hogwartsexpressed | the history of magic meme

Her cheerfulness seems to make him think she knows what's going on. For now, he stays seated on the bed. "Um… I apologise for my rudeness but… Who are you? Where are we? How'd we get here and/or What's happening?"

Edited 2021-05-31 02:24 (UTC)

For a moment, she hesitates telling him exactly who she is. While Tonks truly doesn't know much about time turners or time travel (or how time travel can sneak into transportation spells. Or only affect one person. Or the many other weird, weird things in this dream), she does know that it's easy to muck things up.

But to hell with it. "Tonks. Is me. And you're Remus." The smile grows a bit wider, a little more impish as she says it.

His last question though..she has no answer for that yet. "Dunno. Want to help me figure it out?" Standing up, she stretches and eyeballs both Remus and the bed. "Should probably disguise this."

Does he? He looks unconvinced, which might just be a way to forestall being totally overwhelmed. "Tonks…" (She said it like he should know it…) "…Oh, wait… Any relation to" (and she'd said Sirius's name with familiarity) "the House of Black?" He was pretty sure that was the name that came up when Sirius talked about his disowned cousin—usually in the context of talking about his disowned self.

"Sirius, yes." The way she says it is a dead giveaway that Sirius is (was, Dora.) the only one on that side she cares about. But she looks at him curious now, fascinated by the details her subconscious is putting into this. Or is it her subconscious?

She pauses then, thinking about it and laughing, really laughing, for the first time in a bit. It only now dawns on her that Remus may only remember her as a child that Sirius spoke about, if Sirius mentioned her at all.

"C'mon then. Let's see what we can get into here." She reaches out to hook her arm in his and pull him off the bed and into mischief. "Mm! But first.." Tonks turns and unhinges the knob off of the bed.

"Uh… o—um—kay." He is pulled, and stumbles to find his feet in her wake. He stops when she stops, turns when she turns; and, when she removes the doorknob, he belatedly raises his wand and says, "Celare."

The bed didn't turn invisible, but its colours shifted like an octopus's until they near-exactly matched whatever was behind them, from any angle. No one passing would notice unless they bumped into it.

"Nice work." And it is nice work. She can't see it at all, but does manage to run her shin into it as she moves. "Yup. Still there." Tonks jokes with a wry smile.

Motioning with her head, she sticks the bedknob and her hands in her pockets. "What's the last thing you remember? Yesterday, I mean."

"Standard day," he said, sounding a little stunned—possibly at what he can now call 'standard'. "Classes, tutoring, prefect rounds. Watched some Quidditch practice. Nothing stands out." (Probably because all four of them had been too busy and not spent much time together, thus not broken any rules.)

There's another bit of laughter threatening to bubble out, because irony amuses the witch. He is still in school. Now who's the older one?

If she lets herself be honest, it's a bit sad too. But Tonks shakes that thought away. "I fell asleep after wishing for a holiday. And here we are."

"But where is here..?" That is still a good question. She looks around, stumbling slightly but keeping herself otherwise upright as they wander toward an area with people. "Not Diagon..and what are they wearing..?" It's definitely a different style than what either of them are wearing.

Wishing can be a serious and impactful business in their world. It could explain and solve their situation; it could make it far wilder and more troubling. At least it's a start.

For all the questions Remus has—including why, he has to assume, Sirius's cousin he'd never met (Andromeda, was it?) is treating him like a friend—he decides to follow her lead. Always learn first before drawing conclusions, or you'll only perceive what you conclude.

He follows her gaze and bites his lip, trying to remember. "Looks Retro style. Like a muggle film… 'flappers'—1920's?" …And though it looked so much like London, a moment's silence let him hear people talking around them. "American accents. Could this be New York?" He was pretty sure he'd learned somewhere that New York, aesthetically and structurally, was modeled closely on London.

[ooc: When I went to London from NYC, I was disoriented at how it didn't feel like I'd gone anywhere, 'cause they're so physically similar. The difference hit me more when we returned to NYC and, first thing out of the airport, a woman and a cab driver were screaming at each other, and I was like "Ohhh yeah."]

Her head cocks slightly to the side, listening to the funny accents around them and then nods in agreement. "Definitely like Muggle films in New York!" And there is another nod as she takes a closer look at the clothing. "I reckon '20s too. No one's sad enough for that Depression bit they go through." Not that Tonks is on the full up and up of Muggle History, especially American history. But she's seen enough movies and read a few books enough to know about it at least.

