‘Remus, listen to me!’ Nymphadora Tonks called, her voice breaking dangerously, at the retreating back of the former professor Remus J. Lupin. Tears stung her eyes and clung sharply to her cheeks as they fell, tearing at the hole that was ever growing inside of her. ‘Listen to me!’

He ignored her and kept walking, his patched and frayed robes billowing out behind him from the speed his long legs generated. The only sign he gave to show that he had heard anything at all was the smallest of winces at her tone, the slightest of pauses with one foot in the air. Despite this, he kept moving, so Tonks kept moving too. ‘Remus!’

Tonks broke into a sprint, her heavy footfalls echoing altogether too-loud in the deserted halls, but she didn’t care. The castle was already awake, so what did anyone care about a few extra thuds? Somehow, Remus managed to maintain a stiff stride and yet still keep himself at least twenty paces in front of her. Tonks started full-out running now, fighting to keep the racking sobs heaving within her chest from bursting forward and causing her to blubber like some teenager with a schoolgirl crush – which, Tonks thought bitterly, wouldn’t really change Remus’s views of her, so why bother?

Catching up to him at last, Tonks seized him by the shoulder and forced him around. Tears were freely streaming down her face, and she swallowed the lump that was steadily growing larger in her throat as she peered up into his face. It was a blank page, devoid of any and all emotion that might have given Tonks some kind of feeble hope. ‘Remus, just listen to me for a minute!’

‘We have nothing to discuss, Nymphadora,’ Remus replied crisply, his eyes hollow and empty; to any other, it would symbolize the loss that he felt from Dumbledore’s death, but Tonks knew better. He was locking himself away again, refusing to face anything that challenged his views on the world he believed he didn’t belong in, becoming distant and formal in the process. The warm amber colouring that usually made her heart skip a few beats now only shredded the hole in her soul even more. ‘I have already stated my feelings on the matter. There is nothing more to say.’

He made to shrug her off, to keep running away from her, but Tonks tightened her grip on his shoulder, struggling to keep her voice from rising to a hysterically and uncharacteristically high pitch.

‘No,’ Tonks said, intending it to come out as firm and final as Remus’s heart-wrenching words had, but instead coming out like the soft words of a frightened four-year-old – more age analogies that Tonks couldn’t handle right now. ‘No, Remus, just no. Stop wearing your eloquent speeches as a mask. Tell me what you feel.’

‘You already know how I feel,’ Remus responded coolly, but he stared determinedly at the wall behind her rather than in her eyes – icy blue, unchanging thanks to him and his frozen words. ‘Now, if you please, I would like to leave.’

‘Tell me this then,’ Tonks countered, her voice pleading and shaking with emotion. Don’t do this to me… You’re breaking me. Don’t do this, Remus! ‘Tell me that you don’t care for me at all. Just three little words, that’s all you need to say. Three little words, Remus, and I’ll leave you alone – you won’t have to worry about me annoying you anymore, I’ll go away and you can go back to doing whatever you did before we met. Three little words.’

‘I… Nymphadora, I… I don’t care.’ Remus’s eyes maintained their stony glare at the wall, and Tonks swallowed slowly. She wondered if she was really melting, if the world was really spinning that much. She swallowed again and took a deep breath, forcing the oxygen to go to her gasping brain. ‘I don’t care about you. I’m sorry, Nymphadora.’

‘Don’t call me Nymphadora,’ Tonks whispered fiercely. The hole had encompassed her, and she felt oddly detached from the world, as unfeeling as Remus’s expression. ‘You don’t have that right anymore. It’s Tonks to you. Good day, Mr Lupin.’

Tonks rounded the corner, not noticing her surroundings, not noticing anything; Remus’s indifferent expression remained plastered in her mind, his voice echoing in her mind with the quality of a ghost’s – distant and soft, fading away with each waking moment that Tonks tried to remember. She would hold true to her promise, that she was sure of; if he didn’t want to see her again, she would leave.

Something warm and decidedly human bumped into her. Tonks looked up and saw a mass of red hair, freckles, and the stocky build of Fred Weasley. She quickly wiped away the wetness on her cheeks with the back of her hand and sniffled, wondering without really caring how red her nose was.

‘Oh… sorry, Fred. ‘Scuse.’ Tonks tried to push past him, but he blocked her swiftly and so subtly that he might have only been trying and failing to push past her similarly. ‘Sorry.’

‘Not at all, dearest Tonks,’ Fred replied cheerily, shoving a small golden trinket – probably the latest of Weasley’s Wizarding Wheezes products – into his pocket. He grinned broadly and offered her his forearm. Tonks froze, temporarily jolting herself out of her unfeeling bubble. What was going on? Dumbledore had just died, Fred’s own brother had been savaged by the most evil werewolf known to mankind and might never fully recover, and he was trying to seduce her? The world just loved to torture her, didn’t it? Maybe I’ll wake up and this’ll all have been a dream… maybe I’ll wake up and I’ll be with – But she couldn’t think the name. It was lousy, she knew, and this kind of immaturity would only serve to delay the healing of the hole, but she didn’t care. ‘Care to join me for a walk?’

The bubble was back, flickering suddenly into life at the thought of him.

‘Sure,’ Tonks muttered, taking Fred’s arm and attempted to dry her face again. Her feet dragged themselves, dreading each step that took her, Tonks realised with a shock, back in the direction towards Remus, creating a striking contrast to Fred’s springy gait. The idea of a conspiracy to set them up crossed her mind, something she would once have embraced as a chance to win Remus over, but now she merely felt anxious at another encounter with him. Maybe I’ll get lucky and he’ll have left already. Tonks almost smiled. If wishes were gold…

They curved around the bend that separated her from Remus far too soon – was the hallway really that short? Was her normal pace of walking really that fast? Was it really necessary for Fred to pull her along that quickly? It seemed like she had barely taken Fred’s arm when she felt the breath whoosh out of her at the sight of the familiar tattered robes and lined visage.

