Disclaimer: I do not own nor claim to own any of the character or ideas, if you will, presented in the below story. Obviously, they belong to the inestimably brilliant Jo.
This is for Challenge One: Redemption. I'm writing for Hufflepuff, and just if it matters, my name's the same on the boards.
Also, thanks to my friend Pip for beta-ing this, in a sense, and my dad for supporting me in fanfic writing.
Tonks sat alone outside the Three Broomsticks. Well, not really alone. Less than three feet away through the wall of the pub people were celebrating”safe from the frigid air of winter and the bitterness of the world. But she was alone. Nothing but memories occupied the space beside her. New Year’s Eve was a time to celebrate, she supposed, but her heart would not let her, and sleep would not take her.
Life was complicated, but she was coping. Her life was not completely ruined. Tonks was not lost, doomed to wander aimlessly for all her life. But Nymphadora had never seen so many people acting like everything was alright, while on the inside they were dying, screaming, and losing touch with the world. So many things were broken and in need of repair. So many lives needed reshaping. So many people needed healing. And Tonks could do very little about it.
A figure approached the entrance to the bar, casting a shadow over Nymphadora’s face. Tonks shook her head like a wet dog, rubbed her eyes, and looked up at the girl walking about, staring at the heavens.
“Wotcher, Hermione!” she said, smiling, as the woman sunk into the crunchy snow beside her, not taking her gaze off of the clear, black sky. “Hermione, what’s up?”
Hermione swallowed and continued staring upward. She shook her head slightly to indicate that she didn’t want to talk at the moment.
Tonks sank back against the cold wall. There was so much Tonks wished she could do for Hermione, but since when was she ever good at comforting and giving advice? Tonks tried morphing her hair back to pink, a sad, subconscious attempt at pretending everything was how it used to be. But maybe it was times like this that people needed to see the real person, just to make sure everything was normal, and that the person behind the emotional mask wasn’t a Death Eater looking for victims. Of course, Voldemort was gone, but that didn’t really mean much anymore.
“Hermione?” Tonks asked tentatively. “Do you want to head back to my place to warm up a bit? It wouldn’t be as cold, and you might feel safer.”
Hermione didn’t respond. Tonks was used to this, so she went back to thinking. “Thinking” was the nice term for hiding from the world. Hermione was still staring at the sky.
After a few minutes, Hermione stirred and Tonks found her rubbing her hands together and blowing on them, as if she’d just realized that it was below freezing out. “Yes. It’s a bit nippy, isn’t it?”
“It is; it is! C’mon,” Tonks hauled Hermione off the ground. “Got your wand? Money? Sure you know where we’re apparating to?”
Hermione nodded and cracked a small smile. “But of course, we can’t apparate directly to your house because of the protection charms you and Remus have yet to remove.”
Tonks rolled her eyes. “Oh, come off it, Hermione. They’ll be off soon! So, to be specific, and please your uncanny craving for perfection, the corner of New and St. Bernard. Satisfied, are we?”
“Quite,” Hermione answered, and they disapparated with two simultaneous pops.
Tonks shoved her hands deep into the pockets of her jeans as she and Hermione began walking from the designated corner to her house. Hermione was automatically counting her steps as she hopped along, deliberately missing all the cracks. It distracted her from life. Really, it sounds lame, but Hermione found that it worked eerily well. Tonks pushed a stray strand of her own brown hair behind her ear. Hermione sniffed and counted.
“So,” Tonks started, “what’s wrong, Hermione? I mean, I know that’s a stupid question and all with all that’s happened, but, y’know, I thought maybe there was something you might want to talk about.” Tonks knew that there were plenty of things she wanted to talk about.
Hermione shrugged, and decided to choose her words carefully. She’d learned to be guarded, even among friends. “Lately I haven’t been doing as well in school as usual. I just can’t concentrate. Certainly you understand.” Hermione paused for a moment, allowing Tonks to nod, before she drew another breath, and continued. “I’ve talked to McGonagall recently, and she says maybe I’m just not cut out to be a civil rights activist. Maybe it just isn’t right for me. But I know it is. I know Minerva’s wrong. I’ve never wanted to do anything more. Ron said””
Nymphadora’s eyes quickly flew up to the girl’s face, searching for something that could perhaps help her unlock the secret that was Hermione Granger, something to help her unleash the unspoken waves of grief that beat against their captive’s heart and mind.
