hogwartsexpressed | the history of magic meme

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.]

Absently, Tonks twists a piece of hair in her fingers as they work together, it shifting colors in the same idle manner before settling back down as she sat up to watch what happens.

The bedknob itself shimmered, revealing the obvious information that it's magic in nature. At first, that's all it seems to do, but it then reveals a small crack previously invisible.

The crack opens slowly, allowing Tonks to quickly put up a shielding spell in case something bad shoots out. Something does shoot out, or rather..blooms..out.

A small basket full of flowers sprouts out, causing Tonks to laugh. "It's a cheeky one, then."

[NGL I couldn't resist the idea of petunias. But feel free to have it do something proper or they can come back around to it! Mage-obabble is awesome]

[OOC: Sorry again for delay! I have a gig that's eating up my time, but it'll be over within the month ^_^ ]

Remus stared a moment, then also laughed. (And the idea that this was a joke from Sirius returned.)

"Okay. I think I'm going to let it sit while we drink. Try again in a bit." He slid his wand back up his sleeve, took hold of his butterbeer, and, impulsively, held it up to her. "Cheers."

(Somewhere, Sirius and James were either cheering him on or fainting with shock, at Remus putting aside practicality to enjoy himself—and with a girl.)

[No worries! <3]

It's the same laugh she knows (and loves), if perhaps a little easier to eke out. And that makes Tonks smile brightly. "You have a really great laugh, yanno."

This she says as she lifts her drink as well, clinking the glasses before taking a drink.

"So. What shenanigans have you lot gotten up to lately?" She's heard some of the greatest hits, of course. Sirius dragging Remus to a trip down memory road. But to hear it from Remus himself, devoid of the tinge of sadness that always (and understandably) lays underneath, is something she absolutely wants to hear.

"And don't try to fool me with 'it's Sirius' fault. I know you cooked up some doozies." That's said as a tease, still smiling away.

You have a really great laugh… He blushed. "Well… thanks for… um… inspiring it." (Glow of her compliment undiminished even with a brief self-injection of what am I saying that's so stupid…)

I know you cooked up some doozies… Remus gave her a who, me? look worthy of ~~[ooc: Han Solo]~~ Sirius himself. "I don't know what you're talking about. Making those howlers sing power ballads was probably somebody's miscast."

(—And the suits of armour singing backup had been James's addition.)

"I will confess to making that bucket of water effective spectrally. But Peeves really earned it." Even McGonagall hadn't pursued reprimanding anyone, after she was done laughing.

"But for a lot, I was just in play for clean-up. …Though the dancing brooms may not have been strictly necessary."

Tonks rarely shows her blush...on her cheeks, at any rate. Her hair is a different story, and an utter tattletale in regard to her emotions. Which is why the roots of her hair bloomed into a Weasley red before settling back down into the same shade it had been.

"Technically, it's my wee bedknob but I will take the credit!" She boasts, playfully preening before listening and laughing more.

"I've never heard that one! What ballads did they sing? Please tell me you had backup and everything."

"Ugh. Peeves. The worst, yeah?" She rolls her eyes then. "He was so mean to me. But then I learned how to mimic the Bloody Baron and he left me alone." Pause. "Sometimes."

She claps at the dancing brooms, grinning, having heard this one. "Is this the time that you had them waltzing? Or did you change up the dance? Oh, like the mouse wizard and things?"

"Definitely mouse wizard, though the others have no idea about that." Remus was the only half-blood of the group, definitely the only one with knowledge of muggle culture—and the lack of xenophobia to own up to it. He and Lily sometimes bonded over that.

"It was a mix of Weird Sisters, Warbeck, and… How much muggle culture do you know?" If she knew about Mickey, she might know The Supremes. He hoped that wasn't a sore subject within the Tonks nuclear family (as it was among the Black Dynasty, but sod them).

"James had the suits of armour doing backup. The reverb was incredible."

Edited 2021-07-12 03:56 (UTC)

She's laughing as he mentions the mouse wizard. He's not her favorite, though Ted was certain to broaden her Muggle horizons accordingly. "I like their version of Merlin more than historical Merlin." She leans in as she says this, like letting him in on a secret.

But when Remus mentions music, her eyes light up. "I love Muggle music. Do you know David Bowie? He's the best. And Chryssie Hynde?"

Even then, she's still chortling and looks over at Remus over the rim of her cup. "Troublemaker."

His eyes light back up at hers. "Bowie—yeah!" His mind is suddenly blank, but he's able to conjure one song enough to hum a line. I'm not quite sure what I'm supposed to do - So I'll just write some love to you.

[ooc: wrong generation but I had to…]

He is such a troublemaker. Even at this age. Being cute and clever and other things that make it difficult to be okay with the situation they find themselves in during her normal timeline. As if it's not already difficult. But she's smiling even as those thoughts pass through her head, jumping bean brain catching the hummed song while she does.

It's an older one, and not from one of the albums she listens to a lot, so it takes her a moment to remember and pull out a lyric from the same song. "I'm not quite sure what we're supposed to do, so I've been writing just for you." She can carry a tune without dropping that, at least. Unlike most physical things.

Also, the pair of lyrics aren't lost on her, from her side of things at any rate.

Staring at him thoughtfully, she lifts an eyebrow in amusement. "So why won't you let anyone swoop you up?" Truthfully, it doesn't dawn on Tonks that Remus wouldn't know that she knows (and couldn't give less of a shit) about him being a werewolf.