‘So, Tonks,’ Fred said, in a suddenly cheery voice that instantly made Tonks suspicious. His face was a much better alternative to what lie before her, however, so she turned her head to face him in an attempt to block Remus’s approaching figure. ‘How have you been lately?’

‘Fine,’ she responded in what she originally intended to be a clipped tone, but which came out rather strangled. ‘I’ve been absolutely fantastic.’

Fred’s deviously large grin widened at her response. ‘Brilliant.’

He removed his arm from hers and slipped his hand into his pocket rather conspicuously. Tonks opened her mouth to remind him that she was an Auror and perfectly capable of disarming him with less than a moment’s notice, but never got there. At that exact moment, Fred shoved her harshly forward. She painfully crashed straight into a startled Remus and was about to pull away, flushing, when a twin – in the confusion of the moment, she wasn’t quite sure which one – whipped a shining chain around their necks.

‘What –‘ Tonks started… and the world disappeared around her.

Everything was… was it spinning? Everything was moving in an impossibly fast manner; people were rushing by her – students, teachers, Death Eaters? It was all a blur. She felt as if she was on a backwards roller coaster, hurtling into oblivion. She tried to wrench her head from where it was resting on Remus’s chest, but an enormous pressure was pushing against the back of her neck, forcing her to remain in the awkward (if rather comfortable) position.

And then, as suddenly as it had started, everything stopped. The tension on her neck evaporated, and she felt herself thrown backwards. Tonks landed sharply on her bottom on the hard stone floor and swore loudly. She stood up and looked around her; apart from Remus, the corridor was completely deserted. Remus was looking around them, rotating silently on the spot and frowning as if he wasn’t seeing things perfectly.

‘Remus, what’s going –‘ Remus made a motion for her to be quiet.

‘Something’s not right here,’ he whispered, so softly that Tonks had to lean in to hear what he was saying. ‘This hallway should be filled with people… the students should be awake… unless… we were knocked unconscious? But they wouldn’t just leave us here… if that was the case, we would be in the hospital… and that doesn’t explain the spinning, either…’

He froze suddenly as the sound of footsteps echoed from one end of the hallway. Remus grabbed Tonks’ arm and pulled her through a tapestry that she couldn’t remember being there before. She made to ask him once again what the h-e-double-hockey-sticks was happening, but he shushed her again, putting his eye up to a miniscule tear in the tapestry. Tonks found a similar rip and squinted through it; a motley group of boys had appeared around the corner. Why they were such a cause of alarm to Remus was a complete mystery to her, but, if there was anything she had learned from hours upon hours of guard duty with him, it was that he was often right.

‘I can’t believe Dumbledore still hasn’t found us a Defense teacher… isn’t he supposed to have these things figured out in, oh, I dunno… June?’

‘Dumbledore?’ Tonks mouthed, extremely confused, at Remus, but he wasn’t looking at her; he was still staring intently at the boys with an odd expression on his face. Tonks took this as a signal to stare back through her own little peephole and examine the boys.

There didn’t seem to be anything special about, well, any of them. Two of them had black hair; one with glasses whose face looked oddly reminiscent of someone, although Tonks couldn’t quite place his face at the moment. The other had an elegantly relaxed expression on his face, which would have been haughty had he not burst into laughter a few seconds afterwards. His countenance, too, tugged at her memory, but the harder she tried to remember how she knew him, the more it slipped away. Another boy, the one who had first spoken, was looking at the first two with reverence glowing on his pudgy face through his straw-colored hair. The final boy caused Tonks to whip her head around and double-check that Remus was still behind the tapestry with her and had not secretly slipped out into the hallway with the boys; the resemblance between the two was startling. The boy’s hair was the exact same shade of brown, save the streaks of grey, and his eyes, even at this distance, appeared a glowing amber. The only difference was that Remus’s face was older and more lined, with traces of a few more scars than marked the boy’s.

They rounded the corner and disappeared, but Tonks and Remus stood like statues for a few more seconds until their conversation finally faded before emerging.

‘Remus, answer me now,’ Tonks said the moment they stepped out from under the tapestry, in what she hoped was a commanding voice. ‘What is going on? Who were those boys? Why did they scare you so much? If they were only students, why were we hiding from them? We have every right to be here! And where did that tapestry come from?’

‘Tonks, before I answer – and I will answer, I promise you,’ he said in a strained voice, answering Tonks’ unasked question, ‘I want you to promise me something yourself.’ Tonks nodded, knowing, but definitely not wanting to tell him, that she would keep any promise he asked of her. ‘Promise me… that, no matter what, you won’t go off on your own. Promise me that you’ll stay with me for as long as we are… here.’

Tonks’ eyes widened with the implications of his words. He couldn’t possibly mean what she thought he meant? After all, a mere fifteen minutes ago, he had confessed that he didn’t care one iota about her. Really, how drastic of an opinion change could one have?

‘Do you really mean it?’ she asked softly, hardly daring to believe it. Any hopes that had started to bubble up in Tonks’ chest were doused instantly, however, when an alarmed expression overtook Remus’s face.

‘Tonks, that’s not what I meant… I meant… well, I don’t want you getting lost, especially if we’re where I think we are,’ he hastily elaborated. Tonks bit the inside of her cheek to refrain from sighing; it nothing but foolish optimism that had given her that hope, and she was stupid to wish differently. She took a deep breath and shoved her feelings sharply out of the way.

‘Right… of course… so…’ She cleared her throat abashedly. ‘Yeah. Stick with you. Got it. Anything else?’

‘As to your questions…’ Remus ran a weary hand through his hair. ‘All that I have are theories… well, from what I saw just now and something I suspected a short while ago, they may be more than theories, but… I think we’re in the past.’

Tonks’ mouth fell open. She made several attempts to close it, searching for the right words, but all that seemed capable of coming out was the phrase, ‘oh sweet Merlin.’

‘It’s just a theory,’ Remus followed quickly, and, if it hadn’t been for their ‘predicament,’ Tonks would have been delighted that he cared what she thought. ‘Yet I taught here for a year, and I never saw a single set of boys that looked exactly like that – like we did.’

