“This fellow is wise enough to play the fool;
And to do that well craves a kind of wit.”
- Shakespeare “Twelfth Night” -
The stranger at the bar looked at Tonks with sparkling, blue eyes. ‘No, he can’t be drunk already,’ Tonks thought as she met his gaze. ‘Oh, he’s flirting with me. I guess I forgot what normal people do to flirt.’
The young man removed his crimson fur cap and brushed off the thick clumps of snow. When he took off his fur cloak, it dripped water and snow all over the floor around his bar stool. “So, you must be a brave witch to be outside tonight,” the young man commented as he took a drink. “I’m Bjorn Asketorp, by the way, and you are?”
Tonks took a swig of her own drink before she introduced herself. “Just call me Tonks.”
Bjorn laughed and rested his red, flushed cheek on his hand. “What brings you out on such a wintry night?”
Tonks finished her drink and waved for the bartender to bring her another one over before she said, “You know, some holiday cheer. You, sir, are the crazy one. I just came from work.”
“Ah, a well deserved drink,” Bjorn replied as he, too, ordered another drink. “Maybe I am crazy, but maybe I just happen to be a wizard who remembers that he has legs for a reason.”
Tonks sighed and looked down at the table. “I guess Dark Wizards don’t scare you, either, huh?” she asked as she traced a knot on the bar top with her finger while she continued to take gulps of her drink.
“Hmm, not enough to keep me indoors on a lovely night like tonight,” Bjorn replied, and Tonks chuckled even though she didn’t look up at him. ‘He might be a fool, but I guess the Death Eaters might not be active during a blizzard, either. Maybe he’s not so crazy.’
‘Maybe I’m the crazy one,’ Tonks thought as she stared into her murky ale. ‘No, maybe Sirius was the crazy one. Maybe we were both crazy.’
Tonks hazarded a visit back to Grimmauld Place after Sirius’s death to investigate his room. ‘That was crazy behaviour. I could have been caught,’ Tonks thought about how she entered the house to go into her dead cousin’s room. She intended to take some personal affects, but she just ended up sitting on the floor.
‘For all my silliness, I wasn’t alone,’ Tonks remembered her shock when it had been Remus that walked through the door instead of one of her less savoury relations. For a moment, they both did not know what to say.
‘It was our first time together, except when we first met, without someone as a buffer,’ Tonks recalled. They both sat down on the floor, and the silence stretched between them until Remus said, ‘What a fool. Why couldn’t he stay put?’
Even as he spoke, Tonks knew she would have done the exact same thing as Sirius. ‘It’s Black blood,’ Tonks teased, but she didn’t smile as she spoke.
‘We shouldn’t be here,’ Remus muttered as he got off the floor. When Tonks didn’t move, he offered her his hand. When she took his hand, Tonks didn’t meet Remus’s eyes. ‘I’m sorry, you know,’ Tonks murmured as she stood and dusted off her robes from sitting on the grimy floor. ‘I mean, I only knew Sirius what, a year? The two of you were friends for life.’
‘It’s happened before,’ Remus replied in a monotone voice, and this time, Tonks did look up at his face. She couldn’t say what she read there, but it left her aching inside. She didn’t speak because the words she wanted to say could not be said.
Tonks jerked her head up when she felt a tap on her arm. “You said you got off work. Where do you work?” Bjorn asked, and Tonks shook herself free from her mental free fall.
“At the Ministry,” Tonks muttered as she finished her drink before mumbling, “I’m an Auror.”
Bjorn, however, caught her little slip of speech because she watched as his eyes shot up. However, he only laughed when he said, “No wonder you’re out and about!” Then, Bjorn ordered them another round of drinks, and when the ale came, he took a swig before saying, “You know, I work at a ministry, too.”
“A ministry? So you’re a foreigner?” Tonks asked, and then, she giggled and added, “Well, that explains why you’re a little mental, huh?”
Bjorn leaned in closer to Tonks. “It explains why I love the snow. I’m from Sweden.”
“I see,” Tonks muttered as she looked into his crystal blue eyes. She resisted the urge to brush a wet, limp lock of his platinum blonde hair that had fallen free for the gelled structure he had combed it into. When Bjorn pulled away from her, Tonks reached for her drink and took several swings.
