Somewhere a Clock Is Ticking

In slow motion, the blast is beautiful,
Doors slam shut.

Remus Lupin - 10.23 pm. London.

Every time he walked into the hallway, he always expected something different to greet his eyes. Flashes, maybe, of what his life could have been. A loving partner greeting him with a hug and a kiss, or perhaps a gorgeous foyer with the latest style decorating the walls, or even people milling around the house, drinks in hand and smiling happily at him. No matter how hard he concentrated, none of these people, much less the elusive partner, had a face attached to them.

But instead, he had this dreary existence in an equally befitting environment. A house filled with the memories of his best friend's voice calling to him from an upstairs room, toast burning in the kitchen and the ramblings of a mad witch...

Somehow he managed to get through it all with a bracing smile, knowing that in some way he was helping. Whether it was Harry, the Order itself, or just running a pre-emptive bath for Tonks, yes, Remus Lupin was the only remotely stable handhold in a flooded river. Tonight though, at last, he could feel the tension behind his eyes ready to snap and never look back. Every day that passed, every happy thought he forced on himself, every gruesome image he pushed to the back of his mind made him want to simply let go and float down that river to whatever lay at the end.

Riffling through the Owl post, he distractedly hung his coat up on the ominous looking set of pegs. It fell to the floor with a soft thump. He stared at it for a moment, before sighing and making his way into the kitchen. There were no messages for him.

When he entered the room, the only space he could stand to be in at the moment, a merry fire was crackling in the grate. He smiled, pleasantly surprised that he wasn't going to be the one to mess around with kindling tonight.

The smile grew when he saw who was sitting to the table, grinning back at him.

Tonks, for the last time, call me Tonks!

"Wotcher, Remus Lupin."

She stood up and answered simply to all his friendly questions. Remus pulled a thread from his frayed top nervously and closed the door behind him quickly. Already basking in the warmth of the room made the chills in the hall unbearable.

Tonight her hair was as it ever was, but the baby pink was replaced by deep chestnut brown that seemed to flicker from copper to black in the dancing firelight.

"Oh, I thought I'd practise having normal hair," she laughed when he asked about it, pouring him a mug of steaming tea without cue. "I don't really want to stand out tomorrow. Milk?"

He shook his head silently and watched her top up her own cup, before replacing the kettle next to the stove. There was a knot in his stomach, twisting and writhing.

Tonks sighed, sat down and wrapped her fingers around the faded Witch Weekly print on the beaker.

Unsure of what to do, he stayed where he was, leaning against the counter, staring past his company and into the fire. If you looked deep enough, someone had told him, past the orange, past the blue and into the black centre of the flame, you could find the answer to the question routed at the bottom of your soul. But Remus didn't know which one of his questions this would answer.

When he pulled himself back out of his thoughts, he found Tonks messing around with the ancient wireless on the table, failing to get any kind of discernable noise out of it.

"This is so annoying," she muttered darkly, turning the dials with more force. "The amount of times I've seen you and Sn-Severus do it..."

A small grin appeared on his face and he walked forward towards her and the wayward device. After a moment of fruitless fiddling on his part, and a smirk from Tonks, he stood back and scratched his head pensively.

"There's a technique to it," he explained before bringing his fist down on it heavily.

Nothing happened. Tonks laughed and commented on his subtle craftsmanship. No sooner than the words left her mouth, the radio fizzed and crackled into life. "It's a skill."

Shaking her head, she tuned a station in, before turning her attention onto Remus. He remained hovering, not entirely sure what to do.

If he were here alone, he would be in the chair that she was in now, his feet kicked onto a stool, facing the fire, trying to find that elusive black spot. But that was a rare event recently. Every night this week there had been people here with identical strained faces, planning, plotting, preparing...

"You can sit down too, Remus. I don't bite, you know."

He smiled shakily. "I know."

There was a lot more he would have liked to say, but for now he pulled the chair out and collapsed into it gratefully.

A lull in the conversation followed as some music floated out of the fractured speaker. Personally he wasn't sure who they were, but Tonks began humming quietly along. The clock called the hour. Buckbeak shifted his position upstairs, sending a symphony of discord along the floorboards and beams.

"I don't mean to be rude," he said, suddenly realising something. "But why are you here? Dumbledore told us to spend tonight with..."