If it had been physically possible, Tonks’ eyes would have popped straight out of their sockets. Fortunately, without the presence of several illegal hexes, it wasn’t, and she got by with looking like half-mad fish gulping for air.

‘That was you?’ she burst out. The image of the teenager, who she wouldn’t have pegged as being older than eighteen at most, flashed in her mind again, her brain speed-aging it until a carbon-copy of the man standing before her loomed inside her imagination.

Remus nodded. ‘It’s the only explanation that makes sense, unless someone managed to obtain the hairs of myself and three others who are either dead or – who are dead and make Polyjuice Potion, which is highly unlikely, or Hogwarts is host to four extremely talented Metamorphmagi other than yourself that no one ever knew about.’

Something that had been nagging at the corner of her memory slipped into place. Tonks gasped. ‘The chain, the one that Fred – or George, or whoever – had… it was a –‘

‘Year-Increment Time-Turner,’ Remus breathed with sudden realization. ‘Of course. But the question is, how did they get a hold of one? They’ve been banned since a year after their invention in 1978 because of their tendency to vanish nine times out of ten after the first use and leave the user stranded in a foreign time, potentially damaging the past or future beyond repair.’

A thought struck Tonks with all of the subtlety of a lightning bolt. Her hands flew up to her neck and, not finding what they were frantically searching for, fumbled around in the neck of her black Auror robes.

‘It’s gone,’ Tonks moaned. Her fingers continued to grope fruitlessly in all of the pockets, looking for something she knew they wouldn’t find. ‘The – the Time-Turner… I don’t believe it… nine times out of ten and we had to be part of the ninety percent…’

Grasping her train of thought quickly, Remus padded down the front of his own robes, but no glittering chain appeared from within the patched folds.

‘It’s gone,’ Tonks repeated, this time more to herself than to her unwilling companion. ‘We’re in Hogwarts and you’re a teenager and it’s gone.’

Her body started shaking, and it took a moment for Tonks to realize that the spasms that racked her were of uproarious laughter. ‘Well, isn’t this abso-bloody-lutely perfect? It’s gone.’

A panicked look appeared in Remus’s eyes, and he started what looked to be an automatic step towards her to console her, but then seemed to think better of it. He slowly retracted his arm from where it had been about to rub her back soothingly.

‘It’s going to be okay. Everything’s going to be fine. We’ll just… have to find another Time-Turner somewhere. It can’t be that hard, I’m sure, and then we’ll be safely back home and everything will be perfect like it was,’ Remus said in a comforting tone. Tonks’ laughter echoed even louder at this; perfect. Right. Because her life back in the nineties was just peachy.

‘There’s bound to be someone here that I – that we – remember who we can trust,’ Remus continued, unaware that Tonks was still in hysterics. ‘The Weasleys – or McGonagall – or… or Dumbledore –‘

Tonks’ mind latched onto one word, and her eyes connected with Remus’s fiercely. Her giggle-fit ceased instantly, every fiber of her being now dedicated to one goal.

‘Dumbledore.’

‘Of course. Dumbledore. He’s got to be here. He can get us back,’ Tonks said confidently, and she started to stride down the hall. A hand whipped out and grabbed her forearm, and she was jerked back. It was Remus. ‘What?’

‘What would you do if you saw someone who looked exactly like you did, except twenty years older?’

She sighed. His logic was annoyingly irrefutable, as usual. ‘I’d probably… attack myself or something… I’d think I was a Death Eater.’

‘Exactly,’ Remus replied simply. ‘And while you may be too young to find a carbon copy of yourself traipsing down these halls – ‘

Too young. Tonks bristled, not willing to admit that the words had struck her like a knife. He had no idea what she’d done, what she’d seen, how much she’d had to prove herself over the past few years. He didn’t know sh–

‘ – I still don’t think it’s a good idea for you to look like you normally do,’ he concluded, blind to her reaction. ‘The littlest thing can alter the fabric of time, especially now, in the midst of a war.’

Like you normally do. Was he honestly that stupid? Did he really think that she wanted to look this way, as brown and ugly as a rotting pear? Could he genuinely not see the effect his presence had on her, the way his refusals had crumbled her Metamorphosing powers into powder? You fool, she thought bitterly.

‘I need you to change me. Hair colour, skin tone, anything. Get my appearance as far from my own as you can…’

Change me. Tonks almost laughed. How she had tried, how she had pleaded with him to do just that, change his mind, his views, his distorted, horribly wrong vision of himself… if only. She blinked rapidly to clear her thoughts and raised her wand. It’s over. What’s done is done. Get a grip, Tonks.

‘Okay… well…. there’s always… and I can try…’ Tonks trailed off, muttering under her breath every Transfiguration spell she had learned, the Latin words flowing fluidly off her tongue. Despite her complete and total anxiety for her situation, she couldn’t help but smirk in accomplishment as a new man gradually appeared before her.

Full lips quirked beneath a thick black beard – a true Muggle ‘Moses’ beard, as her father liked to call it – as an olive-coloured hand reached up to stroke it.

‘Facial hair, Nymphadora?’ Remus’s voice asked from the stranger’s body, as a thick eyebrow raised itself sceptically at her. The sudden joking tone startled her so much that she forgot to reprimand him at the use of her first name.

‘Have you ever grown a beard?’ Tonks snapped back defensively. ‘Besides, it was the only thing I could think of to cover your scars. They don’t seem to like magic very much.’

The words had fled her mouth before she gave them permission to. His face, which had shown the slightest of signs of amusement, slammed closed like a book.

‘Werewolf scars don’t like anything very much,’ he answered crisply. ‘You should probably Metamorphose quickly, before anyone notices us standing here.’

Silence fell. Tonks cast her eyes down, away from him. She bit her lip, feeling her cheeks grow warm. Yeah... about that...

His irises, still resolutely golden despite her many spell attempts to change their unique colour, searched her face and crinkled in confusion, the book opening back up as quickly as it had closed.