"We're a bit out of place, then." She says with a wry smile at her companion. Looking down at her denim trousers and the t-shirt with David Bowie on it, Tonks realizes that she's definitely out of place. "What is that spell..?" She tries to remember the glamour charm from that part of her Auror training. "I really should have paid more attention in Disguises Training.." But paying attention to something that one could do without a thought was sometimes like paying attention to how one breathes. It's weird. But she does, at least, change up the most recognisable part of herself -- the long pixie cut of pale pink shifts, in length and style and colour. It changes instead to a bob similar to some other women walking past, the colour shifting closer to her mother's and Sirius' darker hair.

"Could always borrow some clothes if someone has them on a line." She says thoughtfully, but that's just an idea if they happen across something like that. As it is, cheering up even more because this looks like a fun adventure, she grins at Remus and links arms with him easy peasey, wandering around and taking in the sights.

As they pass one area that leads down into an alley, there's a voice that calls out to them. "Hey, you two. Why don'cha come over here for a spell?" But there's nobody that the voice belongs to. Literally, there are no bodies around. Just some advert posters on the brick walls, one in particular done of a woman in the Art Deco style of the time.

Tonks, looking confused, arches an eyebrow.

[OOC: They're both very different from my local San Francisco! My first NYC experience included a VERY feisty air hostess yelling at a passenger, then having a cabbie nearly run me and my friend over and another pedestrian hitting the hood of the cab with a LITERAL 'We're walkin' here!' and then 'You girls okay?' all in a very Brooklyn accent. NYC amuses me.]

Disguises Training? That wasn't something offered at Hogwarts… So what would it be for? Then the way she changes her hair—wandless, wordless magic, seeming different than a spell. These were things Sirius would be interested in. Surely he would have mentioned…?

She continues without missing a beat, so Remus tries to keep up. Especially when she threads her arm through his, and he tries to hide his ~~astonishment~~ ~~bewilderment~~ ~~thrill?~~ awkwardness.

Remus stops sharply at the voice. He returns… his companion's confused look, as he continues sweeping the area. He carefully (subtly, he hopes) slips his wand back to his hand from his sleeve and whispers, "Specialis revelio."

The woman in the advert remains in the poster, but otherwise she comes to life, vivacious and flirtatious toward them both. After all, she wants them both to come inside and have a drink. "I knew it! I just knew it." The poster boasts, bouncing on her feet and smiling as she does. "You have the look of some fantastic wizards and witches."

Shimmying her shoulders, the poster motions to the wall just to her left. "Knock twice and take a load off at the Blind Pig Speakeasy!"

Blind. Pig. Speakeasy. Tonks repeats that wordlessly, her confusion melting into pure amusement, then grins at Remus. "Shall we?" But, even as she readies herself to jump into some strange situation, Tonks subtly shifts her wand from its usual place in her back pocket (she never did get an answer from Moody about who exactly got their buttocks blown off. And got threatened more than once after she called him Mad-Butt) into her hand. It isn't held threateningly, or even defensively, but is there in case they need it.

[ooc: please forgive my by-the-pants descriptions! ~~I never watched the Fantastic Beasts movies....~~]

Speakeasy. He's read that word. More '20's muggles' things, maybe more specifically American…?

Well, they're about to find out. He's reassured by her having her wand out, too. He tries to think if he knows any Glamours off the top of his head to do something about 'having the look of some fantastic wizards and witches'—of course the poster is going to be nice, but that still probably means 'entirely wrong for the setting'. …But magickal folk usually are, he reminds himself. So, hope for the best.

He rebalances the wand in his hand and nods to her. (If he needs to catch her attention, say, during a fight, he knows she's 'Tonks'. Hopefully where they're going will yield better to proper introductions and explanations.) "Ready."

[ooc: If you hadn't said, I wouldn't have been able to tell! :-) I liked the first one a lot. I didn't like the second one at all. I don't know if I'll watch a third if it comes out. …But yeah, I think the first is surprisingly sweet.]

Stepping up and knocking on the wall with two smart taps, Tonks steps back and watches in awe as the area rearranges itself, much like the entrance to Diagon Alley. But here, instead of opening up to an open-air marketplace, the entrance gives way to an atmospherically lit hallway.

Before they fully go inside, Tonks pops her head back out and tips an imaginary hat to the advert. "Thanks!"

"Don't think nothing of it, Doll! You two have a great time! Have a Manhattan and tip ya' waitress!"

Laughing softly, Tonks turns back to Remus as the door closes up. "Somehow, I don't think we're in Kansas anymore.."

She looks around as they venture further in, noting the goblins and wizards, and catching sight of a piano and microphone on a small stage. Picking a small booth with its back to the wall, Tonks almost makes it there smoothly.

