the history of magic meme

[1castle4houses]

welcome to AU hell

RULES;

1. tag in
2. tag around!
3. mix and match - pick a setting from the first column and an AU from the second column (or use RNG if you like to live on edge -- there's 10 prompts per column)
4. have fun

HINTS;

We welcome and encourage all OCs. Add a little blurb about your character so other players have an idea what to play with, and feel free to add your preferences and permissions.
Ship, don't ship; make out, don't make out - all is fair game.

PROMPTS;

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

Comments

[metamorphical]

She would absolutely comment on the reasoning and how it tracked for the both of them. Tonks herself, if in a similar situation, would have been the perfect mix of both. As it was, most of her own friends agreed to go in a group. No one left behind that way. And they all danced in ways that were silly and ridiculous.

Cordelia and Charlie did take turns submitting themselves to Tonks' left feet in attempts to teach her both leading and following -- brave souls that they were -- but the lessons only kind of stuck.

Standing in the most amicable awkwardness she thinks she's ever felt, Tonks laughs and bites the bullet. Trying to remember Cordelia's instructions from years ago, she gets them moving into a quick little waltz.

It doesn't start off too badly, but somewhere in between repeating the four step pattern a third or time, Tonks' foot slipped and caught some part of Remus' foot. Stopping, wide eyed and concerned, she looks up. "Shit. I'm sorry!"

[timenssecundus]

Remus's pain thresholds were… pretty far beyond a bumped foot. Maybe if she'd stabbed through it with a stiletto, he'd want an apology. As it was, he belatedly glanced down to see what she was talking about, then looked back into her face with a smile of such reassurance, it was almost sheepish. "Don't be. Everything's fine." …Was that quite what he'd meant to say? Well, it seemed to be okay… He readjusted his hands on hers in a friendly signal.

[metamorphical]

Tonks in stilettos would be an entertaining -- or perhaps cruel -- joke. As it is, while she knows that he's stronger than he looks (and maybe even than he thinks), she's still apologetic. "I was thinking that I had more time to warn you about my clumsiness." She jokes, reassured by that endearing smile.

So with that out of the way, she carries on and gets them dancing again. When one song finishes and another begins, she does pull apart, but only so she can grab his hands and do silly dance moves with him.

The third song starts slower and, while she has little problem dragging his ass to do something stupid and fun, the witch does have the wherewithal to not demand things like this. "Back to the table for another round?" She asks Remus with a quirky smile.

[timenssecundus]

For the waltz, he's focusing so hard on doing it 'right', being a 'good' partner to her, not making them look foolish… he succeeds in moving surprisingly well but focused so fiercely, with a look on his face like he's trying to write the densest arithmancy essay Prof Vector ever set… and so distant from her.

But getting that settled, when the song ends, his eyes return to her with relief… and more opened up than before.

So then, the next song, when she grabs his hands, and the steps aren't prescribed…

Again, Remus is always minding his emotions. It's relentless, having to check and balance… the others speak of his patience and kindness as inexhaustible… only Lily Evans has gotten inside his barricades to know it is exhausting, and sometimes a cause of rage in of itself, that he can never, ever, let it go.

Or so he thinks.

With Dora smiling, shining in the starlike light, from the halo of her colourful hair through her radiant eyes to the ends of her fingers and toes, her hands simultaneously his safety tether and his kite strings encouraging him along… Remus goes with her, moving without knowing how.

Because he doesn't focus on himself, on 'doing it right'; he focuses on her. On following her tides and flows.

To watch them, the result from him is pretty small and restrained… but freeform dancing nonetheless, partially mirroring but not slavishly just complementary, and maybe tiny but still… abandoned, holding onto her with hands and eyes, and the look on his face is open wonder.

'Silly' dance moves. Wonderful.

The song ends, he's startled and dismayed that she seems to feel the need to take pity—I'm not embarrassed, this was a gift, I can't believe it, thank you—but then he realises he's exhausted and ready to fall.

"Yes, please, good," he says ridiculously.

For the first time, as they turn to walk, (through the mirror,) he threads his arm with hers.

Sorry!! Got caught up with a phone call!

[metamorphical]

The waltz is nice, and Remus is kind for taking the proverbial punches -- from left footed women -- gently. But when their steps change and they both relax, Tonks smiles even more brightly.