‘Is something wrong?’ he asked, his tone gentle for what felt like the first time in months.

Probably a reflex reaction, she thought acidly. It’ll harsh up as soon as he remembers it’s me, his perpetual aggravation.

Out loud, she said, ‘I can’t.’

It was barely more than a whisper. Tonks took a deep breath and cleared her throat.

‘I can’t,’ she repeated, stronger, lifting her eyes defiantly to meet his. ‘I... I haven’t been able to change... for... months.’

She saw the pieces connect in his mind, the spark of realisation and instant dousing of all possible meaning in relation to him. It was a coincidence, she knew he was telling himself. Due to Sirius’s death, perhaps, or the growing danger her Muggleborn father was in. Maybe even a fluke of the chilly, Dementor-induced weather. It couldn’t possibly be because, heaven forbid, she actually loved –

‘Oh.’ Tonks’ internal monologue was cut off. ‘I’m... sorry, Nymphadora.’

You should be.

‘It’s probably better this way, if you don’t mind my saying so. My charming your appearance will be less recognisable than your particular brand of Metamorphosing.’ He had reverted back to the overly-polite, borderline-elitist pattern of speech that he now used every time he addressed her.

In even less time than it had taken her to transform him, she was staring apprehensively at his handiwork. Freckles dotted every inch of her now-overly-pale skin, chin-length chocolate curls gleaming over a sharply angular face from her peripheral vision.

‘Thanks,’ she said in a strangled voice.

‘Not at all,’ he replied smoothly, and started a brisk walk down the corridor. The pursuit her still-short legs had to make to keep up with him gave her a sense of déjà-vu, and she couldn’t help but feel that his quick pace was meant to keep them as far apart as possible without being entirely separated.

They were lucky enough, Tonks noted, as they walked down a strip of hallway she recognised as leading to Dumbledore’s office, not to meet a single student. Class time, her mind told her. It seemed bizarre, the idea that life could continue with even a semblance of normality and order when there was a storm raging through the world around them, but that was Hogwarts; an untouchable fortress. Or, at least, it had been...

‘Peto auxilium sociorum.’ Remus’s voice cut through her ears; they had arrived at the stoic stone gargoyle that loyally guarded the entrance to Dumbledore’s office.

I seek the aid of an ally, Tonks remembered, Dumbledore’s words echoing in her brain from her first ever meeting of the Order of the Phoenix. It was the secret password ‘loophole’ of the Order, if any of them had ever become so endangered that a visit to Dumbledore was unexpected and unannounced. She was surprised the words worked, even before the Order had been created, but she supposed it was just another of Hogwarts’ many secrets.

‘Enter,’ the familiar calm voice called to them, before Remus could even raise a hand to the doorknocker. The sound sent shivers up Tonks’ spine... it was something she had steeled herself never to hear again, never to hold close in times of utmost terror.

‘Greetings, time-travellers.’ Crystalline blue eyes glittered at the two from behind a handsome wooden desk.

She inhaled sharply. This isn’t possible.

But it was. The man was, implausibly, impeccably, Dumbledore. Tonks instantly knew it, would instantly have known it even if she hadn’t seen the flowing beard (auburn now, and streaked with only a few wisps of gray) or the eccentric robes (amethyst purple, marked with swirling bronze designs) adorning his deceptively fragile body. The man had an aura about him, of wisdom and integrity and all sorts of other storybook clichés the likes of which Tonks had clung to as a child.

‘How did you –‘ she began, and Dumbledore nodded towards a whirring silver instrument on his desk.

‘I was notified of your arrival as soon as you appeared... caused quite a stir with all of my concealment detectors, you understand...’ The friendly crinkling of his eyes told her that the phrase wasn’t meant to be taken offensively.

‘Oh,’ Tonks said, still rather apologetically. ‘Sorry about that... but, Professor, that’s why we’re here, you see, I’m Nymph -‘

‘I would prefer not to hear your names, my dear,’ Dumbledore interrupted her kindly. Seeing her immediate look of confusion, he amended, ‘Through no fault of your own, of course... time is a difficult thing, and I wish not to learn anything that might tamper with that. How you came here, and how we can get you home, however, are two things that I do wish to know. But first, please, sit.’

‘Why do you trust us?’ Remus spoke up sharply. It was the first time he had opened his mouth since seeing the (formerly) dead Headmaster. He looked unsettled, almost frightened; Tonks knew he had been close to Dumbledore, and all of this topsy-turvy time-travel compiled with his death had to be hitting him worse than she could possibly imagine.

‘Hogwarts has stood for several thousand years,’ the Professor replied. ‘It is a fortress –‘

Tonks jerked her head up from where she had been studying the intricate stonework patterns on the floor as Dumbledore repeated her exact phrasing from minutes before.

‘ – not an infallible one, I assure you, but it is a fortress nevertheless, and, if you will allow me to indulge an aging man’s ego, I do not believe that it will fall under my Headship. It would not remain this way, especially in this time of war, if I didn’t place the strictest of security measures over it. No Dark Wizard, time-traveller or no, would have been able to get this far into the castle. Furthermore, I am the only person from this time who knows that password, and I assume that I have had noble reasons to entrust you with it,’ he concluded. Remus’s muddled expression dissolved into a look of relief, and Tonks could tell how much he wanted to believe in the Headmaster’s infinite abilities.

‘It was a Time-Turner,’ Remus told him. ‘Year-Increment... they won’t be invented until 1978, and then banned a year later. It left us, vanished into thin-air as soon as we’d arrived here.’

‘It seems, then, that you are stuck here for a year... unless, of course, they have discovered a simple spell for time-travel where you come from?’ Dumbledore proposed. Tonks and Remus shook their heads simultaneously. Dumbledore sighed. ‘I’d rather thought not, but one can always dream. You have nowhere to go, and I am, once again, short of a staff member. As long as you are wise enough to be discrete with your futuristic knowledge – and my, forgive me, rather flawless intuition tells me you are – I see no reason why we cannot help each other.’