“Yes?” Tonks prompted.
“Ron said, last summer before he, Harry, and I went off, that he knew the civil rights thing was something I had to do and he was proud of me for persevering even though he’s always hassled me about it. Of course, coming from Ron it was a bit less eloquent, you know. Much more vague and disconnected, but he meant it. And then he kissed me. That was the first time I’d actually appreciated a kiss. And then I off and. . .” Hermione looked into Tonks’ face, and Hermione recognised a flicker of comprehension flash across her face. “Yes, well, this is your house isn’t it?”
“Yeah, ‘tis.” And something finally clicked in Tonks’ mind. The expression always hidden just beneath that shallow layer, the one that Remus always hid so well: guilt.
Tonks tapped the door of her house with her wand several times while muttering an incantation, and then it swung inwards. Hermione followed Tonks in, so distracted she didn’t even try to remember the incantation for safety purposes. Hermione had been inside quite a few times before, but she could never help thinking how much it reflected the personalities of both Remus and Nymphadora, and how perfectly they melded when put together. But she’d never be able to experience that.
Hermione heard Remus say something to Tonks from the top of the stairs. She registered that Tonks replied with “Just making some tea for Hermione and me. Why are you still up? You want a cuppa?” And then she heard the soft voice of Lupin reply: “You woke me. No, but thank you.” Tonks turned towards Hermione and tried to initiate conversation again as they entered the kitchen.
“So, I’ve stopped tripping as much lately. Have you noticed?”
Hermione nodded, “Yeah, I have. That’s great!” She flashed a fake smile.
“I’m trying to improve on my stealth and tracking and all. So this is quite an accomplishment for me,” said Tonks, winking in a perfect facsimile of a Marauder.
Hermione climbed onto a stool at the tall, slightly lop-sided table by the kitchen window as Tonks put the kettle on. Hermione gazed out the window at the wholly clear night, so clear that the stars seemed to glitter on the snow below. But of course, they weren’t really glittering on the snow; Hermione knew this was only the reflection of light particles from the street lights, but it was certainly nice to pretend that something so far away could make such an impression, even one so seemingly insignificant. The stars pierced the sky with silent ferocity, or at least that’s how Hermione thought they must feel, their light struggling to reach the earth for millions of years, but in the end spending their energy just to spread a message that would be greatly ignored by the majority of humans. It was being ignored by Hermione, but she, of course, was not willing to admit such.
“I’ve forgotten, d’you take sugar and cream, or is that Ron?” Tonks turned towards her, face screwed up for a moment as she sucked on her finger, and Hermione wrenched her eyes from the sky.
“That’s Ron. Just sugar, please,” Hermione said, averting her eyes from Nymphadora’s face.
“Hermione””
“Tonks, you’re bleeding!” said Hermione, pointing towards Tonks’ hand. “What happened?”
“Didn’t you hear me drop the cup?” Hermione shook her head. “I ‘spose not.” Tonks sat on a stool across from Hermione, and levitated the mugs to the table. She slid one across to Hermione. “You want any whiskey in that? I think Remus keeps a bottle in the cupboard, next to the gigantic hoard of Honeyduke’s Chocolate.”
Hermione shook her head. “You know I don’t like whiskey!” she replied a bit too brusquely; realizing her mistake, she sighed and said, “Sorry. I’ve been a bit uptight lately. Being back at school now that Voldemort’s gone, it’s like Hogwarts started all over again, especially since it was closed last year.” Hermione stirred her tea, spoon scraping sugar crystals against ceramic.
The two sat in silence, Hermione watching the current in her tea, Tonks watching the honey drizzle slowly into her own cup. Tonks glanced at Hermione nervously a few times. She had no idea what she should say in order to help reconcile Hermione with her former self. Tonks looked up again and met eyes with Hermione.
“You sure you don’t want me to patch that up for you? It’s quite simple, Tonks,” Hermione said of the cut.
“No, I’m fine.”
“You’re still bleeding, Tonks!”
“It’s dry blood, actually. Really, perfectly fine,” she said, waving her finger in the air to prove so.
Tonks watched her own finger wagging back and forth, and a sudden strategy struck her, one that Remus might use. She looked at Hermione skeptically, wondering if she was too logical to even begin buying into any of it.