Almost.

She does knock her hip against the edge of another table, causing an empty glass to tip over and roll cleanly off the tabletop. It breaks and a few people turn to look at her. "Sorry." She says with an apologetic smile, the roots of her hair blooming reddish with the embarrassment.

"I'm not exactly graceful like." She explains sheepishly to Remus as she slides into their booth.

His face creased in a smile that was both self-deprecating and not about himself at all. "Neither 'm I." He stood another moment—a barrier between her and the broken glass, if it was needed, also to observe how they handled it. A server simply magicked it whole again. He wasn't sure why, on top of the entrance and the poster and what it said, he'd wanted further confirmation, but yes: here there be wizards.

He slid onto the bench opposite her, eyes flickering to more of their surroundings, always coming back to her face. I do know you, though… we have met… I never met Sirius's cousin… how do I know you…?

The server made a loop to appear at their booth. If he held any recrimination for the glass, either he didn't show it or didn't attach it to Tonks. "What'll it be, friends?" he asked.

Remus looked quickly at a handwritten board on the wall. Everything seemed to be alcoholic. Ohhhh, right: that was what 'speakeasy' meant. They wouldn't care if he were underage or not.

"Butterbeer, if you have?" Remus knew he might get teased or glared at, but he didn't want to loosen control, on his feelings or his senses. Too much was still unknown.

He didn't care he was underage, either, but he did care about… the… difficulty emotionally balancing, sometimes. People didn't realise or talk about lycanthropy's effect on the human form, too. Even the other three could forget that Remus's mildness was something very carefully maintained, and try to 'loosen him up'.

…Which… huh; would be just like them to plop him into a bar with a beautiful woman… It would be an elaborate illusion or dream charm, but it also made everything seem to make more sense. At the bottom of most inexplicable things—including their befriending him, Remus, in the first place—was Potter and Black.

Edited 2021-06-05 22:22 (UTC)

Tonks has no opinion either way about what Remus orders to drink. Well, that's not entirely true. She leans in, elbows on the tabletop and chin in flat palms as she listens, because she's entirely too curious as to whether American...pubs? Pubs... have similar drinks as English ones. But that's all it is.

Not that she won't try to loosen him up anyway, but alcohol is unnecessary.

The waiter doesn't react much to the order except to nod and look over to Tonks for her order.

"Do you have a cider?" She's not quite able to hide her enthusiasm when he says that they do. "One of those, please? We'll start a tab, yeah?"

Hands still in her palms, she smiles over at Remus and lifts her eyebrows. "I'm starting to wonder if this isn't a dream, honestly."

Which means..."You have questions, I'd wager. I have questions."

Tab… right. There's probably still money in this illusion. Well, he doesn't let James or Sirius buy/give/treat him (to) most of the things they offer to; but in this case he'll make an exception and send them the bill.

The server goes off, leaving them alone. Remus puts both his palms on the table to mirror 'Tonks'.

"To say the least," he agreed. "I guess… um… to start with: how did you know who I am?"

The game of Mirroring, however innocent, makes Tonks grin. Being a shapeshifter, of course she finds a certain delight in the copycat game.

But then he asks the pointed questions and she can't help but laugh. "You're not going to believe me. I wouldn't believe me. I dunno if I believe me even right now." She prefaces the truth with this warning.

Then again, they are attempting to relax in 1920s New York. So stranger things have happened.

"We've met. Or will meet later, at any rate. I am Sirius' cousin, but not Andromeda. My name's Dora." She still won't say the full name. Well, not unless he asks her to. "I'm.." She pauses, doing the maths. "About four or five in your time?"

"I'm twenty-three now."

Good thing their drinks hadn't arrived yet. Remus would have done an actual spit-take.

"Nymphadora?!" —oh, crumbs, what if she still hated the name? Opinions like that could persist from childhood… even… "…four-five-ish… yeah…" He was staring and blinking a lot, like he could see through… everything, if he tried enough.

It wasn't actually the time distortion that was throwing him. It was… there went the only theory that made this sensical. If this were arranged by Sirius, the ~~sexy~~ attractive woman he set up Remus with would not be his tiny kid cousin.

…But oh… the morphing… and crumbs, he could see it now: the heart-shaped face, the eyes… even that little quirk of expression she'd just done, there…

Remus put his hand over his mouth, as if to strike a thoughtful pose, but mostly to clamp his gaping jaw properly shut. He didn't know what to ask. What came out might not be the most pertinent, but, in the absence of anything else, it was what his own childhood of muggle science-fiction had prepped him for. "Um… so… uh… do you know me? In your time?"