It's the complementary style -- something at once seemingly practiced and yet completely natural and unforced -- that she likes between them so much. It's a funny thing, then, that they sometimes take a minute to get to that point. They each, in their own way, try too hard sometimes. If Tonks thought about it, she would suppose that it's similar to thinking about how one breathes. Or eats. The naturalness becomes weird upon too much thought.

But Tonks is not thinking too much. Or about trying, either too much or not enough. She's living in the moment and truly enjoying herself. She honestly wouldn't be able to say when the last time she did that was. And even as she makes moves up on the fly, she pays attention to Remus and his movements as well.

The motion to stop isn't pity in the slightest. It's a slight step back into her own awkwardness, a dance she's less sure of. There is often a point in their interactions where Tonks feels she goes too far. While it may (unbeknownst to her) be Remus remembering himself and putting kind but distant space back between them (for her safety, a statement at which she would snort unladylike toward), she wonders if it's her. Too brash. Too bold. Too much. She doesn't know how to tone herself down.

But now? Now, the awkward dance and curious thoughts of too-much are quieted by the quite welcome feeling of his arm linking with hers. She leans in, bumping shoulders lightly as they walk back to the table.

"You should tell me about a hidden talent of yours." She says as they sit back down, eyebrows lifting. It was apropos of nothing but her curiosity and the fact that she asks what pops in her head.

Never a problem! ^_^

[timenssecundus]

Finding himself in combinations with people is endlessly incredible to him. Finding people is incredible. What each of his [marauding?] friends gives and does to him is a miracle, a life saver, a transformation, a drug, an addiction, a nourishment, a complement, a compensation, a discovery, an adventure, a hallucination… Lily is an affirmation, a validation, a calm center, a generosity, a strength, a meditation, a rest, a charm.

This with Dora…

No nouns apply. Though he's captivated by her… there isn't the flight to her away from him… He feels… to be… himself. Because there has to be a him in order to be with her.

And… he doesn't mind.

He's never known this before.

It's…

…it's not intellectual… it's…

All he knows is that it feels amazing to lean gently on each other as they walk, and he keeps his fingers brushed barely against hers on the table when they sit.

"A… hidden talent."

Thank Merlyn she said talent. That handily eliminated The Hidden Thing, so he didn't have to lie by omission.

It did make him, again, have to step a little from this unprecedented… smooth mirror lake… plane of… just being… here, with her, as himself… in order to think.

What's a 'talent'… He didn't want to offer something from his youth of devouring Muggle fantasy and science fiction literature, because that might be a conversation stopper. (Though Dora was half-blood too and they'd had the music exchange… Still, nah. Because at its core it also had the thread of his disease and loneliness.) The ways he could use his magic…? That hardly seemed to count among fellow practitioners, unless maybe it was a discipline he'd invented maybe…

"I… uh… I'm working on inventing a study aid," he said.

He regretted it the moment he said it. But too late to stop.

"I got the idea because of Sirius, actually. But also now that I'm a prefect, I see lots of other students with the same issue. You probably already know this… Sirius spent a lot of time thinking he was stupid. Incapable of thinking technically or strategically… or thinking much at all. Not intellectual. But in fact, he's brilliant… he's an inventor. He can come up with the most ingenious devices and spells. He uses them for pranks so he doesn't think of himself as… studious, but they're incredible. He thinks that if he hadn't been in Gryffindor he'd have been in Slytherin… I actually think, if he hadn't had his idea of himself so twisted around, he'd have been in Ravenclaw.

"The main problem is that he needs things to be interactive from the start. So I was thinking, how to make reading that, even when you're presented with a scroll, a wall of text, even if you don't have access to other people to help or don't want to damage the material. Not just reading aloud like for those with limited sight or difficulty reading, but for someone like Sirius who really needs to have a partner or an audience to wrestle in order to first absorb any idea.

"So… you know marginalia in illustrated manuscripts? Those weird figures and doodles that rarely make sense, even in the Magickal realms? Like a lance-wielding rabbit riding a manticore while holding a snail on its wrist like a falcon… or completely unrecognisable animals doing even stranger things with abstract patterns clouding around them.

"My charm would be that you could pick and, not actually imprinting the paper, just in the air above, transpose one, or even draw one yourself with your wand; and it would hop along the text—or you could have as many as you like… and it would be like a study group or debate team or commentary panel or… just… really irreverent peanut gallery, reading along with you; there to be consulted or challenged or just make things less boring as you go.