“I work as a foreign relations person, you might say,” Bjorn told Tonks while he brushed the strand of hair out of his face that had bothered her moments ago. “I get to deal with many of the visitors to the country as their official ministry escort.”
Tonks snorted. “So, you get to kiss a lot of people’s asses? Set yourself up with some rich, foreign ministers?”
Bjorn chuckled as both of them took a break to take a sip from their drinks. “I believe the Muggles call it networking,” Bjorn teased as Tonks decided to finish her drink.
‘This feels nice,’ she thought as she laid out the galleons for another round for the two of them. Tonks traced the weather worn, warped knot on the bar top again. This time, though, her numb hands couldn’t feel the rough, splintery surface of the table top. Everything felt smooth, soft, and even the drab Leaky Cauldron became inviting and coloured with the rosy glow of alcohol.
Tonks looked up at Bjorn when he coughed. When she saw his face, she giggled and began on her next drink. She waited for Bjorn to speak, but he only eyed her with a grin on his lips. “What are you thinking?” Tonks asked as she leaned towards him.
“I think you’re drunk,” Bjorn said.
“I think you would be right,” Tonks replied as she held up her already half empty mug. “Cheers.”
Bjorn raised his mug, and the two glasses clunked together. “I also want to know if you’d like to leave this place. I can promise more wine back at my hotel,” Bjorn asked as he leaned towards Tonks again.
“I-I’m seeing someone,” Tonks stuttered out her gut reaction to his request. A frown crinkled Bjorn’s fair face, and he pulled back away from the young Auror. ‘I bet I confused the shit out of him,’ Tonks thought as she turned to stare down into her mug. In the depths of the old, poorly washed mug, still half full of alcohol, Tonks saw nothing that would help her.
“It might not be a bad idea. It would be better than waking up here,” Bjorn suggested, but Tonks did not look up at him. She watched her own reflection in the surface of the liquid, but her reflection flickered and twisted so she couldn’t recognize it. ‘He’s right,’ Tonks thought as she continued to look down into her glass. Tonks remembered waking up, cold and with a pounding headache, in one of the upper rooms of the Leaky Caldron. ‘What a shitty way to start the holidays,’ Tonks thought as she drained her glass.
“All right, Bjorn, let’s take a long, romantic stroll through a blizzard to your place,” Tonks said as she set down her mug. That teasing sparkle jumped back into Bjorn’s watery blue eyes as he went to put is fur cloak and cap back on to leave.
Tonks got up and put on her wool cloak, and together, they left the pub. When they stepped outside, the biting winds cut into Tonks’s face as the snow whipped around them in thick, white clouds. Tonks giggled because the cold and snow that drifted around her could hardly be felt through the numbness induced by the past hour in the bar.
Flinging her arms out, Tonks raced through the snow like some colourless bird trying to fly up into the storm. She giggled as she kicked the dust up into the air and ran against the whipping white shards that stung her cheeks. Finally, when Tonks could breathe no more, she collapsed down in a drift and stared up at the swirling snow globe falling down upon her. Tonks felt like she looked through a tunnel as the falling snow raced towards her. In the darkness, the little specks looked sharp and silver as glass.
She felt something hit her, and she turned and realized Bjorn lay beside her. “What are you doing?” Tonks asked.
“I’m making a snow angel!” he said as he flapped his arms through the snow. Tonks giggled as she collapsed back into the spot where she fell and flapped her arms. She thrashed around so wildly she couldn’t tell what snow fell because she put it back into the air or what snow fell because it came from the sky.
When the snow angel seemed done, Tonks took a handful of snow and dumped it on Bjorn. When he went to wipe off his face, she grabbed another handful of snow and dumped it upon him. Then, he pelted her with a snow ball. Tonks jumped up and made a ball of her own to whip at him.
They ran through the drifts, pummelling each other, until Tonks ducked behind a trashcan to hide from him. She formed a couple balls in her hand and ran out to surprise him. She threw them at his back, but he caught up to her and threw one in her face.
Laughing and brushing the snow out of her face, Tonks pushed Bjorn down into the snow again. He sat there, his black fur cloak speckled like a Dalmatian, and grinned up at Tonks. She giggled, and then, Tonks realized she was shivering.
‘Why did I decide to wear panty hose?’ Tonks wondered as she rubbed her legs together to keep them warm. ‘All of this adult, business attire is soaked completely through,’ Tonks realized as she fingered her skirt and cotton blouse. Tonks tried to pull her wet, wool coat closer to her body, but it did no good because every part of her was soaked. ‘This is what I get for trying to look like an adult,’ Tonks thought bitterly as she tried to stop her teeth from chattering.
