Fic: Against the Moon (2/3), Harry Potter
Jan. 20th, 2010 01:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
grav_ityMeta and Chapter 1
Chapter 2
This was not what Tonks had imagined life would be like as an Auror. True, she’d known it would be dangerous and at times unpleasant, but she hadn’t thought it would be it would be so uncomfortable. Her fall and winter stationed in Hogsmeade had been downright miserable, an excruciating mix of enduring the freezing cold and the watching eyes at the Three Broomsticks. Madame Rosmerta may have been feeling poorly, but it had not affected her ability to read a patron. At least Rosmerta was not likely to pass on any information to the wrong sources.
By the time spring arrived, Tonks was a pale shadow of her former self. She spent most of her time patrolling, and what little down time she allowed herself alone. She moved at least once a month, as unregistered owls bearing nasty gifts always seemed to find her if she stayed in one place for too long. She didn’t tell anyone, not even Moody. She didn’t want them to think she was so ineffective that she couldn’t even properly screen her mail.
She avoided the Forest. She knew from reading reports that Fenrir’s pack had settled there and never doubted for a moment who their informant must be. Her dreams were back, dreams where the Forest was full of wolves and she couldn’t get away from them. She barely slept at all any more.
Hogsmeade seethed with rumours. The Dark Lord was in the Forbidden Forest. The werewolves and the centaurs had formed an alliance. There was even talk of a giant. Tonks ignored them all. If she could just shut it all out, then it wouldn’t matter that she couldn’t change so much as a fingernail these days.
When Tonks’s powers had first manifested, she had done quite a bit of reading about them. Some of the material she came across, she wouldn’t be able to understand for years, but even as a seven-year-old, she understood the need for control. Casso Vinci, a leading theorist in the field of metamorphmagi, had suggested that a metamorphmagus in his or her natural state was a blank slate, completely without colour or form. He’d been laughed out of academic circles, but Tonks could feel the colour seeping out of her every day, and wondered if there might be some truth to the theory.
If she could just yell at him, it would be so much better. But she knew that above all else Remus Lupin valued his privacy. He valued it so highly that he hadn’t even come to see her at her parents’ house before they both left on their separate assignments. She hated herself for respecting his wishes to this extreme. Merlin’s Beard, but Molly Weasley had given her enough openings, and she’d avoided them all. There was nothing for it now but to hope that they both survived this stupid war, and they maybe everyone would be so happy no one would notice if she yelled at him.
Tonks peered out the window of the tiny flat in Chelsea that was home until the next persistent owl chased her out. The moon, three days from full, was rising. It was time to go back out on patrol.
****
“Do you trust him?” a voice snarled, deadly and low.
“Of course not,” came the reply. “I don’t even really trust you.”
“Do you believe him then?”
“It’s a good story,” the second voice admitted. “And familiar. We all tried to stay with them at first, when we were turned.”
“I still think we should kill him.”
“The Dark Lord was specific about this one,” the second voice became even lower. “If he really has turned, he has information that is worth the risk of pretending to trust him.”
“What shall we do, then?”
“I need you to make sure a certain rumour gets spread in the village,” Fenrir Greyback growled. “If the right pair of ears hears it, we’ll get our answer.
****
Tonks felt like her insides had frozen. She didn’t remember coming back to Hogsmeade from the Castle, and had only vague recollections of yelling at Dumbledore. All she could think was that last night the wolves had howled in her dreams, and then she’d woken to rumours that Fenrir Greyback had attacked a wizard in the Forest and left him for dead.
It was a full moon. Dumbledore had told her not to worry. Remus could take care of himself. All of these were reasons to stay where she was.
But she couldn’t. She filled her pockets with the last of her stash of the Weasley’s Peruvian Darkness Powder, took up her wand, and headed into the Forbidden Forest.
****
Remus hated changing in the Forest. Here there was no Wolfsbane, and the wolf raged within him in a way he’d all but forgotten. At least there was nothing here he could really hurt. Not even a werewolf was stupid to take on a unicorn, and centaurs would shoot on sight. Hogsmeade, with its full complement of Aurors, was off-limits. Mostly, the werewolves were content to fight amongst themselves.
Those hours when he was a wolf, encompassed by the pack and free of anything but the most primal of desires, were almost comforting. During the full moon, they were family. And Remus had been without family for a very long time. But it was one night, and the days were long and full of hatred. They hated themselves. They hated each other. And the hated wizards. Most of them were so close to the wolf that they could rise to a killing rage with very little provocation. Remus had long ago given up any hope of changing minds, and was now biding his time while he worked on an escape plan.
Tonight they would change and maybe he could slip away under the guise of needing a solo hunt.