"And they could also be inaudible to everyone but you if you're stuck doing this work in… say… detention." (Well, he had designed it for Sirius.)

"I don't know if that counts as a talent. …It's probably more James and Sirius's talent that I've been picking up from them. The inventing."

[metamorphical]

Her smile, generally lopsided and present around him more often than not, brightens again as he explains his hidden talent. It’s so very much in line with what she knows of him older – the teacher, the one who believes in the value of learning and understanding. Her mouth opens to encourage him to talk about the study aid, to gently drag him across the line of no return that he sometimes puts up, but promptly shuts with a chuckle as Remus crosses that line just fine on his own.

“The Weasley twins are rather that, too. Brills, but not keen on school.” She only interjects to add to the conversation, peppering his story with pieces of her own and players that are in his future. It’s when he mentions that Sirius believed he would have been in Slytherin that her expression changes. It’s a slight shift, one from amusement to gentle understanding. She had wondered the same with a child's curiosity and worry at the same time as the Hat took its time to decide where to place her.

Her hands move again, this time in the excited way that they move as she talks. "Oh, or like the nuns tending to wonky body part bushes?" Tonks asked with a laugh. But as Remus explained his project, she lifted her eyebrows again. This time in a motion of being impressed.

"I think that's be dead clever! I talk to myself a lot as I'm figuring things out. An audience for that would be helpful. Even as an echo chamber, to determine whether the idea is sound or not, or to pipe in with commentary."

She taps his fingers then, a playful and physical chiding of his humble nature as she chortles. "And it absolutely counts as a talent. You have to have capacity for it to pick it up from others."

[timenssecundus]

"I don't know any Weasleys," said Remus apologetically. She'd said the name as if he should.

(This Remus was right between Weasleys. Molly and Arthur had already graduated Hogwarts and Bill hadn't yet begun. Lupin would meet them when he entered the first Order of the Phoenix… but those years would be a return to such isolation, sent away to work undercover among the werewolves, he'd be rather preoccupied with finding himself more and more separated—thus bereaved and even alienated—from James, Sirius, Lily and Peter. If he'd been more at home and bonding with people like Molly and Arthur, getting their healthy wonderful influence and a broader… well, life, but also safety net; his life would have been considerably different. —Of course, if he'd been more at home keeping up with those preexisting friends, maybe history would have been different. He'll never be able to afford to think that way and will never be able to stop thinking that way. And trying hard not to hate the person to whom he owes everything for it.)

"But, yeah. Sometimes the difficulty is that school wants you to do things a certain way. And some people, often because they're very clever, just have different ways. Sometimes they end up doing poorly in school but better outside of it." Sometimes the scenario was considerably poorer. But here with Tonks, thoughts trended rosier, tinted by the light in her hair.

He blushed almost to match it at her validation—and compliment.

"…You know… I… didn't think of that as a talent but… That's a really nice way of… Thank you. I like that. Yeah." Snape had accused him of ulterior mimicry. But Dora had just turned it on its head… the being able to 'pick up from others'… joining up with something Lily said about sensitivity to needs and wanting to help… and playing the dumb Houses game and Sirius declaring that Remus would actually be a Hufflepuff for the same reason… For some reason, Dora saying it made it finally make sense and feel right.

"Okay. Your turn," he said. "Hidden talent."

[metamorphical]

Incorrigible is often a word that can accurately describe Tonks. So when he blushes, she grins impishly and points something out both quickly and casually. "You're cute when you blush like that." It's the truth and it's a tease at the same time.

But she moves on easily, the action nothing more than simply carrying on their conversation. "I was a bit of a Hat Stall. Not a long one..four or five minutes? But it said I'd do well in any of the Houses." Hers is a blatant mimicry at times, a game created at a young age to see how far her innate abilities could go, a kinder version of Remus' forced shapeshifting, this one allowing for agency. But Tonks also picks things up from others, each person offering a plethora of colors to allow her to paint her own picture how she wants.

She laughs at the turnabout of the question, immediately replying with a silly answer. "I can do fancy card shuffling. I'll trip over air, but the cards will dance and never fly out of place." It's true, but not as insightful an answer as his was. So she shimmies a little bit in her seat, thinking of a proper reply.

