48: Pieces: Part Two
It was not the easiest ten days of Reynard Lupin’s life. But he did not forget to whom he owed his son’s life.
Every day, between visits to his son, he asked after Nymphadora Tonks.
But every day the answer was the same.
* * *
Day One
“You’re sure you don’t mind?”
Rolphe Lupin smiled at the tentative tone of his usually forthright brother’s voice. “Of course I don’t mind, Rey. I wouldn’t have invited you if I did.”
Rey’s fingers tightened around his cane as his eyes raked around the walls of his childhood bedroom. In looks it had not altered much, the same varnished wooden panels and ancient green wallpaper, the same heavy furniture and rickety four-poster bed. If it hadn’t been for the gaping emptiness of the shelves and the absence of the ratty old basket that had belonged to his pet Crup Sniggers, Rey would have half-suspected he had stepped back in time.
“You haven’t changed much in here.” The words spilled out almost unintentionally. “After our… argument, I would have thought…”
Rolphe sighed deeply. “You were still my brother. And this was…is still your room. I wasn’t my place to change anything.”
For a moment, Rey closed his eyes, breathing in the almost forgotten scent of his youth, of a time before Remus, before Diana, before he had known of the trials and tribulations that lay over long years ahead.
“I really appreciate this,” he said softly. “Winter Hollow feels so much emptier, knowing Remus is in hospital. And of course he keeps asking about his mummy and whenever I’m there…”
He felt his brother’s fingers close slowly upon his shoulder. Gently, they squeezed.
“You know, it took me three years to go back into that corner of the meadow where Randolph and Megara died,” he said softly. “For a while, I was on the verge of the selling the house, it hurt so much to remember. But there had been so much change for the girls already and in spite of what had happened, they loved it here so much…” He sighed again. “It was still home. I think it always will be and it deserved a chance for better times, another chance to flourish. It may be stones and mortar, but it meant too much for me to turn away and let it crumble. And Rey…” The fingers tightened still further. “Greystones is your home too and your family is here to help you. For as long as you need us.” There was a long pause. “Even forever. If that’s what you want.”
Forever?
Blinking, Rey stared once more into his old room. It was his past and yet, downstairs he could hear children playing, the barking of Ruffles, Ruth’s laughter, so different, an old home renewed. Winter Hollow was filled with memories of Diana, of Remus, but these days very little more.
He loved them dearly. But Diana was gone. And Remus, provided he recovered, would, as always, have a life of his own.
Winter Hollow, as long as he lived there, would be a place of ghosts. It deserved more.
Perhaps it was time to move on. And if Remus truly was to be well again…
He smiled, softly, uncertainly, the pain and warmth of memory and present mingling as one. “Thank you, Rolphe,” he replied quietly. “I’ll bear that in mind.”
* * *
And on the fourth floor of St Mungo’s hospital, Nymphadora Tonks slept on.
* * *
Day Two
“Werewolf Rebellion at Feral Institute! My goodness!”
Cup of tea only halfway to his lips, Rey froze. And he wasn’t the only one.
Until that moment, the breakfast table at Greystones had proved as lively an affair as a family gathering. Ruth’s three children had chattered, bounced and giggled their way into the dining room, flinging themselves into their seats and delving into the bacon, sausage and eggs provided with a gusto unseemly at a morning hour. With rather more decorum, Ruth and her husband Edmund had settled down a moment later, making good humoured if mostly ineffectual efforts to make little Marion eat her tomatoes, to persuade young Tobias not to flick his brown sauce at portraits that scolded him for his table manners and to convince their eldest, Elinor that perhaps eating one’s breakfast with a cheerfully wagging Scottie dog on one’s lap was not the best idea. Thalia had chattered incessantly, filling any brief and fleeting silence with talk of nothing and everything at once as she bustled back and forth between the kitchen and the dining room, pausing only occasionally to step around the family’s house elf. Ruffles, once he had been shoed off Elinor’s lap, proceeded to make his presence felt elsewhere, snuffling under the table and nibbling at toes and robe hems until he was granted a pat on the head or a titbit. And at the head of the table, Rolphe had watched over them all with a fond and tolerant smile.
But the smile was missing now.
As he lowered his cup tersely to the saucer, Rey could not tell whether Thalia, her head now buried firmly in the Daily Prophet, had simply not noticed the sudden silence or was entirely unable to recognise it. Whichever was the case, she continued to read out snippets of the sensational and utterly inaccurate front page that had brought the Lupin breakfast to a standstill.