****
Tonks arrived at a glade in the Forest. There was a horribly black stain by one of the trees she identified as unicorn blood. It was old, and she wondered for a moment how it got there, until she remembered what Voldemort had done to sustain himself as he searched for the Philosopher’s Stone. She tore her eyes away from the dreadful mark, and took a deep breath. She had no real plan, which was stupid. If she died, she didn’t want Moody telling his future students that she was a moron.
She closed her eyes and thought of Christmas, of her father’s dancing reindeer apron and the way her mother laughed. Unexpectedly, she remembered a cold day in January spent undecorating 12 Grimmauld Place.
“Expecto Patronum!” And there it was; the wolf with differences around his snout that any third year could identify as not quite right.
She loved it anyway, though. The way its silvery glow drove back the darkness and bathed her in warmth. Even though it mocked her, she loved it.
“Find him,” she whispered, and it led her back into the trees.
****
They wouldn’t let him leave. Remus was at a loss to explain his sudden popularity, but the wolves surrounded him. Tonight they all seemed to want t play, savage games of course, but play nonetheless. He had never felt this alive before, never felt this loved. The night was his, and there were a thousand scents in the air, each begging him to track them down and, if possible, tear their throats out.
Suddenly, one scent caught his attention and he froze. It smelled greyer than usual, but it was unmistakable. The other wolves stopped moving too, watching him. Remus found himself standing next to Fenrir, whose lips were curled back from his teeth in a growling snarl.
For a moment, all Remus could do was panic. She was here. And Fenrir knew it. Then he felt the wolf rise up inside him, blotting everything but instinct from his mind. Mis muscles straining against his control, sprang into action without his thinking about it, and he was bounding away.
Had he been able to think, he might have pondered the wisdom of leading the ravening pack right towards her, but the Wolf knew better. The pack knew she was here as well as he did. If he went the opposite way, they would merely split up and kill their prey separately. Fighting together was their only chance.
The wolf inside him quickly outpaced the pack. He’d never moved so quickly in his life. Remus had never fought as a wolf before, not on purpose, but he knew what he had to do. He could see her now, or rather, he could see the silvery light of what he assumed was her Patronus. It flickered through the trees as he ran, guiding him to her.
****
She heard them long before she saw them; wolves howling all around her. It was just like in her dream. But she had her Patronus, and somehow it was still solid and strong. She would not face them alone.
“Lumos!” she shouted, sending bits of blue light into the trees all around her. The wolves already knew where she was, and fighting them in dark would not put her at an advantage. Her Patronus shone even more brightly.
A lone wolf burst into the small clearing with her. She raised her wand and was mid-swing before she realized that it wasn’t attacking her.
“Remus?” she breathed. Immediately she felt like an idiot. She had been ignoring rumours for months, only to be taken in now.
The wolf licked her wand hand, and she forced those thoughts from her head. Now was the time to fight, not feel bad for herself. They moved into the root skirt of a large tree. It wasn’t ideal, in terms of defense, but it did mean that the wolves wouldn’t be able to come at them from behind.
That was all the time for preparations they had, because the clearing was all at once full of wolves. They snarled and howled, and Tonks began to fire curse after curse at them. Her Patronus leapt into the fray. It wreaked havoc. The other wolves couldn’t bite it, couldn’t maul it, but it could bite them. She saw Remus leap into the fray as well, but knew she had to hold up her end of the fight even more than he did, so she focused on the task at hand.
After stunning six or eight wolves with little effect on the pack’s determination, she realized that she needed to up the stakes. “Incendio!” she shouted, aiming at a large black wolf. Instantly, the air was full of smoke and high pitched squealing, as wolf after wolf was lit ablaze.
The pack fell back just as Tonks’s Patronus came face to face with a large wolf. His fur was entirely black, save for his back, which was a cold and unfriendly grey. The Patronus engaged, but in her distraction, Tonks failed to notice the red-brown wolf sneaking up behind Remus. Her Stupefy got there a fraction of a second too late, and the damage was done.
When Remus went down, the Patronus flickered. Fenrir howled in triumph.
“Accio Remus!” Tonks shouted. His body flew towards her as she rummaged in her pocket.
The twin had given her a new product they had been working on when she went into their shop over Christmas. It was a variation of Peruvian Darkness Powder to which was added some bubotuber pus to give it an overpowering smell.
Remus crashed into her, knocking her over. Her Patronus disappeared and a chorus of wolf howls sounded. Fenrir was closing in. As he leapt for them, piled together in a mass of fur and robes and teeth and limbs, Tonks threw down the pod.
The darkness was instant, absolute and so nauseating that she gagged. The wolves, with their heightened senses of smell, whined and whimpered. It wasn’t much of a diversion, but it gave Tonks enough time to wrap both her arms around the wolf that lay on top of her and Disapparate.