It takes a minute. While she doesn't mess with false modesty and knows she's good at things, she doesn't really think of herself as having any talents, per se. Not outside the obvious one that lets her change her appearance. "I like to think that I've a knack for puzzles? I like figuring things out. Dead helpful as an Auror."

[timenssecundus]

He blushes even deeper. Any attempt to be swish or nonchalant seems much worse—he couldn't carry it off like James or Sirius and thinks he would just seem rude—or worse, like he doesn't actually care or like her—so he doesn't try. Thank Merlyn, she forges ahead.

"James has a theory," said Remus, "that the attributes they say determine Houses aren't necessarily what do it—or that they're up for interpretation, or aren't passive but have to be translated to… —Okay, no. His theory is that attributes may land you in any of the others, but Gryffindor is the House you have to choose. I know three doesn't make a pattern, but looking at our own group of friends, only James could only be Gryffindor. The rest of us really should be everywhere else. Sirius is a good example again. He felt like he had a fate and refused it.

"I'm thinking, though, that one House wouldn't function so differently from others. I'll bet choice matters for all of them. …Because aren't choices what really best define and reveal our true attributes anyway…?"

(He sure hoped so.)

He would love to see that. He bet they'd have cards in a place like this… But then she mentioned puzzles…

"Now I'm trying to think of riddles that aren't totally infuriating," he said, another of his shy smiles creeping across his face… but this one with also maybe a hint of a Siriuslike mischief. "Or not that kind of puzzle?"

[metamorphical]

"Now that is very Gryffindor, thinking it's so special." She grins, teasing. But she's thinking about it and nods in agreement. "I reckon you're right. It's just curious how the Hat knows what choices you'll make before you do."

It's that. That smile, shy but hinting at deeper things -- a penchant for mischief just as much as his friends -- that she finds so damn cute. Laughing, she quirks her head ever so slightly and smiles. "All sorts of puzzles."

She leans in then, conspiratorial and close. "Whatever kinds are you talking about, mm?"

[timenssecundus]

"You didn't have a conversation with it at the time?" asked Remus, genuinely curious—and, for some reason, anxious. "All of us did. —I mean, Sirius, James, and Peter. And me." Again, four doesn't make a terribly valid sample population, but even James, who had had entire (maybe unique) confidence and clarity on the subject, had reported a back-and-forth with the Hat that he later discovered to have been entirely telepathic.

Thank goodness, riddles. Though trying to think of a good enough one (to be… um… what… present himself somehow the way he wants to in front of her, though he has no idea what that is) is also giving him minor panic.

"Oh, y'know… um… I’ll bleed for you until my veins run dry. I’ll send your imagination soaring high. Use me with a flourish and I’ll make your dreams come true. I come in all colors but mostly black and blue. What am I?"

[metamorphical]

"I did, but I also didn't have a preference on the House?" She pauses, chuckling and offering a shrug on the matter. "My mum was in Slytherin, and she's great, so I wasn't as adamantly against it? Though wouldn't have been my first pick. Dad's Hufflepuff, so I knew all about that. Gryffindor was where Bill Weasley had landed, and I knew him. So Ravenclaw was the only House I didn't have any knowledge of."

She thinks about it, trying to recall what the Hat told her. "I do recall it chortling when I thought about the Slytherin dorms...dungeons? No thanks."

Humming and squirming before she settles down again, she thinks about the riddle. "I'll bleed for you.." She mutters, repeating the riddle to herself in half sentences. "..Mostly black and blue-- oh! Ink!"

[timenssecundus]

He could have sworn the story went that Andromeda, already the only cousin Sirius liked, married a nonwizard, confirming Sirius's approval and casting them both out of the dynasty. Of course, to think of it, Remus had no reason to presume that muggle was or was not Tonks's father, so he said nothing.

"Yes," said Remus unthinking. "It may not seem like much if you've never had to worry about it, but sleeping somewhere without a draft or leaks makes enormous difference."

…Fuck he shouldn't have said that. Too late.

"Yes!" he said at once, focusing again on the riddle instead. "'Pen' is also accepted but I always thought 'ink' made lots more sense."

