Ice Follies

It was early January, and an unusually fierce storm had astounded everyone by dropping nearly half a meter of snow across the countryside. Hogsmeade looked like a fairy tale village, with icicles dripping like stalactites from eaves, and smoke rising from squat chimneys like herds of fat, ghostly sheep wandering upward to graze in the silvery sky. Watching from her seat at a window in The Three Broomsticks, Tonks imagined first a snowy ewe and then a gray ram leaping from the chimney of Gladrags across the street, and watched them slowly drifting to join the others overhead. Lambchops. Mmm, mutton. I could go for some mutton right now, she mused idly. No, on second thought, better not.

Tonight was another full moon. The Wolf Moon, she recalled, childishly proud of the fact that she had finally gotten all the names straight in her head. Remus was going to be staying alone in his cell tonight, despite all her protests. Tonks had a suspicion that he primarily didn't want her there that night, though he had in fact barred any Order members from attending him as usual. She had begged to come along, but Remus had put his foot down.

"It's much too dangerous, Tonks."

"That's what you said last time."

"And you should have listened to me. That was madness, Tonks! You let a werewolf loose, and if that wasn't bad enough, you let me chase you around the forest all night!"

"Well, I couldn't exactly let you go looking around for someone else..."

"Tonks..."

"C'mon, it's lovely outside. No one will be anywhere nearby, so there's no real danger. I can always Apparate out of your reach, so I'll just come by and let you out again..."

"Insanity, Tonks. You've been lucky so far, but it's not worth risking your life over. And that's exactly what you'd be doing tonight."

"What makes this time so much worse?"

"It's the Wolf Moon."

According to Remus, the full moon in January made his wolfish instincts dominant, and his actions more like those of a natural wolf than at any other time. While she had tried to argue that this would in fact make her safer, he insisted the opposite, saying that on this Moon the Wolfsbane Potion was not as effective at calming him as it normally was. He also was quick to remind her that even a natural wolf was an extremely dangerous beast. While not as slavishly intent on devouring anything human, he would be just as aggressive and unpredictable as a natural wolf would be. Then factor in that he was more than twice their size, and much stronger and smarter... Well, whatever, he had won the argument that time. He simply didn't realize that arguments, like boxing matches, were performed in rounds with Nymphadora Tonks.

And it's not like I know any other werewolves whom I could ask if all this Moon stuff is for real or not, she thought ruefully, although not terribly seriously. Remus didn't lie to her; she wasn't sure why she was so certain, but she never doubted him. However, she was not naïve enough to believe that he couldn't see clear as to omitting a bit here and there. After all, he had pointed out to her that even if he did allow it that she would be cold and miserable while he frisked about happily in a thick fur coat, and she knew that was a slanted opinion.

Still, she thought roguishly, as she searched the sky again for signs of encroaching darkness, while he'd be warm enough during his transformation it would be quite another story once the Moon set. And if he thought that she was going to let him romp around naked in the snow without her, he was daft!

~*~*~*~

Much later that evening, Tonks found herself wondering what Rosmerta had slipped into her drink o give her a case of temporary insanity. What else explained why she was shivering and wet, on her hands and knees on a frozen pond, and staring down a werewolf over a stretch of broken ice with her wand somewhere at the bottom of said pond?

First of all, she wanted to pummel every weather-witch and wizard she could lay hands to. Not only did they fail to ever predict the weather accurately, much like their Muggle counterparts, they also left out the most important details. Like how difficult it is to run in snow up to your knees. With the national pastime of weather chitchat and the novelty of storms like this, you'd think it would have come up.

Next, she wanted to wring Remus' neck for allowing her to come along. Well, not allowing exactly, but surely he had known that she wasn't going to listen to him! That silly little sign on the door that had read, "Go home, Nymphadora" was hardly a deterrent, now was it? If he had really cared, he could have had Hagrid tie her up in his hut and feed her his homemade treacle tarts all night. Or had Dumbledore summon her to Hogwarts for a Very Important Meeting. Or at the very least, he could have had the decency to tell her that wolves have no problem at all running in deep snow. Especially werewolf sized ones.

The next thing she wanted was to hex the life out of the street vendor who sold her the wand sheath that currently lay on the bottom of the pond, still securing her wand quite well. Sure, she could have used the standard Auror sheath, but this one was supposed to have an Adherence Charm on it to prevent her most valued weapon and tool from being jolted or knocked loose in any way. It appeared that it did indeed, and it was all very well and good to have a sheath that kept the wand from slipping out. But ones whose straps broke when the owner was frantically snatching at it whilst racing madcap through snow (did she mention the snow?)- well, that was just shoddy work. Wasted sickles. With the wand out of reach, she settled instead for a string of virulent curses that would have boiled the water around her- literally- had she been able to retrieve it.