Chapter 3
Chapter 2
This was not what Tonks had imagined life would be like as an Auror. True, she’d known it would be dangerous and at times unpleasant, but she hadn’t thought it would be it would be so uncomfortable. Her fall and winter stationed in Hogsmeade had been downright miserable, an excruciating mix of enduring the freezing cold and the watching eyes at the Three Broomsticks. Madame Rosmerta may have been feeling poorly, but it had not affected her ability to read a patron. At least Rosmerta was not likely to pass on any information to the wrong sources.
By the time spring arrived, Tonks was a pale shadow of her former self. She spent most of her time patrolling, and what little down time she allowed herself alone. She moved at least once a month, as unregistered owls bearing nasty gifts always seemed to find her if she stayed in one place for too long. She didn’t tell anyone, not even Moody. She didn’t want them to think she was so ineffective that she couldn’t even properly screen her mail.
She avoided the Forest. She knew from reading reports that Fenrir’s pack had settled there and never doubted for a moment who their informant must be. Her dreams were back, dreams where the Forest was full of wolves and she couldn’t get away from them. She barely slept at all any more.
Hogsmeade seethed with rumours. The Dark Lord was in the Forbidden Forest. The werewolves and the centaurs had formed an alliance. There was even talk of a giant. Tonks ignored them all. If she could just shut it all out, then it wouldn’t matter that she couldn’t change so much as a fingernail these days.
When Tonks’s powers had first manifested, she had done quite a bit of reading about them. Some of the material she came across, she wouldn’t be able to understand for years, but even as a seven-year-old, she understood the need for control. Casso Vinci, a leading theorist in the field of metamorphmagi, had suggested that a metamorphmagus in his or her natural state was a blank slate, completely without colour or form. He’d been laughed out of academic circles, but Tonks could feel the colour seeping out of her every day, and wondered if there might be some truth to the theory.
If she could just yell at him, it would be so much better. But she knew that above all else Remus Lupin valued his privacy. He valued it so highly that he hadn’t even come to see her at her parents’ house before they both left on their separate assignments. She hated herself for respecting his wishes to this extreme. Merlin’s Beard, but Molly Weasley had given her enough openings, and she’d avoided them all. There was nothing for it now but to hope that they both survived this stupid war, and they maybe everyone would be so happy no one would notice if she yelled at him.
Tonks peered out the window of the tiny flat in Chelsea that was home until the next persistent owl chased her out. The moon, three days from full, was rising. It was time to go back out on patrol.
****
“Do you trust him?” a voice snarled, deadly and low.
“Of course not,” came the reply. “I don’t even really trust you.”
“Do you believe him then?”
“It’s a good story,” the second voice admitted. “And familiar. We all tried to stay with them at first, when we were turned.”
“I still think we should kill him.”
“The Dark Lord was specific about this one,” the second voice became even lower. “If he really has turned, he has information that is worth the risk of pretending to trust him.”
“What shall we do, then?”
“I need you to make sure a certain rumour gets spread in the village,” Fenrir Greyback growled. “If the right pair of ears hears it, we’ll get our answer.
****
Tonks felt like her insides had frozen. She didn’t remember coming back to Hogsmeade from the Castle, and had only vague recollections of yelling at Dumbledore. All she could think was that last night the wolves had howled in her dreams, and then she’d woken to rumours that Fenrir Greyback had attacked a wizard in the Forest and left him for dead.
It was a full moon. Dumbledore had told her not to worry. Remus could take care of himself. All of these were reasons to stay where she was.
But she couldn’t. She filled her pockets with the last of her stash of the Weasley’s Peruvian Darkness Powder, took up her wand, and headed into the Forbidden Forest.
****
Remus hated changing in the Forest. Here there was no Wolfsbane, and the wolf raged within him in a way he’d all but forgotten. At least there was nothing here he could really hurt. Not even a werewolf was stupid to take on a unicorn, and centaurs would shoot on sight. Hogsmeade, with its full complement of Aurors, was off-limits. Mostly, the werewolves were content to fight amongst themselves.
Those hours when he was a wolf, encompassed by the pack and free of anything but the most primal of desires, were almost comforting. During the full moon, they were family. And Remus had been without family for a very long time. But it was one night, and the days were long and full of hatred. They hated themselves. They hated each other. And the hated wizards. Most of them were so close to the wolf that they could rise to a killing rage with very little provocation. Remus had long ago given up any hope of changing minds, and was now biding his time while he worked on an escape plan.
Tonight they would change and maybe he could slip away under the guise of needing a solo hunt.