Loved ones.

He trailed off and closed his eyes. The pressure inside his head seemed to swell and push against his eyes, making them burn and water, and flow into his aching chest. His very fragile grasp on reality took another kick. This wasn't fair.

A hand fluttered and rested on his. For a moment he stared at it. Until then, he hadn't realised how cold he was.

But he couldn't look at her and rearranged his grip, turning his palm up to meet hers.

"I'm sorry, Tonks."

The fire hissed and spat, grabbing their attention. With her other hand, she brought her wand closer. They watched the fireplace in silence. For once there was no hint of Floo travel and its travellers that littered in the grate. The kettle was still, no longer quenching the thirst of so many passers-by, and the long desk in the study was devoid of parchments. All he had was the flames and a failing grasp of life.

And then, suddenly, he found that black spot and felt the bottom of his stomach open.

Why were all his loved ones just photos and memories?

Merlin knew how long he stayed like that, eyes glazed and brain calm, but eventually he noticed the increasing grip on his hand

"Remus? You don't have to be sorry, I wanted to come here tonight."

Blinking for a second, he looked up at her and felt the first proper smile in months fall on his face. It felt good, especially when one was returned just as honestly.

His other hand somehow managed to find its way into hers. And this curious sensation floated into his head, soothing the knots inside when he realised that the very centre of her eyes held the same peace as he had found in the fire.

"...Another reminder that the Ministry is currently closed to all civil and non-essential business... high level passes needed... continued until further notice..."

The tension returned with blunt force, making his eyes blaze once more. Flashes, not from his imagination, glimmered through his mind. Crosswords, stolen Snitches, itchy uniforms and summer afternoons...

He sighed as Tonks viciously attacked the machine with more force then he ever thought possible. Silently, he watched, as the mug was added to the carnage.

Then she stopped and exhaled slowly, a timid grin sparking onto her face as she ran her fingers through her hair.

"Don't look at me like that. I bet you've wanted to do that a lot of times before."

Notes of music floated from the beaten machine. Tonks laughed and turned the volume button up gently, now fiddling expertly until the sound filled the room.

It was hard to describe, but he knew, knew, that this music would stay with him forever. Which was strange - music had never meant anything to him, ever. But now, now he smiled as this magnificent noise took over his head and soothed his thoughts. No words littered the soaring crescendos and sweeping adagios... There were no voices that detracted from the serene and beautiful pictures that the instruments created. It was perfect, lifting him off his seat and round towards his partner.

She looked up at him, bemused.

"Care to dance, Miss Tonks?"

All he saw was the smile and not the empty glass she knocked over, and all he felt was her hand on his arm and the warmth of his back.

For all he knew, or cared about, they were no longer in a slightly damp house, squashed in a Muggle street. They were not in a crowded but deserted kitchen anymore. It could have been a majestic ballroom in London, a stylish foyer perhaps, or a field in the middle of nowhere. All he really knew, or cared about, was that one of those elusive people now had a face attached to their body.

And then, typically, the arcing music dissolved and was replaced by something barely there, coursing through the broken speakers. Mere sounds that made them draw closer, but somehow not look directly at each other. For his part, he watched her neck, realising for the first time how perfectly it curved into her jaw and chin, setting her lips in place.

He smiled when his eyes met her. Something he didn't know could be unwound, unwound.

"You know," he murmured next to her ear, his fingers trailing and enjoying the warmth on her back. "You can almost smell my freshly pressed dress robes."

Tonks laughed quietly and parted for a second to inspect them.

"Of course, you can almost hear the swish-" she twirled out seamlessly, her hand still in one of his, but the other showing him something he couldn't see, "-of my beautiful gown."

And after that, he really could almost see the fabric turning at her fingertips, shimmering in the dying firelight. His patchy clothes and her ripped jeans disappeared. Just for these moments they, he, could pretend they were different people, in a different, kinder, world.

After brushing the invisible folds from his invisible robes, she replaced her arm on his and stood closer than she had before.

He didn't mind when she threaded a finger through a hole on the shoulder of his jumper. In fact, he smiled an invisible smile into her hair.

More time passed, more notes passed through his head, until they faded away with the ebbing radio.

He didn't notice for the longest time.