“Vicious werewolves running riot… attacks on the staff…locked in a chamber…kept for a full moon snack, good grief! If not for the prompt actions of one brave young Auror, many lives would have been lost… Nymphella Tonks is now critically injured in hospital… According to Arcadius Croll, the Institute’s Chief Medical Officer, bad management can be blamed… pointed out that the rebellion was apparently instigated after the arrival of newly arrested inmate, controversial Hogwarts professor Remus Lupin…” Her voice trailed away into positively unnatural silence. “Oh dear,” she said at length, her voice rife with bewilderment. “That doesn’t sound like what Rebekah told us at all…”
Across the table, the suddenly motionless Ruth met her uncle’s eyes. She frowned.
“No,” she replied darkly. “It doesn’t. And I know who I believe…”
Thalia’s nose wrinkled anxiously. “But if it’s in the Prophet…”
“It’s rubbish!” With a sweep of his hand, Rolphe snatched the newspaper away from his wife, his eyes burrowing into the headlines. “They all but accused my daughter and my nephew of… of…” He shook the paper violently. “Who wrote this drivel?”
But that was not a question that Rey even needed to consider. His fingers closed around his cane with an audible snap.
“Let me guess,” he drawled grimly, his tone all but spilling over with tightly suppressed rage. “Rita Skeeter.”
* * *
Unaware of headlines, of lies and of misunderstandings, Nymphadora Tonks slept on.
* * *
Day Three
Courtroom Ten.
Harry Potter stared blankly at the grimy door in front of him, trying not to listen to the low buzz of conversation and occasional shocks gasps that rippled out from beyond the dark, stained wood. The last time he had been here, arriving at this door, rushing helter-skelter though it, he had come to learn of his fate in the matter of his expulsion from Hogwarts. But now, standing here, staring, watching, waiting, things were very different.
Now he was testifying against somebody else.
Hermione had told him that he ought to think through his testimony, get the ideas straight in his head “ she’d even recommended a couple of Muggle books on crime and law and an illustrated text recording famous cases brought before the Wizengamot. But Harry didn’t want to think about it, didn’t want to stand there and dwell on all the terrible things he’d done, all the damage he’d caused; the facts were ingrained on his memory. And the last thing he needed was to stand there remembering so much that pained him and then walk into the packed courtroom upset. That would just be embarrassing and no use to anyone…
It can’t be much longer. It just can’t. I want to get on with it. At least last time they didn’t keep me standing around. They changed the time to make me late, but I didn’t have to just wait here and…
He was thinking about this too much. He needed to focus on something else…
Professor Lupin.
His mind darted back to early that morning, to the quiet conversation he had shared with Professor Lupin’s father, Reynard. It had seemed such a good idea at the time, suggesting that he visit Lupin and pretend to be James Potter in order to try and establish just how much Moony remembered of his full moon adventures with Messrs Wormtail, Padfoot and Prongs. But in hindsight, Harry was beginning to wonder “ did he really know enough about his father and his friends’ time at school to pull it off? Would he really be able to fool someone who’d lived those events, someone who was reliving them now?
But blessedly, there was no more time to think. With a heavy clunk, the iron lock released and the door creaked open.
“Calling Harry Potter!” An officious little man in heavy robes declared, apparently oblivious or uncaring of the fact that there was only one person standing before him. “Harry Potter to the Wizengamot!”
Squaring his shoulders grimly, Harry nodded his head and walked briskly forwards into the courtroom. Far below, in the chamber’s centre, his wrists firmly bound by heavy chains, Peter Pettigrew stared up at him with weary terror.
* * *
And oblivious to courts and trials and terrified Death Eaters, Nymphadora Tonks slept on.
* * *
Day Four
“I hope you don’t mind me coming.”
Andromeda Tonks shook her head slowly, her long, dark hair now combed to neat perfection, her robes tidy, one hand still clasped around the silver locket at her neck. The paleness of her features and hollowed eyes implied strongly that she had spent as much time failing to sleep as Rey had.
“It’s fine, Mr Lupin… Reynard,” she corrected at his slightly raised eyebrow. “I’m sorry, I’m…”
“Having trouble sleeping?” With a slight groan, Rey lowered himself gently into the empty chair at the foot of the bed, absently flicking aside a beetle that had settled itself upon the wooden armrest, having presumably flown in via the wide open window nearby. “Join the club.”
A fleeting smile darted over Andromeda’s features. “Ted’s at home right now, trying to rest. I think he’s resorted to potions.” She shook her head slightly, dark hair washing across her eyes. “I’ve never liked using those.”
Reynard stared at the woman for a moment, the lost look in her eyes, the despair, the bone-weary exhaustion. It was painfully familiar.
“At least you have each other,” he offered quietly. “That must be a help.”