The look on Remus’s face told Tonks that his synapses were already connecting the proverbial dots, but she had absolutely no idea where Dumbledore was taking his speech.

‘In exchange for food, bed, wages, privacy, and, as soon as it is invented, access to a Year-Increment Time-Turner, I would like to offer you both the joint post of Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher.’

‘I don’t...’ Remus began.

‘Yes,’ Tonks responded at the same time. ‘Absolutely.’ She turned to Remus with pleading eyes and lowered her voice. ‘Dumbledore’s the only chance we have to get out of this alive – beyond these walls... who knows? We could get ourselves killed before we even meet. We have to do this.’

There was a pause in which Tonks was afraid he would destroy her reasoning with his own more potent kind. A look she knew all too well had settled in his eyes, one that told her he was weighing all possible options and trying to find a better way out. Probably one that doesn’t involve spending a year trapped in 1970’s Hogwarts teaching teenagers with me.

‘I suppose you’re right,’ Remus agreed slowly. He raised his voice, although Tonks suspected that their decrescendo in volume hadn’t hindered the Headmaster’s hearing. ‘I agree, Professor. We accept.’

‘Marvellous! I do so love when things work out this perfectly, don’t you? In light of the circumstances, I think,’ he added suddenly, ‘we’ll waive the typical contract. Two things I will need to have are the names you wish to be addressed by for your stay here.’

‘Dora... Alphard,’ Tonks decided. Remus gave her an odd look. ‘Great-Uncle Alphard was the only one in my family I could actually stand. Aside from –‘

Tonks broke off abruptly. Wetness pricked sharply at the corners of her eyes, and she blinked rapidly to get rid of it.

‘Sorry,’ she murmured, flushing. ‘I didn’t mean to –‘

‘Romulus... Woolf,’ Remus finished, making no sign that he had heard the rest of Tonks’ speech. Tonks hastily disguised her laugh in a hacking cough, and Remus shot her a glare. ‘But, Professor Dumbledore, there’s something you need to know about me...’

‘Yes, Romulus? Though, now that you are a member of my staff, I must insist that you call me Albus.’

‘I... I really don’t know how... I have this... condition, sir...’ Remus’s eyes traced the outline of Dumbledore’s scarlet inkpot, his midnight blue quill. Tonks could almost feel the shame emanating form him, knowing he had gone through this moment dozens upon dozens of times, only to be thrown out by his prospective employers again and again.

‘I am a werewolf.’

The words sliced through the air like the sword of Godric Gryffindor.

‘Ah...’ Dumbledore said softly. ‘I take it, then, Professor Woolf, that this isn’t the best year for you to have dropped in to?’
Tonks’ mouth fell open. He knew. The marvellous, brilliant, completely nutty old man knew who Remus was! She could have laughed. She glanced at Remus’s face and knew he was going through the same thought processes she was.

‘Not exactly, Professor,’ he responded eventually, the trace of a smile briefly gracing his face. ‘But the full moon –‘

‘Is two weeks away,’ Dumbledore finished for him. ‘Meanwhile, I will begin searching for accommodations for you, as, I’ve heard, the Shrieking Shack is occupied this time of year.’

He stood up and gestured for them to do the same. ‘I have no doubt that, by now, you have discovered the location of the teachers’ quarters, Professor Woolf. You will find the rooms for Professor Alphard and yourself within the door the end of that hall.’

‘There are several pairs of spare robes and a set of the standard required schoolbooks stored there for moments like this,’ he supplemented, in response to Tonks’ unasked question. ‘I admit, in the past decade, they’ve had to be used more than I like.’

‘Thank you, Professor – Albus,’ Tonks corrected herself. She got up, carefully straightening the high-backed chair into its precise original position. ‘Erm... when do classes start, exactly?’

‘Tomorrow,’ the Professor replied with a chipper grin. ‘I let you go, knowing you have a full night’s work ahead of you.’

They both started for the door, Tonks reaching it first and stretching out for the shining handle. She looked back, intending to thank the Headmaster once again. Remus had stopped in front of a gold-framed mirror, his hands moving across every inch of his foreign face. A look of wonder was spreading slowly across it, a peculiarly familiar expression on a not-so-familiar countenance.

‘It’s me,’ he muttered, so quietly that Tonks had to lean in to hear him.

‘What?’

‘I had a professor, two professors, my seventh year, I remember it... Professors Woolf and Alphard... I always used to think they had the strangest names... it didn’t come to me until now... I am Professor Woolf.’

Tonks’ jaw dropped. This was weird, even by Wizarding standards. Remus remembered being taught by himself. Remus and the Woolf.

Whoa.

‘He can’t be serious.’ Tonks’ eyes widened, an immature giggle bubbling up in her throat. ‘Dumbledore can’t honestly expect us to…’

She trailed off, unable to drag her gaze from the bed.

The single bed.

The single bed she was supposed to be sharing with Remus for an entire year.

Not that it would be horrible, a smug voice reminded her, and her stomach dropped, as if she had skipped a step on the stairs. She swatted away the voice harshly. This wouldn’t be any easier if Remus had to deal with her pining after him like a lost puppy. She was done with him. So what if they had to sleep in the same bed? It wasn’t like that implied anything in her mind… it meant absolutely nothing, nothing whatsoever. But why couldn’t she get herself to believe that?

‘Divido.’ A flash of light erupted from Remus’s wand, and Tonks jumped; she hadn’t heard him approach the doorway in which she leaned. The bed split evenly in two and both halves slid apart, the sheets adjusting themselves accordingly.

Oh. Well. Tonks mentally slapped herself for not thinking of magically dividing the bed.

‘I guess this one can be yours,’ Tonks said lamely, gesturing at the one closest to the door as Remus aimed his wand at the wardrobe, smoothly parting it in two. ‘I s’pose they don’t get a lot of professors who teach as couples.’