After all that, she wanted a bath. A frothy, bubbly bath, so hot that she could barely stand it. One that would begin to thaw her out after her dunking in the frigid pond. Chunks of ice still bobbed restlessly in the broad break she had made in the pond's pristine surface when she had unknowingly dashed out onto it. From just the other side, the werewolf growled at her, pacing the edge of the ice. He didn't dare venture out to her; he surely weighed more than she did, and she was sure that if she moved much more the sheet beneath her would shatter and drop her in again.

At least then I'd have a bit of a chance of getting my wand back, and Apparating home to where I can get warm again, she thought glumly, shivering all the while. This is what I get for wanting to play with a werewolf. Her fingers and toes were growing numb, and a breeze seemed to cut through the layers of wet clothing to scrape across her skin. The wolf snarled as she chafed her arms roughly, trying to spur circulation. "Ah, blow it out your arse," she muttered sulkily. "At least you're warm."

The honest part of her mind admitted that this was very much what Remus had warned her against. Here she was, cold and miserable as predicted, while he was comfortably endangering her life from the nearby shore. She hated being wrong, or at least being in the way of a serious "I told you so,' and with that in mind she once again focused on her predicament. It was a bad situation, to say the least. She had no idea when the moon was due to set, nor whether she would freeze to death before then. She had counted on her wand to whisk her away from danger, like it had every other time she had played Apparition Tag (as she had dubbed it) with the werewolf, but its precipitous dive had eliminated that avenue of escape. He obviously wasn't going anywhere, even if she had fancied another dip in the frigid water. In short, it was a bloody disaster.

She gave a mighty sneeze as another breeze raked her with frosty fingers, and the ice beneath her made a retort like a shot, a crack appearing between her hands and spreading away toward the shore. "Oh, no," she breathed, trying to slowly and carefully back further out onto the pond's surface and away from the crack, "No, no, no..." The crack pursued her, snaking along the immaculate ice like Slytherin's ghost as she tried to find support. With a crash the sheet finally split, and Tonks disappeared under the water.

As she fell into the water, Tonks' brain spun and her Auror training took over. One chance, she thought grimly as she kicked downward, searching for the lost wand, one chance to save myself from freezing to death. The nearly glacial water had already made her hands and feet numb, and her limbs were not responding as quickly as they should. She held her breath, still feeling frantically across the bottom of the pond until the need for oxygen forced her to seek the surface. The pall of ice above her seemed to glow with a strange nacreous light, a jagged dark gash streaking through it. She stroked the water urgently, reaching out her unfeeling hands for the edge of the floe. Luckily for her, much of the ice sheet was now adrift and she broke the surface easily, gasping desperately for air.

It entered her lungs like a knife, searing cold and she began coughing uncontrollably as she clung to the edge of the ice. She couldn't think; the pain in her chest and the intense cold drove anything remotely rational out of her head. She forgot her wand, even the fact that a werewolf prowled the shore of the lake. More out of instinct than logic, she tried to draw herself out of the water, but the ice began cracking anew and she ceased her efforts.

Floating in the water, the movement of the wolf caught her eye and Tonks stared up dumbly at him. "Remus," she called to him in a thin voice, and he lifted his ears slightly at the sound. She laughed weakly, which precipitated more coughing, and when she was able she called again. "Remus! Help me!"

The werewolf snarled, snapping his jaws as he glared at her balefully. "Aw, c'mon, please..." her voice trailed out, as a wave of sleepiness washed over her. Oh no, no, nonono! Not this way! She shook her head roughly, pushing away the stupor that hovered around her mind. "Please, wolvie..." On a whim she shifted the planes of her face, pushing out and thickening her nose and mouth to resemble a muzzle, and pricking her ears. She couldn't quite manage the coat, although she did thicken her facial hair enough to give the idea, and she brightened her eyes to the same gleaming gold that his were. A sodden, wolfish Tonks lolled a long tongue at him from the ice. "Arooo, wolvie! Help me now!"

At her transformation, the wolf stopped his restless pacing and peered at her intently. His hackles raised, he slunk forward a slow step, snuffling at her scent in confusion. His instinct argued that her scent labeled her human, and his prey, but the Wolf Moon shone coldly overhead, and the desire for the companionship of a pack was strong. He had missed his brothers for so long: his great, black cousin, the four-legged horned one; some nights he even missed the tiny, naked tailed one. In his cage he had longed to run the woods with them again, to drink in their familiar scents, their fearless scents. This new she, the one who released him to run the forest again, who spoke to him in the caressing voice, who was looking at him with the eyes of a packmate...she did not wholly fear him. She respected his strength and his cunning; she was subordinate to him. That idea gave him pause. Before it had been his black cousin who had led his pack, not himself, and the lure of Alpha made him whine in desire and indecision. Wolves are unfamiliar with indecision, and the discomfort of the emotion goaded him to seek a resolution.