“I’m not bleeding. But you are,” Tonks said, cocking her head to one side so brown hair obscured half her face, leaving only one eye watching Hermione.
Hermione just stared at Tonks like she’d gone mad.
Tonks was trying to string words and phrases together that might be able to caress words out of Hermione.
“You are, Hermione. You’re hurting so much on the inside,” Tonks tried to put herself in Remus’ sententious mindset. “The needless guilt of something you could not even prevent, actually, is grinding against your conscience, rubbing your mind raw.”
Hermione looked down at the table, biting her lip.
“I’d say your heart was broken, but that’s really too cliché, isn’t it?” Tonks said, still looking hard at Hermione. Hermione’s head stayed downcast. After several minutes Tonks looked back to her tea.
She was just starting on her second cup of tea when Hermione’s gaze lifted up, eyes looking out the window above Nymphadora’s head. Hermione unceremoniously shoved a piece of hair back into her messy bun. “Sometimes I wish those old Egyptian myths were true, you know, Tonks? The muggle tales. The stars and the afterlife.” Tonks nodded, taking a sip of her tea. “Osiris would measure a person’s heart against a feather on brass scales, and if it was lighter, they were granted a place in the sky as a star. If not, they had to remain on Earth until they had lightened their heart.”
Hermione sniffed and looked into Tonks eyes. “I just wish that were true, Tonks, because I know if Ron’s heart had been measured, his would have been twice as light as a feather.” Hermione looked back down to her hands. “If I knew, I wouldn’t have to worry about where he is on my account. It’s bad enough knowing I was the one who killed him.”
Tonks watched a single tear slip down Hermione’s bent face and fall into her cold tea, sending ripples across the pristine surface of the liquid.
“Hermione, you didn’t kill him. I swear to you, you didn’t,” said Tonks as she pulled a stool around the table. Hermione shook her head.
“Why? What makes you think that?” Tonks watched the silent tears flow freely.
Hermione swallowed and bit her lip. “I sent him to check. He, Harry, and I were hiding, he was just going to check and make sure there were no Death Eaters. He crawled out from behind the stone wall, and it was okay, so we started to go out, too. He’d just started to yell to us”he barely had his wand lifted”when the green light hit him. ‘Harry, Hermione, watch”’ and that was the last thing he said.” She stopped and swallowed again. Tonks could tell that her throat was hurting from holding back sobs.
Tonks reached over and awkwardly patted Hermione’s hand. “You really care, don’t you?” Hermione asked. “Harry doesn’t want to talk about anything. Ginny only talks a bit. I can’t go places with Harry without an awkward silence between us. Nothing’s the same anymore.
“But Harry has a right not to talk, you know,” Hermione exhaled deeply. “If Ron and I hadn’t practically been together, I would’ve been the one to crawl out there. I’m the smallest. He just didn’t want me to get hurt. He was too worried. Look where it’s wound him up; look where it’s wound me up! Look what I’ve done, Tonks. Can you honestly say you’ve ruined a dozen people’s lives in less than a minute? You can’t!” Hermione choked, starting to sob.
Tonks put her arm around this uncharacteristic Hermione and pulled her close, feeling very much like Molly Weasley. “Shh, dear. C’mon, Hermione, it’s not your fault. And you know Ron would be upset to know that you’re upset over him.”
Hermione snorted, which sounded rather like a muggle vacuum since she was crying. “You’re probably right.”
“And he’d be angry his other best friend and his sister weren’t there for you, when right now all you need is each other,” Tonks added.
Hermione smiled sadly and replied, “But he wouldn’t say so, because he’d never admit he had more emotions than a teaspoon.”
Tonks chuckled forlornly and drained the last of her tea. Hermione looked out at the stars, thinking.
“You know what, Tonks?”
“Hmm?”
“After all the toil the stars went through to get their light here, they have at least one person getting their message: Through the dark, there is light. Keep looking and you’ll find it.”
Tonks grinned, flicking her wand and refilling their mugs with butterbeer.
“Looks like you’ve actually read the stars right, for once.”
Hermione laughed.
A clock struck midnight.
“Happy New Year, Hermione.” They clanked their mugs together and each took a long draught. Sitting their mugs back on the table, each watched ripples of change spread across the surface of their butterbeer. Above it all, the silent stars shone on.