Two seconds too late, her brain processed the words her mouth was blindly spewing. She shook her head hastily. ‘Not that – I mean – we’re definitely not a couple – but they probably don’t –‘

Remus was ignoring her. Tonks bit her lip, one foot hovering in the air, unsure of what to do. This is going to be a long year.

‘I’ll just go… check out the spellbooks. Start planning lessons and whatnot…’ She waved her hand vaguely in the air as she trailed off. Remus still didn’t look up. She darted around the corner and slammed the door shut. She stood there, back pressed up against the door and breath leaving her as fast as a runner. Her heartbeat drummed out an impossible beat as she closed her eyes.

Get a grip, Tonks, she told herself – specifically, her throbbing heart – firmly. He’s not going to like you any better if you keep stumbling over your words like a Jarvey.

Tonks took a deep breath, attempting to compose herself, before starting down the hallway. Her statement to Remus, intended solely to get her out of the awkwardly silent room, actually didn’t seem like half bad idea, and she headed towards the small study where she thought she had seen a pile of spellbooks.

Sure enough, a mound of literature as tall as she was awaited her. Balancing precociously at the very top was a slip of parchment. Tonks raised herself up onto her tiptoes and snatched for it; it was a time table, enchanted so the current day (Monday, apparently) glowed a bright blue. Tomorrow, Tuesday and their first day of classes, began with a lovely Double period of seventh years: Gryffindors and – Tonks groaned out loud – Slytherins. The phrases ‘The Standard Book of Spells, grade 7,’ ‘A Compendium of Common Curses and Their Counter-Actions,’ and ‘The Dark Arts Outsmarted’ were all listed below the class heading in parentheses: the textbooks assigned for the course. Tonks scanned down the pile of spines and, typical to her luck, found the required books at the very bottom. She groaned again. Slowly and painstakingly, she started moving the books on top to one of the two cushioned armchairs besides her.

It took her several minutes to reach the spellbooks she sought. Victorious, she dropped down unceremoniously into the vacant chair with The Standard Book of Spells, grade 7 and started to read.

The time comes, now that one has progressed into the darkened world of advanced sorcery, where one must declare their intentions for the immense expansion of knowledge which lurks, just ahead, down the path of learning. Amongst the many thoughts one might broach at this concept are two basic ideologies: that of the commonplace pupil, who learns simply because he is told and holds nothing he has learned deep in his respect, and that of the true scholar, who learns for the sake of mental enlightenment. It seems, indeed, that only the scholar will excel when faced with challenging and complicated spellwork, whereas the run-of-the-mill student will...

Run-of-the-mill... if only Tonks’ life was that easy... all of this bloody time-travel confusion was absolutely exhausting... maybe she’d be back at home, snuggled under a blanket and watching the Muggle telly with her dad while sipping hot chocolate from her favourite blue chipped mug...

It seems, indeed, that only the scholar will...

The scholar... that was Remus, of course... Merlin, was there anything the man didn’t know? How far you’ve fallen for him, an annoying little voice in her head told her... but that was history now...

It seems, indeed, that only the scholar will excel when faced with challenging and complicated spellwork...

Challenging and complicated spellwork... like the Killing Curse. Even Dumbledore was powerless against it... powerless against his most trusted ally... Snape... was Snape here, too? He was Remus’s age, she knew; they had been at Hogwarts together... but, then again, so had Peter Pettigrew. Funny, wasn’t it, how much people changed?

It seems, indeed, that only the scholar will excel when faced with challenging and complicated spellwork, whereas...

Whereas the run-of-the-mill...

Whereas the....

Whereas...

Whereas...

‘Nymphadora! Nymphadora! Nymph –‘

Tonks’ eyes snapped open and her hand flew to her wand. ‘What’s happened? Where’s Voldemort?’

‘It’s alright, nothing’s wrong, it’s just me, Remus.’

Tonks yawned and rubbed her eyes blearily, digging out the goo buried in the crevices. Absentmindedly, she reached up to trail her fingers through her hair, only to have her hand find unfamiliar tresses. Right. New locks. Time-travel.

‘Sorry,’ she apologized tiredly. ‘I must’ve... just... dozed off for a second or something...’

‘Better students than you have been put to sleep by Miranda Goshawk’s ramblings,’ Remus answered with a hint of amusement... or, at least that’s what she thought it was; his new beard, which appeared to have grown even in the time she had been asleep, made it even more difficult than usual for her to decipher his expressions. His eyes scanned her body, alighting on her undoubtedly tousled hair and her wrinkled and tearstained Auror robes. ‘You might want to get ready... our first class meets in an hour and a half.’

Tonks gasped. ‘Oh, hell, Remus, the lesson plans! I have nothing! Oh, hell, oh, hell, oh, hell, oh, hell...’

She leapt out of the chair as quickly as her sleep-infused limbs would allow and scrambled to pick up the various spellbooks she had been attempting to peruse, but they were nowhere to be found. She started sifting through the enormous pile, sizing up each to make sure she hadn’t misplaced them.

‘Nymphadora...’

‘What?’ Tonks whipped around, and Remus pressed all three seventh-year tomes into her arms.

‘I’ve got it,’ he said gently, pulling a scroll of parchment out from the pocket of his robes. ‘The seventh years are going to duel in partners... nothing too dangerous, just enough that we can see where their strengths and weaknesses lie... we have a free period after that, before the fourth years – Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs – come in... we’ll discuss what they know about curses... and our final class is first years. A basic introduction to the Dark Arts will work. And, the House Elves appear to have left a stack of toast in the kitchen.’

Tonks sighed, looking up at him with grateful eyes. ‘Remus, you’re a lifesaver. Tomorrow’s on me, I swear...’

She headed into the bedroom; true to Dumbledore’s word, a stack of black professors’ robes were tucked neatly into the wardrobe on her half of the room. She slipped a pair over her head, discarding her old robes in a messy pile on the floor. She could easily deal with them later – or not, as it typically played out in her small flat.

Once she was acceptably ‘freshened up,’ Tonks snagged a piece of toast from the kitchen counter. She gulped it down quickly and went back into the study to wait for Remus.