[metamorphical]

Tonks pauses, head tilted and eyes thoughtful as he casually remarks upon the state of housing (or non-housing, as the case may be). It's a stark reminder of what was in her Remus' past. In this Remus' future. But she realizes, as she watches him, that his youth..this youth..likely had some difficulties (beyond the obvious) that he glossed over in their adult conversations. Whether it was shielding either one of them from those thoughts, or rose-coloured glasses on the times, Tonks isn't sure. She opens her mouth, but thinks different of it.

Different, but not better. Better would be to tell him everything and hope that the future changes. Tricky time travel.

Instead, she vacillates between the lighthearted conversation of riddles and the perhaps-treading-more-difficult ground of homes and dorms and the like. "Hufflepuff dorms are right by the kitchens. So I'd sneak in and grab snacks and things."

[timenssecundus]

"I've never been." Remus sounds abashed. "As Gryffindor prefect, I don't have business there, and… socially… it's just the four of us." …Well, it isn't for two of them, but…

…and really, Lily made five. Or their own separate two. But not really—he can't afford to think that way.

—It's somehow kind of easier not to, sitting here talking to Tonks.

Actually, that's not right. He's not not-thinking of it. It's easier to think of Lily, but in an easier way. More comfortable, much simpler. Rather than work to push it out of mind entirely, until a moment's carelessness flooded his brain with doomed, fatal longing. Here, suddenly, thinking of sitting on the window seat with Lily, laughing over marking, is right in the same category as sitting in front of the fire with the other Ms; all just as vital, precious, immutable, but solid. Complete. No need for yearning of any 'missing' aspect.

…because… instead… here… dancing across the table from him in a pair of sparkling eyes…

"It sounds really nice," said Remus, stupidly but earnestly. Wondering for the first time if getting into Gryffindor wasn't the only way his life could have been saved that day. "…You ever read muggle books, as well as liking their music? I've heard the Hufflepuff commonroom compared to something in… some of it."

[metamorphical]

"I nearly got into Gryffindor's common room once! McGonagall caught that there were two of the same student at the last minute." She chuckles, snapping her fingers. "I do think we should get to visit the other rooms, though."

But when he mentions Muggle literature and alludes to a particularly Muggle story, Tonks lights up. "It's absolutely a hobbit hole! Cozy and warm and perfect for second breakfasts."

"My dad's Muggleborn, so he read me the classics. Hobbit, Bedknobs and Broomsticks," She motions to the bedknob and its bloomed flowers. "And Mary Poppins -- I think she's a witch, really."

[timenssecundus]

That she not only knows and agrees but preempts warms him so completely, all the way through… he can't really change colours the way she does (skin stays pale with paler scars) but it feels like it. A story that meant so much to him, in a world that sets him almost as apart from shockingly many in Hogwarts as the Wolf does, and she connects so easily and… merrily… He could never possibly attempt to tell the others about this because James would turn it into something sexual—and fine, maybe that was in the mix but only because the universe was; like a molten gold suffusing him and giving him what had to be the dopiest of grins.

Muggleborn. Oh, pfsbthp, of course, that was it. Stories reconciled. God Merlyn was it ridiculous how generations didn't… It was ridiculous.

"Well, she definitely uses an undetectable extension charm, apparition, mobilicorpus, and has pioneered some method of going into moving portraits… crumbs, that would be incredible… I've always had so many questions about… for lack of a better word, souls, and mortality, and those pictures… and at the very least travel…"

He stopped himself babbling, and contented himself just to grin foolishly at her.

"Anyway, yeah. Definitely a witch. So I'll bet PL Travers was. I'd guess… I wonder how many witch and wizard authors snuck our world into muggle books—or snuck their books into the muggle world—maybe to guide muggle-borns to their own magic."

On sudden irresistible impulse, Remus said, "You're brilliant. Do you… they… know… does anyone tell you that?"

[metamorphical]

His grin only makes her smile even more, eyes squinting up cheerfully with the action. There's something particularly nice and makes her rather proud when she can get Remus on a streak of smiles and laughter and genuinely just fun conversation. It's hard sometimes, and understandably so, but she believes wholeheartedly in the fact that he deserves those times of just being happy.

And he's got an amazing smile.

So she's admiring it as he talks about Mary Poppins and the types of spells she cast, and the idea of the author sneaking real knowledge into the Muggle world. She's listening! Just admiring as she does.