Tonks' fingers were slipping on the ice as the weight of her soaked clothing began to pull her down again. "Remus," she called out, though her voice was thready and weak. "You were right...I'm an idiot...OH!" The lip of ice she had been clutching snapped, and she plunged under once again.

This time the immersion was not as painful. Time seemed to hang motionless as she drifted slowly down, and she barely remembered to kick her legs feebly and claw at the dark maw in the ice sheet above. It was hard, so hard to make any headway. Maybe in a minute...

The sudden jolt as she stopped sinking brought Tonks back to her mind more than the pinching sensation in her deadened arm. She couldn't see anything; black spots danced in her vision, obscuring everything on which she tried to focus. A chunk of ice struck her painfully on the back of her head, and then suddenly air was burning around her once more. She felt herself being propelled through the water as she gagged and spluttered noisily.

Something unyielding impacted her; she brought a hand down automatically and was surprised when it touched firm, solid ground. The shore! Shuddering with cold and shock, Tonks tried again to focus her blurring vision as her mind recalled her to the presence of danger. With agonizing slowness, the world sharpened into clarity around her; blurs of white and gray resolving into trees and snowdrifts, and little pocked foot and paw prints. She stared dully about, realizing that something was missing, something very important, when the werewolf stepped into view.

He was staring at her intensely, almost shaking as the instinct to kill fought ferociously with the desire for a pack. The Wolfsbane Potion coursing through his blood barely held the rage in abeyance, and he growled softly, stepping away from her with an obvious effort. Abruptly, he whirled in the snow, and raced off into the frost rimed trees. Tonks stared after him, shivering uncontrollably, and barely able to appreciate the miracle that had just occurred. Again, her training took over, and she pushed herself shakily to her feet and began trudging in what she believed was the direction of Remus' cottage.

The trip back to his home was torturous. The wind cut cruelly at her, and the deep drifts of snow caused her to stumble more than once, plunging her into the powdery stuff. After the third time, she no longer felt the pain of the cold snow on her skin when she fell, only noted dully that it was getting harder to get up again. By the time the flurries started falling on her she was laughing madly, sitting in a drift under a tall cedar, tears streaming unheeded down her cheeks. In her semi-lucid state, the absurdity of her predicament had no other solution but laughter, for she had already tried and failed to rise again.

I'm going to die out here, she thought, giggling to herself, frozen in the woods, a little purple Tonksicle. That notion sent her into insane gales of laughter, broken by a rasping coughing fit. She clutched her sodden coat tightly about her as she gradually recovered, and stared around in mild surprise. Even if I could get up, I don't have any idea where I am. Feels warmer too, and that means that hypothermia is setting in...hmm, it's a lot more comfortable than it seems dying ought to be. I'd always assumed that it would hurt...She laid her head back against the treetrunk, gazing dreamily at the falling flakes and feeling strangely content before letting her eyes sag shut.

Snow crunched, but she only fluttered her eyes open sleepily, not really seeing what was around her. The forest had gone very silent, and even the wind had died down to a murmur in the treetops. She heard the sound repeat, louder and closer, and she struggled to rouse enough to identify the source. Reaching a shaking hand into a pocket in her coat, she withdrew a small, but wickedly curved hunting blade. Just go away, dragon, wolf, whatever you are. I'm almost dead here, just let me finish in peace. Ears straining for sound, she leaned forward slightly, searching the shadows amid the trees for any sign of movement. One large shadow moved away from an ancient oak to disappear in the undergrowth, and her breath caught in her throat. A growl suddenly filled the soundless space of the forest, deep and chilling, as the werewolf padded forward from the darkness, eyes glowing with malevolence. Adrenaline coursed through her like fire, and her body's instinctive reaction to the werewolf goaded her to the act that had eluded her before as she lurched to her feet unsteadily. With no particular direction in mind other than away from the wolf, she waded awkwardly through the snow in the opposite direction, praying that he wouldn't follow but knowing that he surely would.

Tonks kept waiting to be borne down by a snarling mass of wolf as she flailed hopelessly through the snow, but the attack didn't come. She didn't waste time looking for him or questioning her luck; keeping her balance when she could no longer feel her feet took all of her attention. By now, the numbness in them was starting to grow into an aching burn, and each step was growing progressively more painful. Yet every time that she started to sag, or that she fell and didn't rise promptly, the werewolf would show himself briefly and her involuntary fear response would drive her onward once more. She didn't really know or even see where she was going anymore; she only knew that she must walk and keep walking.

And so it was that she was stunned when she found herself standing in front of a wooden door, with R.J. Lupin engraved on a copper plate under the knocker. Tonks looked around in amazement, not able to remember arriving at his home, or even climbing the steps. She reached out a hand to push open the door, still in a state of disbelief that she had actually made it back there alive, and walked inside in a sort of trance. A fire was still roaring in the hearth, and she collapsed beside it with a grateful sigh.

