MorganRay
“O time, thou must untangle this, not I.
It is too hard a knot for me t’untie.”
-Shakespeare “Twelfth Night” -
Overtime
5:32.
It was thirty-two minutes and fifteen seconds exactly after the beginning of the holiday break. Surrounded by files and parchment, Tonks had not realized the day had already slipped away. She stared dumbly at the clock, but she wasn’t surprised she didn’t hear the holiday parties in the cubicles down the hall. She also wasn’t surprised that no one had invited her to the festivities.
‘I’m not very festive, am I?’ Tonks thought ruefully as she looked down at the file she was finishing. There were three more she wanted to get done, but since she had cloistered herself in her new closet cubicle, she found it easier to work. There were no windows here with fake weather to distract her and make her daydream about running away from the desk where she usually felt confined. No one would interrupt her every couple of minutes to have a chat. No, she had been the most productive Auror when it came to updating and filing cases this year.
‘Better finish working,’ Tonks thought as she pulled out one of her last files. As she began to check the file’s facts, she knew it hadn’t always been this way. She pushed the days where she had been the spunky life of the Auror office out of her mind. No one thought of her that way anymore.
‘And isn’t it for the best? I should have grown up a long time ago,’ Tonks scolded herself as she scratched across the parchment. She checked the name of the Aurors that worked that case. Had they updated their file? Yes, they had, but she didn’t think some of the notes were particularly in-depth. However, they were more than the one sentence she had scrawled down in her case files. That had changed, too. Now, she wrote sheets of parchment on every case she did.
But she hadn’t been assigned many cases lately. She had been unofficially relegated to the realms of the office. ‘But maybe it’s better this way,’ Tonks reasoned as she attached her own notes to that case file before putting it in her finished bin. ‘I was always too eager to be in the action and get killed. Maybe this is where I’m supposed to be,’ she tried to convince herself as she began to read the next file.
‘Missions,’ Tonks thought as she skimmed over the details of the wizard who had been apprehended for exposing himself to Muggles. ‘Missions,’ she thought again as she lost interest in this boring case, ‘what missions? I certainly haven’t been on any of those lately, either. It’s probably for the best.’
If her status as an Auror had changed, her status within the Order had undergone a massive shift as well. It had begun with her. ‘Well, no, it didn’t begin with me, but maybe it did,’ Tonks thought as she forced herself to make thorough notes on her recent case.
‘Dumbledore wanted more of me,’ she recalled the Headmaster’s eagerness for her to have more responsibilities and take on more daring missions that involved stealth and disguise. In the end, she rejected many of the things he offered her. She would watch people in disguise when need arose, but she did not volunteer to go anywhere or do anything special.
‘Your skills as an Auror are valuable to the Order, Tonks,’ had been the words she remembered Dumbledore using when she rejected one of his offers.
‘It’s not for me,’ were the only words she had.
‘An odd thing for an Auror to say,’ Dumbledore had replied. As she turned to leave, he told her, ‘You are only as broken as you think you are.’
Tonks shuffled away another file. ‘You are only as broken as you think you are,’ she repeated the words to herself and sighed audibly. ‘Well, then, I’m very broken. I can’t even adjust my facial features any more. That’s probably why I haven’t been given any other Auror assignments. I’m useless.’
She went to grab the last case file and paused. She fingered the thick packet that she relegated to the end of the stack. She didn’t want to do this file, but she forced herself to open it. The name ‘Sirius Black’ was scrawled at the top. Quickly, Tonks flipped Sirius’s mug shot over and began to leaf through the documents. Many Aurors had reviewed this file since Sirius escaped Azkaban. They all combed its pages for information as to where they might catch him. In the end, Sirius’s own need to feel useful again had outweighed any concern he had for his safety.
‘I’m glad one of us didn’t catch him,’ she thought as she thumbed through the pages. They were stark, legalistic, and cold, and they didn’t resemble the man she had come to know over barely a year. They were both in London, and when she accepted what happened with Sirius, she found herself able to be in his company, and it was often Tonks that had kept him from completely losing his mind inside of his old childhood home.
‘Not me alone,’ she recalled as she scanned the pages for the one name she knew she wouldn’t find. Nowhere in Sirius’s file was Remus Lupin ever mentioned. His name had never been included in the stories she heard about her mom’s cousin. It had been an accident, actually, that she met Remus before she joined the Order. She had been at her parent’s, well, her dad’s home at that time. He arrived with a letter for her mom, but at that time, her mom and her dad were not together.
‘The contents aren’t specifically for you,’ he told her when she realized he had a letter to her mom that he wasn’t willing to give her. However, Tonks’s curiosity sparked to life, and she demanded the letter and even bartered with an Unbreakable Vow. However, Remus relented and gave it to her with one condition.
He told her, in all seriousness, ‘If you want to read this letter, do it in the presence of Albus Dumbledore.’ Tonks remembered her skepticism at that request. What did her old Headmaster have to do with any of this?
Later in the day, she sat in the house with Remus’s letter in her lap. She fingered the seal and touched the parchment as if feeling it might simply impart its contents into her mind. When that failed, she decided she might as well open it. As she was about to break the seal, Tonks stopped herself. She stuffed the letter in her pocket. ‘I tried to open that damned letter for weeks,’ Tonks thought as she refocused on Sirius’s case file. However, the papers held little interest for her. ‘This is all a fraud,’ Tonks thought bitterly as she flipped through more pages. ‘I can’t even write his death on these pages.’