"Mm!" She plans to interject with her thoughts in return, the idea that children's books and fantasy literature are the perfect hiding places, when Remus compliments her. It's sudden and completely unexpected and causes her hair to bloom from roots to tips bright red in a blush.

"I-- thank you!" Had anyone told her that? The obvious answers are there -- her parents and friends. Sirius mentioned it once or twice with a (what Tonks had hoped was pointed) 'Right, Moony?'.

"Can you remember that, please? When our timelines meet again?"

[timenssecundus]

Something in how she asks that…

"Will I need much reminding? It won't be as obvious to me then as now?"

…That's an unusually swishy line for Remus. It could perhaps sound artificial, like Sirius or James wrote it for him, or he's trying to imitate them. But any winceworthiness is negated by it being a real question—and a slightly frowning worried one.

[metamorphical]

Tonks doesn't see the question as swishy, or disingenuous. So it's not treated as such. Instead, she smiles a little wryly and takes a breath before answering.

"I'm not sure, really. Maybe not as obvious as other things you think get in the way?"

She scoots in closer then, close enough to talk quietly in his ear. "But I don't care about those things, Remus Lupin. I like you." She kisses his cheek gently before sitting back up.

"Apparently no matter your age." This Tonks says in amusement, more toward herself than anything else.

[timenssecundus]

…as other things you think will get in the way.

She's nailed him, perfectly, across all time and space.

How awful that the result is for him to demonstrate and prove it.

He should lean into that kiss, blushing deeper and not knowing what to do with himself, but it's okay; Remus is not the kind of teenage boy [not necessarily through fault of their own] whose ego violently abhors embarrassment; he cherishes her laughter, this unique moment, something that's never happened to him and he never thought he'd get to be a part of, and how joyful to do so with specifically her, this moment of wonderful befuddlement.

Instead the kiss—that should feel electric and magnetic—feels like electric shock. Antimagnetism repulses him to jolt, even microscopically, back, craning his neck away to stare at her.

Nothing in his body language or expression are negative about her. No hostility, no judgment, no antagonism. But, no less devastating (and misguided precisely for not being about her, not allowing her choice and agency and impact on the situation): horrified, on the defense (of him and her both), trying to solve every puzzle at once, like he's woken from sleep at the wheel just shy of a crash.

Apparently no matter your age indeed.

"Auribus tenere…?" he asked, voice suddenly very… not cold, no, but… coming from far away.

…but wait just a fucking minute… WAIT.

If she knew in the future and was treating him like this.

That could only mean good things.

Right?

I don't know what happened, what's still happening. And you don't have to tell me. But please tell someone. Don't carry it alone. There comes a point, when people love you, that trying to protect them becomes itself a harm. Trust them to decide if they need to protect themselves. —or, more likely, if protection will only work mutually. By protecting each other.

I'll bet you everything I own, that's what they want.

You are the wisest person I know but sometimes it's bigger than just us


Unless he was about to screw it up right now.

"…what things?" he says instead, trying too hard, too late, not to show too much.

[metamorphical]

She watches him pull away, mentally and emotionally further than the physicality of it all, and holds in a sigh of exasperation. But only barely.

But it's when he begins the question in Latin that she can't fully contain herself. Even as he asks 'what things' she reaches over and tugs his ear. Not hard, but just enough to show that she knew the saying. That she was't just holding the ear of supposed danger, but tugging on it. That the saying has no power over her.

It should have no power over him.

"Wolf things." She says plainly so that he understands under no uncertain terms. "Things that I have a right to decide for my own damn self."

content warnings: depression, suicidal ideation, animal endangerment… sorry for going so dark

[timenssecundus]

Like that, again—over and over, most lethal of all—she pierced the heart of it, to one more reversal.

He collapses. Sadly, he still can’t sink to to her, but it’s something that he doesn’t sink away either. He sinks back in his seat, in on himself.

Maybe this proves it. That being here with her is after all a purposeful gift. Clearly she had to tell him this, tried to, so many times. But now, here, she’s the older one. And! the one who knows what the future holds, not just with more evidence to theorise but definitively. So here, he's not the one who knows it's wrong but can't undo a lifetime of trying to take responsibility; instead this younger Remus collapses in abject needful relief. Still the version of himself ever yearning for someone who actually knows enough to guide him, but he hasn't yet given up on that—and in this pocket reality, he's found them.