Andromeda sighed. “What we see of each other,” she muttered wearily. She reached down and squeezed her daughter’s hand between her palms. “We’ve been taking it in turns to sit with Nymphadora. We don’t want her to be on her own.”
After a moment’s hesitation, Rey allowed his eyes to be drawn to the young woman lying unconscious in the bed. He sighed.
He had met Nymphadora Tonks many times now and each occasion had seen her brighter than the last. The first time she had been an Auror, in her professional robes with a crown of white spikes, a compassionate young woman who had guided him through the chaos of the Hogsmeade attack to reach his severely injured son at Hogwarts. But he had come to know her better during Remus’ stay in the Hospital Wing, appearing frequently with a rush of cheerfulness and new and bolder hairstyle. They had crossed paths again once or twice since and again, her every look had required a double take.
But not today.
He had never seen her so colourless. Her hair was lank and mousy-brown, a reflection of her father’s thinning dome that was presumably natural. Her face was so pale as to be almost white, her lips bloodless, her eyes closed. But for the slight rise and fall of her chest, she was motionless.
All to save his son’s life. He owed her so much.
“How is she?” It seemed so inadequate a question but he had little else to ask.
Andromeda forced a smile. “Healer Jones tells me that her breathing stabilised “ they think that’s a good sign. And Ted swears he saw her little finger twitch yesterday.” Her lip quivered slightly as her fingers tightened around the locket once more. “I love her so much,” she whispered softly. “She was my life when she was a child.” Her eyes rose slowly, tiredly, to meet his. “My family are pure-blood, Reynard, fanatically so, some would say. When I married a Muggle-born, well….” She pulled a face. “To say they cut me off is barely the half of it. There was no way back; I knew that and I made my choice just the same. Ted and Nymphadora were all the family I had left after that and they became all that mattered to me.”
Rey softly bit his lip. “I know that feeling. My wife and I were in the same boat, blood-wise. My brother and I only reconciled this year. We hadn’t spoken in decades.”
Andromeda’s smile was bitter. “Reconcile. My sisters would kill me as soon as look at me. And no, I’m not exaggerating.” Her fingers traced the edges of the locket once more. “They gave me this,” she murmured absently. “It was a present on my sixteenth birthday; a silver locket with a lock from each of our hair inside. It’s the only thing they ever gave me that I kept.” Her fingers tightened. “I’ve got three locks of hair inside it now. But two of them aren’t my sister’s. They’re Ted’s…” She breathed deeply. “…And Nymphadora’s. I don’t understand!” She burst out suddenly. “Why should they be out there free and my daughter lying in hospital? Death Eaters, the pair of them, and married to Death Eaters! Narcissa’s brat is fit and well, lording it at Hogwarts while my little girl…”
Her voice trailed away into sobs. Gently, and with as much reassurance as he could muster, Rey laid one hand against Andromeda Tonks’ arm. “She’ll be all right, you know,” he told the exhausted mother quietly. “If there’s any justice in the world, a good deed such as hers won’t see her punished.”
Andromeda pressed her lips together as tears glistened gently in her hollowed eyes.
“That’s the trouble, Reynard” she replied, her voice aching with deep pain. “After all I’ve seen my family get away with, I’m not sure if there is any justice in the world anymore.”
For Nymphadora Tonks still slept.
* * *
Day Five
“I’m going to kill her. Painfully. I used to be an expert exterminator after all, so thinking up a gruesome death really shouldn’t be a problem...”
Slowly, deliberately, Reynard Lupin lifted that morning’s edition of the Daily Prophet and tore it gracefully in two. The right half, containing the third page report, a substantial dissertation on the evils of Remus Lupin “ which carried distinctly unsubtle overtones of I told you so - and his possible collaboration with Auror Tonks whose powerful Death Eater links that noble reporter had herself recently exposed, fluttered unceremoniously to the ground. With an almost studied nonchalance, Rey pinned the spinning pages beneath the tip of his cane and ground them against the floor. The other half he balled into a wad and then, with a simple, wordless incantation, set on fire. The report on the ground ignited a moment later and exploded into ashes.
“Rita Skeeter is a vicious cow.” There was no arguing with that and Hermione Granger’s tone brooked no opposition in any case. Rey had left Greystones early that morning and had not glanced beyond the front page, which of course was dominated by the trial of Peter Pettigrew. It had not been until he had arrived at St Mungo’s and encountered Hermione, fresh from a visit to Miss Tonks, waving the paper and muttering furiously about that bloody Skeeter woman and spreading lies about Professor Lupin and Tonks that Rey had learned that his son’s name, and now his saviour’s too, had once again been dragged through the mud.