For a few moments she just lay there, trying to soak up some warmth from the flames, but she couldn't seem to manage it. Wet clothes can be the death of you in the cold, lectured a stern voice in her head that had a sneaking similarity to old Mad Eye Moody, and she snorted weakly as she shrugged her ruined coat to the floor, then threw her shirt down on top of it. She tried her boots next, but her feet hurt so badly that she finally had to admit defeat and leave them on. But she cut her frozen pants off, ruthlessly sawing at the dragonhide until it gave way, leaving her shivering by the fireplace in her underclothes. Again, exhaustion tempted her to just relax, but she rallied enough to totter into the closest bedroom and snatch as much bedding as she could gather in her arms, dragging it back to the hearth. Rolling up into the center of the pile like she was wrapping herself into a cocoon, she nestled as close to the fire as she dared and then closed her eyes with a tired sigh. She was asleep almost instantly.

Shortly before moonset, a pair of lambent gold eyes appeared in the window by the front door, restlessly scanning the interior until they came upon the pile of linens before the fire. The werewolf dropped silently back to his haunches, content now that his packmate was no longer courting death. As the moon sank in the sky, the anger that always burned in him was banked beneath satisfaction, and pleasure that he again had someone with whom to run the forest. As that feeling passed through him the moon sunk out of sight, and the agonizing contractions in his chest began. Whining in pain, he sank down to a crouch, shivering, until he lost all control of his body and fell over heavily. The huge wolf flailed helplessly in the snow, shriveling and reshaping as he shrunk back to the form of a naked man with graying brown hair. Remus sat up as quickly as his spinning head would allow and then heaved himself to his feet, clutching at his more sensitive areas, and headed for the door of the cottage at an unsteady trot.

Once inside his home, he hurried into his room and threw on a robe before snatching up his wand from the bedside table and rushing back into the living room. Remus dropped down at Tonks' side, concern creasing his face when she didn't rouse at his noisy approach. She was breathing shallowly, and her skin was still cool and clammy when he cautiously stroked her cheek. Her eyes fluttered briefly at his touch and she mumbled something, but then fell back into a stupor. He muttered an incantation and transfigured the green sofa into a small, but cozy green-sheeted bed and then lifted her, bedding and all, and carried her gently over to it, setting her down as though she might break. Her boots stuck out incongruously from amid the tangle of sheets, and he managed to tug them from her bared legs with a little difficulty. After arranging her there comfortably, he levitated the bed back closer to the fireplace, and charmed the fire to burn at its hottest throughout the night. Then, with a jaw-cracking yawn, he climbed up beside her on the bed, and after twisting about on top of the sheets for a moment to get comfortable he curled against her back with an arm draped protectively over her. His wolfish senses were still alert, and he was acutely aware of both her slender body curving against his and the sweet scent that marked her as Tonks. Just for warmth, he told himself sternly, before losing consciousness as well.

He awoke the next morning to the most delicious sensation that he could recall in a long time- he wasn't alone. Propping himself on an elbow so he could see her, Remus was relieved to see that the color had returned to Tonks' face and that she was breathing the slow, deep breaths of healthy sleep. With a soft, contented sigh at her recovery, he allowed himself to enjoy the feeling of lying beside her. She was still swaddled in the various sheets and blankets that she had scrounged, but a bare arm and shoulder had escaped the swirl of fabric to allow her to tuck her hand beneath her cheek. She still looked childlike, but Remus marveled to himself at the courage she possessed to play her games with such a deadly opponent. He also noticed the unusual tinge to her fingers that likely indicated some degree of frostbite, and promised himself to take her directly to St. Mungo's once she woke. "You little idiot," he muttered affectionately. "Why can't I get properly mad at you for doing these foolish things?" He closed his eyes and took a deep breath; like the wolf, he drank in her scent and her nearness, cherishing the flavor of her. When he opened his eyes again, he felt almost happy.

She smiled a little in her sleep, and shifted slightly amidst her tangle of bedding. Remus froze as her movement revealed the pale, small swell of a breast peeking out above a simple bra. Suddenly she didn't look so childlike anymore, and an unexpected pang traveled through him as he stared at her. A thousand reasons why he should get up from the bed and leave the room flashed through his mind, but he didn't move. Instead, he tenderly drew the sheet back up to cover her, and then hesitantly placed a soft kiss on her shoulder. The slightly salty taste of her skin clung to his lips, and he fought off the sudden desire to pull the sheet back down and savor her further. He satisfied himself with placing another kiss on her brow, and she sighed softly at his gentle touch. Curling up against her once more, he tightened his arm around her waist and whispered in a quiet voice that he hoped she couldn't hear, but would heed nonetheless, "Please don't ever do that again. I couldn't stand to lose you."