She sprung up as soon as he entered the room. ‘Are you ready?’

Remus chuckled quietly, almost to himself. ‘Am I ready to teach my seventeen-year-old self and two of the best friends I ever had, knowing both of them will be dead before the age of forty? Am I ready to be in a room with the man who killed them? Am I ready to meet the boy who destroyed the only teacher I knew who ever fully trusted me?’ He smiled sadly. ‘Will I ever be?’
Tonks, having no idea how to react to the first emotional confession he had made to her in months, was silent. She opened and closed her mouth several times, unable to think of anything even remotely profound or comforting to say.

‘Sorry... that was a bit melodramatic, wasn’t it?’ He grinned apologetically at her. ‘It’s just all so... muddled inside my head. It’s hard to grasp...’

He shook his head and ran his fingers through his thick mop of black hair. He glanced at the watch on his wrist; it was Sirius’s, Tonks realized with a shock, given to Remus as a birthday present the year before his death. It was battered, and the leather was scratched and torn in several places, but it still shone proudly in the candlelight. Tonks wondered if he had taken it off for even a moment since Sirius had died.

‘We should probably start heading down to the room... class starts in half an hour...’ Remus said, tearing Tonks from her nostalgia. He moved for the door, and Tonks followed him.
The Defence Against the Dark Arts classroom was located conveniently close to the staff quarters. It took them less than a minute of weaving through halls and passageways to reach it.

The room was empty, aside from the typical teacher’s desk and the thirty-some school desks and chairs, and blank, devoid of the unique character Tonks associated with her DADA teachers. Indeed, the professors for Tonks’ fifth, sixth, and seventh years had seen fit to spell the room to be a constantly-moving and perpetually dizzying array of colours (‘Because Dark Wizardry can be extremely distracting,’ Professor Babcock had said), a memorial of the first war listing names of the dead (‘Because only the past can truly prepare us for the future,’ Professor Alaran had stated solemnly) and an animated mural of Celestina Warbeck (‘Because what softens the Dark Arts up like a highly attractive witch?’ Professor Manwick had proclaimed).

‘You’re right,’ Tonks spoke up, after several moments of silence. She dragged her hand along the wooden desks thoughtfully.

Remus’s head snapped up from where he had been perusing his lesson plans. ‘What?’

‘You’re right. About it being hard to grasp, all of this time-travel.’ She stopped before a desk in the back left corner of the room. ‘I charmed my name onto this desk every year I was at Hogwarts... they fixed it each summer, of course, but in my seventh year I learned how to make it permanent. I even checked on it when Scrimgeour told the Aurors to patrol Hogwarts last year – still there. And now... it’s like I was never even here.’

‘Well, you weren’t,’ Remus replied truthfully. ‘Not yet, at least.’

‘That’s exactly what frightens me,’ Tonks admitted, rubbing her hand over the desk’s smooth surface. ‘I don’t even –‘

Tonks cut herself off as a student, a girl clad in Slytherin robes, entered the classroom. Her dark eyes scowled at the two of them before she took a seat in the back. Tonks swept back to the front of the room, coming to stand over the desk with Remus as more teenagers entered. When, finally, the final bell rang out, there were roughly fifteen students talking loudly amongst themselves in the room. In the second-to-last row, positioned right smack in the middle, were the four boys they had encountered in the hallway.

Tonks held in a gasp. Now that she knew who they were, it was impossible to not see the resemblances. Remus was obviously Remus; that much she had seen from the start, and James was the spitting image of Harry, sans his scar and green eyes. Sirius was slightly trickier to place. He had an air of almost-casual haughtiness and superiority that Tonks had never seen on his face; he had been older the last time she saw her, more exhausted. Because he thought he killed them.

Unconsciously, her eyes flickered to the boy next to Remus. She had never met Peter Pettigrew, and had only seen his picture once, in a faded photograph of the old Order that Mad-Eye had showed her, but this was undoubtedly him. His watery eyes were fixated over his rat-like nose in awe at James, who was prattling on about something Tonks couldn’t hear. Tonks wondered if he was a Death Eater yet.

‘Good morning.’

Tonks’ eyes jumped to Remus as his voice rang, confident and strong, over the chattering students, who silenced themselves abruptly. There was a rustle as a dozen pairs of hands reached into their respective schoolbags and started to pull out a pile of spellbooks.

‘You won’t need those today, I’m afraid,’ Remus said, stopping their movement instantly and causing every single pair of eyes to land dutifully on him.

‘Who’re you?’ the boy with black hair and an elitist expression asked, rather belligerently. Sirius, Tonks reminded herself.

‘Professor?’ Sirius added, as an afterthought.

‘I’m Professor Alphard, and this is Professor Woolf,’ Tonks leapt in, feeling rather useless as Remus had instantly commandeered all of the attention. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw James elbow Remus and snicker. ‘We’ll be the Defence Against the Dark Arts teachers for this year.’

‘Couples teaching?’ a red-haired girl in the front row asked, not impolitely, wrinkling her nose sceptically.

‘We’re not a couple,’ Tonks answered automatically, as Remus said hastily, ‘We’re not together.’

Tonks flushed as whispers and raised eyebrows ran throughout the room; James and Sirius locked eyes with each other and smirked. Remus-the-boy’s hand flew up, and Tonks pointed to him hastily, willing to accept any and all distractions.
‘Yes, Mr. Lupin?’

Tonks realised her mistake as soon as the words left her mouth. The teenager, on the other hand, didn’t seem remotely surprised that she already knew his name; after all, Tonks reasoned to herself, all of his previous teachers had probably been warned by Dumbledore in advance of the Hogwarts werewolf.

‘You said that you’ll be the Defence Against the Dark Arts teachers this year... why just a year?’

Of course Remus would catch that... only five minutes into class and already someone had found a flaw in their cover. His intelligent amber eyes blinked up at them, waiting for an answer.

‘Personal reasons,’ elder-Remus answered smoothly.