The bloody Skeeter woman indeed! I should have jammed my cane so far into that nostril that the other end came out of her…
“What I want to know,” Hermione’s voice cut sharply into Reynard’s musings, “…is how she thinks she’ll get away with it! She knows that I know about her bugging but she’s still doing it! She has to be! She hasn’t been seen anywhere near the hospital or anyone who works here so how else could she have such precise information on Tonks’ injuries?” Her brow creased darkly. “She has to be around here somewhere. I should never have let her out of that jar…”
“Jar?” Against the backdrop of imagining Rita Skeeter buried up to her neck in a field full of Fire Crabs or dangling by her ankles over a pit full of Hairy MacBoons, it took a moment for the word to sink in. “Wait a minute. What do you mean, jar?”
Slowly, Hermione’s eyebrows rose. A smile spread quietly across her face.
“You know,” she said suddenly. “I think I may have an idea. But I’ll need an expert exterminator.” She drew herself up. “Mr Lupin. Would you like to help me put a stop to Rita Skeeter’s lies?”
Rey was not certain that it would have been possible to jam an iota more sincerity into his voice. “Absolutely.”
Hermione grinned. It was a surprisingly wicked expression.
“Well, in that case,” she said softly. “I think there’s something you should know…”
* * *
And unaware of newspapers, of mud flinging and plans in the making, Nymphadora Tonks slept on.
* * *
Day Six
If she had currently been in possession of something at least resembling a human mouth, Rita Skeeter would have smiled. It would have been a slow smile, a smarmy smile, a smile rich in the self-satisfaction of a reporter on the trail of sensational story that would not only do her painstakingly re-established reputation no harm at all, but would also bring great humiliation to a man who had once thrust a cane up her nostril. But since her lack of lips made the issue irrelevant, Rita settled simply for twitching her antennae and ducking out of sight under the broad leaves of a conveniently placed hospital pot plant.
This was going to be very satisfying.
“I’m afraid it’s true.”
Reynard Lupin. That self-righteous, cane-wielding old loony. Oh, she could almost see the headlines: The Man Who Raised A Monster; A Profile of Reynard Lupin, Moulder of a Menace. (Moulder, was that a word? Oh what the heck, it was now anyway…) Reynard Lupin, seventy-something (oh whatever, he’s old), is man unfit to raise a normal child, let alone a potential vicious killer. His violent tendencies, to which this humble reporter can personally attest after suffering a shocking and unprovoked assault upon her person on the grounds of Hogwarts school of Witchcraft and Wizardry…
“They really think his mind is gone?”
Aha. Now she was speaking.
Little Miss Perfect herself. How gloriously ironic that it should be Hermione Granger that Lupin was talking to. How much sweeter it made the moment!
Miss Prissy, too-smart-for-her-age, looked sad and downcast as she discussed her dangerous teacher’s condition with Mr “Monster-Breeder” Lupin. Could it be that she had been Confunded by her deceitful professor or was she just plain stupid?
“I just can’t imagine Professor Lupin like that.” Little Miss Perfect was shaking her head. “You really have to feed him out of a bowl on the floor?”
Lupin nodded grimly. “He’s just like an animal. He refuses to put his robes on and he goes berserk if we try and close the window. He seems to need the fresh air.” He sighed deeply. “All we can do is try and keep him calm and sedate him when we can “ he’s at his worst in the mornings. But Hermione “ you can’t tell anyone else about this. I don’t know what I’d do if word got out that my son is…” He broke off abruptly, dropping his face into his hands as he stifled a hiccupping sob. Biting her lip, Miss Prissy placed a hand on his shoulder as she turned and lead him away into a small waiting room nearby. The door pushed gently shut behind them.
Rita could barely contain herself. Remus Lupin turned into the animal he was inside!
A fitting fate for the beast that would be man, the creature that endangered our children and stirred up a vicious werewolf rebellion at the Feral Institute. This reporter can exclusively reveal that Remus Lupin, who-cares-how-old, has finally succumbed to the bestial instincts that made him so dangerous. Reduced to grubbing naked on the floor for scraps and howling like the animal he is, the former Professor Lupin is now interned in a secure room at St Mungo’s Hospital for Magical Maladies. But it safe to have such a creature roaming amongst our sick and infirm? Surely, for the safety of other helpless and more deserving patients, a cell in Azkaban would be…
Twitching her antennae frantically, Rita crawled out from under her leaf and launched herself away. She had to get a look at him! An open window on the second floor shouldn’t make him too hard to find…
Tomorrow morning would do it. A quick trip up to the window while transformed, just to be sure, and then back to the office to get a photographer and her Quick Quotes quill. A vehement quote from Reynard Lupin, a few snaps of his savage son…
Oh what a story this would make!