‘Sirius’s death changed everything,’ Tonks realized as she gazed unseeingly down at the parchment. She would come over and share some ale and spirits with Sirius, and at one of those visits, she saw Remus for the second time. It hadn’t been as memorable as the first time, but she noted he was genuinely pleased she listened and talked to Dumbledore about Sirius.
‘See, if I hadn’t, I wouldn’t be here with you, would I?’ she teased as she poured everyone another glass of spirits. Of course, other things were happening, but as she got to know the Order members, she realized she did belong, and her time spent in Grimmauld Place increased.
‘No, it wasn’t coincidence after a while,’ Tonks realized as she stared down at her desk. It soon became a party of three that would get together when they were bored to chat and drink. ‘Keeping Sirius’s spirits up’ became almost an excuse to just drink a bottle of wine almost any time. However, the gatherings became so frequent, at one point, that it became obvious to Tonks that Sirius was acting only as a buffer to what was really happening.
‘Because I didn’t want to admit to what I was feeling,’ Tonks thought, ‘but I wasn’t the only one. Damn you, Remus, I don’t know if I was even the first one to get the idea. If you won’t say, then I can’t say. Maybe we both decided, separately, at the same time, to play that game of getting together with Sirius.’
Tonks shut Sirius’s file and looked at the clock again.
6:47
‘I should go,’ she told herself as she stood to put on her thicker, wool robes to protect her from the cold. The drab, gray cloak folded over Tonks, and she tucked her brown-haired ponytail into the collar. Stowing her wand in her pocket after flicking off the lights that were left on in her part of the office, Tonks walked through the deserted Auror division of the ministry.
‘No doubt they’re all at home with their families,’ Tonks thought bitterly. ‘Christmas with my family,’ Tonks thought glumly as she walked towards the elevator. She remembered her shock and disgust when her dad sent her an owl saying her mother had come back around the time Voldemort had returned. They were getting back together, and Tonks could not be more disgusted by the fact.
‘Do I hate my mum?’ Tonks asked herself again. ‘No, that’s not right,’ she realized as she walked through the Atrium. However, she froze in the middle of the grand room. She hated this room, and she wanted to leave, but Tonks found herself fixed to her spot by something other than magic.
She wasn’t going back to the Burrow for Christmas, and there was no question about that fact. ‘I said I would go home,’ Tonks thought as she looked down at her feet. She tried to conjure pictures of her mother in her mind, but none of them reassured her. Her father hadn’t mentioned much of what her mother had done for most of Tonks’s life, but the first time she had seen her again was when Remus and Tonks had gone to tell Andromeda of Sirius’s innocence.
And then, they had told her of Sirius’s death. Her mom couldn’t believe all of it. In the end, she read the letter Tonks opened with Dumbledore, and then, her proud mother sank down and sobbed. Tonks stared at her, and she felt only contempt.
‘Where were you, then, if this is so sad for you?’ she’d asked Andromeda in front of Remus and her father.
‘Nymph “‘
‘Don’t start calling me that just because she’s back!’ Tonks spat at her father. She shook her head and stared down at the pathetic woman. ‘I was here. I cared enough for Sirius to be here.’
She didn’t let her mum explain, and she left the house. She got letters, but she didn’t want to write back. In fact, she wrote to no one anymore. ‘Because it’s not worth it,’ Tonks thought as she looked around the Atrium with a shudder.
‘I hate this damned place,’ Tonks thought as she realized she stood alone. Walking through here every day felt like torture after Sirius’s death, and now, this place felt like salt grinding itself into a wound that was trying to heal.
‘Oh, fuck it,’ Tonks thought as she headed towards one of the fireplaces. She grabbed a handful of silver powder and shouted, “the Leaky Cauldron!” Tonks strode through the emerald flames and out onto the ashy, unkempt hearth. The place seemed less crowded, but Tonks preferred it that way.
“Dragon Ale,” Tonks told the bartender as she dug out her galleons and laid them on the counter. She hopped up on a stool and began to use the tolerance she built up during many an auror party. With a gulp, Tonks finished her first drink and waved for another one.
With the alcohol came some of the relief from the tension she felt during the day. Looking around at the empty pub, Tonks felt awkward sitting at the empty bar. ‘I guess I’m the only sad, brave sap that’s out tonight,’ Tonks thought dimly as she stared down into the grimy glass before she took another drink.
‘Too bad it’s not like the old days,’ Tonks thought as she took another swig. ‘If Sirius were here, this never would have happened. Maybe we’d all be getting together with my lousy, cowardly mum. Hell, it would be better than this. Maybe I’d still be a useful auror.’
“Blizzard outside!” Tonks jumped when someone spoke beside her. She blinked at the young man that slid down on the stool beside her. “I see you’re the only one brave enough to be out, huh?” he teased. “Two malt whiskey’s, please.”
“Good choice,” Tonks said as she took the new drink. She sighed as the edges of the world seemed smoothed at and not as jagged and harsh. As she eyed up the man, still bundled up in fur robes, she asked, “So, stranger, what’s your name?”
As he turned and smiled at her, Tonks felt a pulling in the pit of her stomach, but she returned the smile anyway.