Then, Tonks realized Bjorn stood beside her. Without thinking, she flung her arms around his waist. His damp cloak did not warm her, but she could feel the heat of his body through the cloak. As she held him, she felt his breathing.
For a while, they stood there in silence, but Bjorn did not embrace her. Only the snow caressed Tonks as it continued to bite at her exposed legs. “I think you lied about being with someone,” Bjorn muttered after a while. Tonks pulled away from his chest and looked up at his face while she kept her arms locked around him.
Bjorn’s pitying gaze fixed upon Tonks, and she said, “I-I did. I-I’m not with anyone.”
“But you want to be with someone, but that person is not me,” Bjorn said as he stepped out of Tonks’s embrace. Her hands fell down at her sides like they were soaked and limp from the water.
“I-I’m sorry,” Tonks stammered, and she knew the chill she felt inside was from more than just the biting cold and stinging snow that attacked her.
“Can I Apparate you home?” Bjorn suggested. Tonks nodded and tried to clamp her jaw shut to stop her clattering teeth.
Tonks told Bjorn where to go, and he put his arm around her shoulders. This time, she did not cling to him, and after the pop, they stood in a wintery woods. The sound seemed to be sucked up by the snow, and Tonks could only hear the two of them breathing and her teeth chattering. In the woods, the wind died and lost its bite, but the snow still fell in thick clumps and clung to Tonks’s already soaked wool cloak.
“I lied, too,” Bjorn muttered, and his voice seemed to be muffled by the silent woods. “I don’t like working with foreign dignitaries and ministers. I deal with everyone that comes over, and it’s the unwanted people I like the best. They’re always the most interesting, and I know I don’t have to impress them.”
“I-I understand,” Tonks stammered as she pulled away from Bjorn and looked through the trees at the only light in the woods. Light from cottage windows shined on patches of snow and turned them golden. That warm light, not so far away, illuminated the darkness, and it allowed Tonks to turn and see Bjorn’s face. “I-I don’t want to go home. We d-don’t get along.”
Bjorn sighed and brushed the snow out of Tonks’s hair. “It’s better than where I’m going to be this holiday. Go home.”
With a crack, Bjorn disappeared, and Tonks found herself standing alone in the silent woods. ‘How did I end up here? Tonks thought as she stared around at the branches, which were pregnant with several inches of snow and gaining more each minute. ‘How did I end up using this man?’
‘Never mind, I know why I’m here,’ Tonks thought. ‘It’s because I’m not with Remus. That’s why I’m here.’
The last time she had seen him was after one of the Order meetings. Remus hadn’t been at many of the meetings, but he was reporting in during this particular meeting. She refused to meet his gaze. ‘Being surrounded by all the Order members felt like being trapped in a cage,’ Tonks thought as she stared down at the snow swirling around her feet.
After the meeting, she managed to catch Remus before he left. She realized by his quick strides that he was trying to escape before she could say anything. ‘I couldn’t blame him,’ Tonks thought bitterly, ‘because our last encounter went so well.’
He strode away, so she had yelled, ‘Where are you staying for the holidays?’
She saw Remus flinch at the question, and his reaction poured ice water on her heart. Finally, he turned around and said, ‘I’ll be away on Order business.’
Tonks remembered he couldn’t even force a smile. His face remained hard and frozen. ‘That’s nice,’ Tonks replied, ‘I’m heading home to see my parents. It’s been a while, you know.’
He did know. She matched his statement and let him know how miserable she would be during the holidays. However, her silent plea did not change his response. ‘Well, then, have a happy holiday.’
“I’m not spending these holidays with you. Have fun being miserable’ is what he really said,’ Tonks thought as the same ice cold feeling that chilled her heart that day chilled her body now.
She looked back towards the cottage. ‘My parents,’ Tonks wondered as she stared at the cosy looking house from outside in the blizzard. ‘I’m sure they would take me, but I don’t want to be here. I want to be here as much as Remus wants to be celebrating his holiday gods know where.’
As Tonks rubbed her arms around herself to try and keep warm, she thought, ‘I told him I would go. And maybe Bjorn’s right. It’s better than most places this time of year.’