Edited 2021-07-12 23:44 (UTC)

For a moment, he's speechless. "…I wasn't aware anyone was trying." Which was true. Just, part of the truth. But why get to why he 'wouldn't let' before there was anything not to. "M-mostly people are mentally pairing me up with Sirius, when they're not trying to 'swoop' him up directly. Hanging around him and James is kinda like being a moon right next to a star." (Which, pffft, yeah, they were.) "You're pretty invisible in the glare." …Which he welcomed. It was the first freedom he'd known. With or without getting to reflect some of the light.

A chortle escapes then. It's nice to know she wasn't the only one who had asked, though her question had been asked of Sirius. Sirius, who had a field day both with the question itself and the implication that Tonks had a crush on their mutual friend.

"Though perhaps there'd have to be a parade for you to be aware? Seventy-six trombones and all that." Tonks teases, though the jest is more than a little bit true as well. What isn't true is that he merely reflects his companions light. So she shakes her head in disagreement.

"Mm. You're a star just like the others. Just further away is all. Gotta squint to see the shininess." She does just that, squinting playfully as if to help her see him more clearly.

[In their future, Sirius would say, "A live one, that. Think she fancies you."
Remus would pale and answer, "Shove off. She's too young."
Sirius: "Fine. I'll get to work for you on McGonagall."]

The shared cultural reference gets a flicker of a smile. The complete lack of understanding (of course! how could she know?) of the moon part makes it fall.

"Well, everyone is," he says, truthfully and evasively. "But… it's kind of by design. I don't want attention. I know there's contradiction… Being linked with them gets me more, but being in their shadow… offsets it."

It was camouflage—she was right: standing next to their glare in order to subsume and mask his own light. Their active and ambient protections meant the attention Remus did get was more plentiful but much more diffuse than what he'd get on his own. The judgments and speculations his clothes and scars would inspire either way, this way were more about what the handsome, talented, powerful Trickster Gods' motives could possibly be, adopting the ratty toadying one and the raggedy scarred one.

(Peter was complicated; they initially accepted him solely for Remus's sake—and Remus maybe acting more than he'd like to admit out of guilt, trying to help Peter where he hadn't been able to help Snape. Pete's continued role in the group was to be something of an audience, someone to be awed and surprised as rehearsal for the masses. It sometimes made Remus uncomfortable, but on the whole, it seemed to please Peter too.

For Remus… The assumption of Remus having been abused by someone got quickly sidebarred into assumptions of Sirius's probable abuses making him want to save and protect another, et cetera. Which wasn't so off the mark; the only inaccuracy being that Remus was his own abuser. It was the same mistake Sirius himself had made the first time he saw the extent of Remus's scars. That was what inspired him to steal Remus's file and find out about Moony and get the other two on the Animagus path.

The irony that Remus's least hideable scars—the ones on his face—had come from Sirius… a microcosm of the rest, but he refused to think too much about. Fair cost.)

He needed out of his own head. And maybe to get Tonks's attention a bit off him, too. That was something Remus was fairly good at, for himself and for the others. Like most of what he'd said as soon as they got on this subject: he was simultaneously tactical (stop thinking about me) and wholly sincere (I want to know about you). "Were you ever roped into to any of Sirius's antics? How much did you two interact?" Both Sirius and Tonks's family had all cut ties with the main Black tree; did that mean they'd refound each other outside of it, or drifted out on their own separate ways?

Edited 2021-07-14 02:46 (UTC)

While she knows (of course she knows!) she still thinks it's a load of horseshit. "Sometimes attention finds you anyway, yanno. And it's not always a bad thing." But she shrugs off that particular part of the subject. She knows, and understands, the why's of it. But truthfully, she doesn't understand the who's of it. He's careful of who he lets in, at any age it looks like, but there is a small part of her that often wonders why not her. Still, Tonks knocks at the proverbial door, and one day maybe he'd answer fully.

Which is funny. Because there was a saying about wolves at the door, wasn't there? In this case, the wolf outside is really just a creature as curious as a cat. And pink-haired.

"Deflecting." She calls him out on it like she does his older version, cheeky and blunt. But lets him get away with it as well, also something done for his older half. Except for the times she chooses not to let him. "Not as much as you, of course. Though I didn't need much help in school for mischief." She grins and shows off a little, shifting her features from impish and decidedly Tonks to a perfect facial copy of Dumbledore. Her voice changed to sound like him as well. "One does not need help for what one naturally is." Trouble with a capital T.

And as easily as she shifted to their old Headmaster, she rights her features to be just Tonks. "First time I was in Grimmauld, I took the piss out of a portrait yelling obscenities. I shifted into his face and started professing my love for everything Muggle.." She smiles slyly at that, not regretting it for a minute. "Woke up mummy dearest, who then started yelling at that guy." Some stuffy ass great uncle or something. "That was fun."

It's a shame really that she can't share too many actually shared shenanigans. There wasn't enough time with Sirius. And the small troublemaking they did get into would be difficult to explain without explaining what sort of world she's taken a few hours holiday from.

"I didn't get to meet up with him proper until relatively recently, actually. It's one of the regrets I have. But lives took us other ways for a while, yeah? And I had to go and pretend to be mature enough to pass Auror training."

Edited 2021-07-14 05:18 (UTC)

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

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