She nodded. 'Sorry.'

'Don't be.'

'Will you go after her? Bellatrix Lestrange?'

'No. It's not important.' She opened her mouth to speak, but he continued: 'I mean, yes, of course it's important, insofar as she killed Sirius and I... I would like that resolved. One way or another. But there are bigger things to worry about. Right now, protecting Harry is the most important job.'

'What do you think you'll do? When it's all over?'

He considered that, getting to his feet and staring at the ground. 'Well, we might lose,' he answered, a small smile dragging his mouth up at one corner. 'In which case, I'm not sure the question would arise.'

She punched him gently on the arm, as she had always done, and he caught her hand in his own and swung it backwards and forwards, looking down at it and smiling. As he had always done. She followed his gaze, looking at their linked hands as if she were seeing them for the first time. It was the last time also, she realised; the comfortable friendship they had shared for so long could not survive, not now that she had realised how she felt about him.

'We might not lose,' she said.

'No.'

'Well, then...'

'I thought I might travel.' He looked at her again, shrugging. 'Once Harry's sorted out. I've always wanted to. There's nothing to keep me here. I thought I might start with America, then Japan - who knows? There's so much to see.'

Nothing to keep me here. The words hit her like a blow. She bent her head, plucking at an imaginary piece of fluff on her robe, looking up only when she could be certain that her expression would not betray her. She stared straight ahead, looking at the snowdrops, committing them to memory, knowing she would never return.

'You've got that serious face on again,' he said.

She shook her head. 'Just the wind,' she said. 'Just the wind.'

He leaned forward and ruffled her hair. 'That's my Nymphadora.' She scowled at him and he burst out laughing.

She gestured down at the snowdrops - Sirius' flowerbed - and at the earth by the lime tree, where Regulus Black had planted his summer flowers long ago. 'Do you weed them?' she asked.

He shook his head. 'I think the garden takes care of it. There are never any weeds.'

She nodded, realising she had never seen any. 'I'm going back to the house,' she offered. 'See you later.' He smiled and released her hand. She let it fall to her side, a heavy useless thing, and wondered what hands were for, if they could not hold him.

She flipped the hand at him in a casual farewell and turned to walk back to the house. Dear God, she prayed, please don't let me trip over. Let me do this with dignity, just this once. As she reached the shed, she turned her head slightly and glanced back at him, hoping perhaps to meet his gaze. But he was no longer watching her, if indeed he ever had been.