Rita Skeeter, attractive, blonde and youthful, smiles charmingly as she accepts the Order of Merlin for journalistic services to the wizarding world from the Minister of Magic himself…
* * *
It was only when he was quite certain that the door was firmly shut that Reynard Lupin allowed himself to release the laugh he had been desperately stifling for more than a minute.
“Do you reckon she fell for it?” he asked with a grin.
Hermione’s returning smile was broad. “Hook, line and sinker.”
* * *
But heedless of traps half-set and lies forestalled, Nymphadora Tonks slept on.
* * *
Day Seven
Rey was quick to contact Hermione Granger regarding the catch he had gleefully made on his son’s windowsill. She suggested an excellent spell for an unbreakable, soundproofed jar.
* * *
Cocooned in an unbreakable silence all her own, Nymphadora Tonks slept on.
* * *
Day Eight
“He didn’t want her.” With an air of regret, Reynard handed over the jar containing Rita the beetle to Hermione, muttering under his breath as he released the silencing charm from the reporter’s glass prison. “I was thinking about giving her to my menagerie instead. I’m sure my Kappa would find her a wonderful plaything…”
Two nervous antennae emerged from beneath the broken quill.
Barely suppressing a grin of her own, Hermione took the jar and examined it thoughtfully. “I don’t know. I think she might get boring after a while, being so predictable,” she mused pensively. “Maybe Crookshanks would like her. After all, he loves spiders. He chews on them all day long…”
With the jar, the beetle went frantic.
* * *
But resting peacefully, Nymphadora Tonks slept on.
* * *
Day Nine
“They’ve issued an arrest warrant for Snape?”
It was the incredulous tone of Hestia Jones’ voice that caught Reynard’s instant attention. Moving along the hospital corridor towards his son’s room, he rounded the corner to find the Healer deep in conversation with Kingsley Shacklebolt.
The Auror had just shrugged. “What choice was there? Pettigrew came right out and said he was a spy for You-Know-Who and that he knew all about the plans for the Institute months ago. Dawlish and Proudfoot were halfway to Hogwarts the moment his name left the little rats’ tongue.”
Hestia’s lips pursed in concern. “Is it true? I mean I know he’s a cantankerous git but Dumbledore seemed so sure about him…”
Kingsley shook his head. “I don’t know. But it doesn’t bear thinking about when he knows so much about the Order. I guess we’ll find out at his trial.”
But Severus Snape did not come to trial. By that night, the Evening Prophet had announced that the Potions Master of Hogwarts had vanished.
* * *
But unaware of traitors, flights and betrayals, Nymphadora Tonks slept on.
* * *
Day Ten
It was Rolphe who broke the news. His younger brother, worn by time just as he was, had appeared, pale faced, at the breakfast table, quieting Thalia’s prattle about the benefits of fresh fruit in the morning with a single look. And then, silently, he had handed Reynard the newspaper.
The headline had left no room for doubt.
YOU DIRTY RAT! PETER PETTIGREW FOUND GUILTY!
And in the article below lay his sentence. For though the Ministry had one lone Dementor left under their control, they did not intend to use it. Peter Pettigrew was considered too valuable a source of information on You-Know-Who.
He was sentenced to imprisonment in Azkaban’s Maximum Security solitary wing, locked away in a tightly warded chamber accessible only via portkey or a sealed shaft from above. There he would spend the rest of his natural life.
It was a room not even a rat could crawl out of.
* * *
But oblivious to sentences, to justice finally done, Nymphadora Tonks slept on.
* * *
Day Eleven
Hestia Jones scrambled to grab the rail of the stairs as she fought to keep her balance. Untangling her foot from within the folds of her robes, she hauled herself upright and completed the final few steps down towards the double doors at a more restrained pace. She was no use to anyone lying at the foot of the staircase with a broken neck. Besides, that was Tonks’ trick…
Tonks…
Oh let this be good, please let her be okay…
Mrs Tonks was standing outside her daughter’s room. Her shaking hands were gripping her bag like a lifeline.
Taking a deep breath, Hestia brushed passed her and moved towards the room beyond. But what Nymphadora Tonks would she find there? Awake or asleep, sane or mad, herself or lost?
Good questions all. She could only hope that the answers would be the ones so many sought.
Please. Oh please…
And then, her fingers stiffly crossed, Hestia stepped inside.
And stopped. And stared. And gasped.
And then, loud and shocked and disbelieving, she simply exclaimed “Tonks!”