****
Tonks arrived at a glade in the Forest. There was a horribly black stain by one of the trees she identified as unicorn blood. It was old, and she wondered for a moment how it got there, until she remembered what Voldemort had done to sustain himself as he searched for the Philosopher’s Stone. She tore her eyes away from the dreadful mark, and took a deep breath. She had no real plan, which was stupid. If she died, she didn’t want Moody telling his future students that she was a moron.
She closed her eyes and thought of Christmas, of her father’s dancing reindeer apron and the way her mother laughed. Unexpectedly, she remembered a cold day in January spent undecorating 12 Grimmauld Place.
“Expecto Patronum!” And there it was; the wolf with differences around his snout that any third year could identify as not quite right.
She loved it anyway, though. The way its silvery glow drove back the darkness and bathed her in warmth. Even though it mocked her, she loved it.
“Find him,” she whispered, and it led her back into the trees.
****
They wouldn’t let him leave. Remus was at a loss to explain his sudden popularity, but the wolves surrounded him. Tonight they all seemed to want t play, savage games of course, but play nonetheless. He had never felt this alive before, never felt this loved. The night was his, and there were a thousand scents in the air, each begging him to track them down and, if possible, tear their throats out.
Suddenly, one scent caught his attention and he froze. It smelled greyer than usual, but it was unmistakable. The other wolves stopped moving too, watching him. Remus found himself standing next to Fenrir, whose lips were curled back from his teeth in a growling snarl.
For a moment, all Remus could do was panic. She was here. And Fenrir knew it. Then he felt the wolf rise up inside him, blotting everything but instinct from his mind. Mis muscles straining against his control, sprang into action without his thinking about it, and he was bounding away.
Had he been able to think, he might have pondered the wisdom of leading the ravening pack right towards her, but the Wolf knew better. The pack knew she was here as well as he did. If he went the opposite way, they would merely split up and kill their prey separately. Fighting together was their only chance.
The wolf inside him quickly outpaced the pack. He’d never moved so quickly in his life. Remus had never fought as a wolf before, not on purpose, but he knew what he had to do. He could see her now, or rather, he could see the silvery light of what he assumed was her Patronus. It flickered through the trees as he ran, guiding him to her.
****
She heard them long before she saw them; wolves howling all around her. It was just like in her dream. But she had her Patronus, and somehow it was still solid and strong. She would not face them alone.
“Lumos!” she shouted, sending bits of blue light into the trees all around her. The wolves already knew where she was, and fighting them in dark would not put her at an advantage. Her Patronus shone even more brightly.
A lone wolf burst into the small clearing with her. She raised her wand and was mid-swing before she realized that it wasn’t attacking her.
“Remus?” she breathed. Immediately she felt like an idiot. She had been ignoring rumours for months, only to be taken in now.
The wolf licked her wand hand, and she forced those thoughts from her head. Now was the time to fight, not feel bad for herself. They moved into the root skirt of a large tree. It wasn’t ideal, in terms of defense, but it did mean that the wolves wouldn’t be able to come at them from behind.
That was all the time for preparations they had, because the clearing was all at once full of wolves. They snarled and howled, and Tonks began to fire curse after curse at them. Her Patronus leapt into the fray. It wreaked havoc. The other wolves couldn’t bite it, couldn’t maul it, but it could bite them. She saw Remus leap into the fray as well, but knew she had to hold up her end of the fight even more than he did, so she focused on the task at hand.
After stunning six or eight wolves with little effect on the pack’s determination, she realized that she needed to up the stakes. “Incendio!” she shouted, aiming at a large black wolf. Instantly, the air was full of smoke and high pitched squealing, as wolf after wolf was lit ablaze.
The pack fell back just as Tonks’s Patronus came face to face with a large wolf. His fur was entirely black, save for his back, which was a cold and unfriendly grey. The Patronus engaged, but in her distraction, Tonks failed to notice the red-brown wolf sneaking up behind Remus. Her Stupefy got there a fraction of a second too late, and the damage was done.
When Remus went down, the Patronus flickered. Fenrir howled in triumph.
“Accio Remus!” Tonks shouted. His body flew towards her as she rummaged in her pocket.
The twin had given her a new product they had been working on when she went into their shop over Christmas. It was a variation of Peruvian Darkness Powder to which was added some bubotuber pus to give it an overpowering smell.
Remus crashed into her, knocking her over. Her Patronus disappeared and a chorus of wolf howls sounded. Fenrir was closing in. As he leapt for them, piled together in a mass of fur and robes and teeth and limbs, Tonks threw down the pod.
The darkness was instant, absolute and so nauseating that she gagged. The wolves, with their heightened senses of smell, whined and whimpered. It wasn’t much of a diversion, but it gave Tonks enough time to wrap both her arms around the wolf that lay on top of her and Disapparate.
Chapter 3