‘Any more questions?’ Remus added. The class glanced around at each other mutely, shaking their heads and returning their gaze to the professors; respectfully, in the case of the Gryffindors, and rather impertinently, in the case of the Slytherins. ‘Then we’ll begin. If you would, divide yourself into pairs...’

There was a brief period of shuffling and rustling robes as they broke into partners, and, as she observed the distinct proverbial line drawn between the Slytherin and Gryffindor sides of the room, Tonks was glad Remus had let them choose their pairs rather than assigning them in hopes of spawning Inter-House unity. A full-fledged Light-versus-Dark battle was definitely not something Tonks wanted to host.

‘Wands out, please, but don’t do anything just yet,’ Remus called out. Sixteen wands snapped out in near perfect unison. The Slytherins obeyed a bit slower and more hesitantly, but obeyed nevertheless; they obviously hadn’t had too many practical DADA lessons. Remus swished his wand; the desks whooshed smoothly to both sides of the room, leaving a large open area in the middle. He leaned in to Tonks, who tried to ignore the fact that her heart was beating a thousand times a minute at his proximity. ‘Would you care to introduce the exercise? Duelling is your area of expertise, isn’t it?’

‘I – well, I – s’pose...’ she shrugged in attempt at nonchalance. He thought she had expertise. That had to be worth something on the relationship scale, didn’t it? She cleared her throat.

‘Expelliarmus. Protego. Petrificus Totalus. Incarcerous. Charms you could probably cast in your sleep, right? I bet there are even first years who know them.’

‘Even Hufflepuff first years?’ Sirius asked in disbelief.

‘Even Hufflepuff first years.’ Tonks grinned at them, encouraging them to laugh, and a few of them did. ‘But when you actually use them, actually have to apply what you know... it’s not that easy. Because when the only thing between you and your body lying on the ground is your wand, every single thing you’ve learned flies right out the window.’

The easygoing smiles had slid off of the faces of the room. In Tonks’ mind, a reel was playing, a film strip of chaos; she was at the Ministry of Magic, flinging every spell that came to mind around the room in a frenzy of light and panic. Dodge a Killing Curse here, shoot up a Shield Charm there, and, a split second later, whip around to throw another curse at Bellatrix Lestrange. Remus was right behind her, covering her back as he engaged in a sort of twisted magical tango with a Death Eater whose face she couldn’t see.

‘You can’t remember how to block... you can’t remember how to hex... hell, you can’t even remember your own name...’ Her own voice sounded far away, as distant as the images that continued to assault her mind. She was reckless now, jabbing her wand into any opening she could find, which were getting rarer and rarer as her efforts continued to have no effect on Bellatrix whatsoever.

‘... because if you stop to think for a second, a moment, a heartbeat, you’re dead. You’re dead before you even hit the floor....’

There was an explosion from behind her. Remus, her mind had thought wildly, and before she could consciously stop herself she had turned to look back at him. A loud bang! resounded emphatically, and she was thrown back. Her head collided forcibly with the stone steps, and a rush of blood obscured her vision as she sank into unconsciousness.

‘... and, unlike in class, where the only person impacted by your abilities is yourself, you’re not the only one that can get hurt by an instant’s distraction, a breath’s hesitation...’

Remus was sitting by her bed in Saint Mungo’s, his face as pale and white as the sheets that covered her. She could barely hear his voice over the roaring in her ears. Disjointed words reached her through the fog... Sirius... Bellatrix... veil... gone...

A hand settled on her back, soft and soothing. Tonks blinked herself back to the present, sucking in air forcefully; she was shivering, as feverish and as shaky as if she had just vomited.

‘And that’s why today’s lesson will focus on duelling,’ Remus finished for her, his bass voice drawing attention from her own quivering soprano one. ‘The partners you’ve chosen are your opponents. As we are still in school, there are, naturally, a few guidelines: first, all illegal curses are still illegal.’

There were several chuckles at this, and more than a few dark mutters from the Slytherin half.

‘Secondly, you are forbidden from casting any spells that inflict harm or pain. And, thirdly, you cannot interact with anyone outside of your pair. As the consequences of these, or, at least, the first two, are more dangerous those of other school rules, anyone who refuses to comply will be sent to the Headmaster’s office immediately.’

Silence fell, every single pair of eyes focused intensely on Remus.

‘As setting everyone against each other at once would be a highly chaotic and uncontrollable idea, we’re going to have you duel one at a time. At the end, your peers will give you constructive feedback – an idea of where your strengths and weaknesses lie,’ Remus informed them. They nodded dutifully, eager expressions dotting the faces of the majority of the class. ‘Is there anyone willing to volunteer to go first?’

Hands shot into the air, including all four Gryffindor boys and a collection of Slytherins who looked exceedingly familiar... if only she could place them...

‘Yes, Misters...?’ she trailed off questioningly, pointing at the two Slytherin boys whose countenances tugged most at her memory.

‘Marcus Wilkes,’ the taller of the two, Wilkes, replied, his voice silky smooth, ‘and Evan Rosier.’

Tonks barely held in a gasp.

Wilkes and Rosier.

She could see their faces clearly now, aged by only a few years and sneering up at her from the cover of the Daily Prophet. She was only seven years old when her father had come home with the paper, beaming and heartily kissing his wife for the first time in years. The bolded heading, which Tonks could see perfectly in her mind, proudly proclaimed, Two Down, Hundreds to Go: Death Eaters Wilkes and Rosier Killed by Aurors.

They were Death Eaters. And they would be dead within twenty-four months.

‘Right. Wilkes and Rosier.’ Her voice wavered more than she liked, squeaking on the ends of the words like a field mouse. ‘Step into the centre, please... everyone else, give them room.’

A wave of bodies parted, their owners lounging on desks and sitting down on the floor in childlike anticipation. They are still children, after all, Tonks thought. Eighteen years, though enough to qualify for adulthood in both the magical and Muggle worlds, was hardly enough to have gained any sort of aged wisdom whatsoever.

Only children.

Lying, crying, dying children.