She groans, but is grinning widely, obviously pleased that he remembers the wee version of herself. "That name is still a mouthful."

"I do!" Now here is the question, one that has been peeking out from the back of her mind for a moment or two. How much does she tell him? Films about time travel show that it's no good to mess with the past. But so much shit has happened that could, theoretically, be fixed.

But, for now at least, she keeps it light. Even if part of that is harder to do. "I pester you and Sirius a lot." Tonks says with a quirk of her mouth upwards.

Even he doesn't know quite what he means by saying, "Good." but his smile with it is real.

Yeah. Good. We're all still together.

(It doesn't even occur to him—)

He schools himself as the server returns with their drinks, managing a relatively stoic posture and expression as he wraps his hands around his mug, looking at ~~Nympha~~Dora over it. "I… I don't even know what to ask." She'd said she didn't know when/where they were or how, earlier… but, being from later in time (and perhaps older than him, at the moment) it was automatic to defer: "Do you have any idea how… this… might be happening? Or why?"

Often, Tonks forgets how much she tends to stare at people. Most people fascinate her to some degree or another, and Remus particularly does. Not only because she likes him (a silent fact admitted with a visible quirk of a smile) but because it's fascinating to see what quirks of his own start at a younger age and what came after.

After thanking the waiter and taking a drink, with a delighted "That's good!" somewhere in there, Tonks leans in again, hand back on her palm. "I was having a bit of a bad day, really. And a friend -- who has a habit of knicking a thing or three -- gave me a bauble that he didn't think had any value." She digs in her pocket and produces the bedknob, placing it in between them.

"I put it on the bedpost, because it's a silly thought and cheered me up a wee, gave a twist and asked to be taken somewhere fun with a friend." She shrugs then, flashing a wry smile. "The bedknob chose here. And you. I might have been a little pointed about the friend in question."

The why's of those two facts are a bit beyond her. She has theories -- the here is a time and place that neither she nor Remus have a connection to. And though history says there are things brewing, it's a far cry from their own brewing events. The you part..she has less theories about that. But is willing to run with it. And poke at the you in question.

"But why a younger version of you? That's the question. Maybe so I can josh you about being older now." She says with a teasing smirk.

…O…kay. Okay. A lot at once, in there.

He decides to focus on the most important thing first.

(Unless it's the least important thing. But it can be justified as the most important. …And anyway, if not the most straightforward, definitely the most tangible.)

He fails not to react re: being chosen as a friend. Instead, the darting look into her eyes is so mixed together with surprise and shyness and delight and panic and a lonely boy being moved and a semi-surrogate-elder-cousin thinking he should laugh and an almost-hope because she's fascinating and too many other things at once… the totality has to be totally ridiculous. All he can do is very quickly look away again. And focus determinedly on the artefact.

"May I?" he asks politely, slipping his wand down his sleeve, only enough to show her the handle, pending her permission. He can't untangle the interpersonal stuff, so he'll start by trying to parse what's probably a fiendishly complicated enchantment, instead.

Tonks has seen that look before. It happened once when she called him cute, and again with a compliment about his eyes. So, as quick as it is and as quickly as he looks away, she laughs quietly and lets it pass. For now, anyway.

"Of course." The permission is given freely, half because she knows he's a masterful wizard even in his younger years and half because it's not specifically her bauble to say yes or no to. But it is their mystery, so she's happy to share it.

"It's got to have some sort of Portkey magic, and maybe a spell like Timeturners? But I thought Portkeys had to be tied to a specific spot." She sits back comfortably, theorizing as he works.

“So did I,” he agrees, falling easily (with some relief) into co-study mode. Just like taking care of prefect work with Lily or unofficially tutoring Peter or co-tinkering/attempting to reign in S&J.

He nods in thanks for her sayso and focuses intently on the doorknob. Mentally prepping several counterspells, he cautiously taps it with his wand. “Specialis revelio.”

[ooc: I’m happy to... what’s the magic version of ‘technobabble’... well, do that 😊 unless you’d like to, or make anything else happen! It can go fizz or conjure a bowl of petunias or anything.]

Setting	AU
1. Ancient	a. Soldiers on the same side
2. Middle Ages	b. Arranged marriage
3. 1600s	c. Great new discovery
4. 1700s	d. Childhood friends
5. 1800s	e. Met on the road
6. 1900s	f. Rags and riches
7. Roaring 20s	g. Members of two feuding houses
8. 1940s	h. It's all about the art
9. 1970s	i. Co-conspirators
10. WILDCARD	j. WILDCARD

AAAAA LOVE

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