"So you know how I got these?" He points vaguely toward his face. The three symmetrical scars seem dramatic. They're actually mild (compared to his torso, having been repeatedly, frequently raked across and across, so the flesh is so raised and mottled, it doesn't look clawed, it looks deeply burned). They're just among the few he can't hide with clothes.

Whatever he reads in her face or body language makes him go on—or maybe he's just so relieved to be able to say these things aloud. "Sirius gave them to me. That first night they came to the Shack. They weren't really prepared for the reality of it, you know? It's… upsetting. Especially the… process. So Peter couldn't transform. Not that I think the desired effect would have happened right away. It's kind of bonkers it worked at all, ever. It was a taming process. This probably would have been necessary regardless. But Padfoot—the dog—gave them to me over the course of him and the stag fighting me off trying to kill Peter all night.

"In the morning, we were all so hurt and bloodied. We kind of carried each other back to the castle. Peter couldn't look at me for a week. But I wasn't looking at any of them. And as soon as we got back, I found a room to lock myself in and locked all of them out. I'd never done that before. I tested my Defensive magic for the first time in earnest… that was when I found out I really was good at it… because I was better than they were. They couldn't get to me. I didn't let them in.

"I only came out and reconciled with them, finally, 'cause… Lily Evans came in after me. I couldn't keep her out. She talked me down and convinced me to reconcile and I owe her for that. We all do.

"Thing is… the reason it all went down that way…

"I wasn't in on the animagus plot. For two years, they kept it from me. That night, they surprised me with it. Sirius genuinely thought I'd be pleased.

"And yes. It led to some of the happiest times I've ever known in my damn life.

"But I've been thinking about it ever since. And a lot of the ways they talk about… M…Moony and… even the way they have me talk about it sometimes… Usually I try to be grateful and I think it has helped in some ways, but sometimes it still makes me… angry… or… lonely. Like… painfully lonely even when I'm right there with them. And I don't know why and I hate that I don't know why, and I assume it's just the wolf asleep inside me making me crazy.

"Because that's part of it, you know… not part anyone talks about because no one talks about it. Not the people who have it as still being people, when they are still… No one talks about being afraid to have intense emotions even though you know the moon won't be full for another week, but what if… what if it's not really you, it's the wolf, this anger, this fear…

"That's not… that's a different… anyway, it's…

"I"m still trying to figure it out but…

"I think what gets me…

"They keep my secret. They get that it's bigger than us. That they can't protect me if they just go shouting to everyone that I'm… that I have this thing.

"But at the same time. They act like just because it's not an issue for them… that I have no reason to have a hard time with it when I'm around them, either. That them accepting me should mean that I should just accept it too. Like the only bad feelings were because I was scared they wouldn't like me for it, and that's solved so why am I still bothered?

"Even though they know… I've told them… how my whole childhood… we moved house every six months because we were always afraid people would notice I was strange; the things we'd have to do to the house on moving in and moving out to diminish the terror of me breaking out to hurt my family and the realtors figuring it out to report us when we left; how I couldn't go to school and couldn't have any friends and until that visit from Dumbledore I lived assuming I never would so I spent my childhood just waiting for my parents to die so I could kill myself without hurting them more… it still haunts me that if I hadn't written him a fan letter, would he ever have come, would that just have been my life…?

"But it's still not just that, not just about me being miserable… It was watching them. My parents couldn't make friends either. They had to sit in the living room every four weeks—and it's more than one night, you know—listening to me change, and be awake all night with Dad's wand pointed at the basement door…

"They talked about Mum getting a gun and she refused but they talked about it.

"And sometimes I did break out and… they would try to lie to me when I killed… something I don't want to think about… pets and… but I knew. I never bit anyone, but god, I hurt people. Including my dad.

"They had to try to give me some semblance of a life except I—we—kept retreating from each other more and more until not only did we have no life or connections outside the house, we had no connections to each other inside either. And my dad blamed himself, and my mum tried not to blame him, but how could… My mum. I was so little but I remember she used to be so… vibrant, so lively and creative and…" his eyes definitely slipped away from Tonks's hair, "colourful, and over my childhood she just got paler and paler and thinner and thinner until she was like a skeleton…

"I only said it once. That maybe we should just stop running. Don't wait for someone to discover me. Just go ahead and send me to St Mungo's ourselves. It wasn't the worst scenario anymore; it'd be better than Azkaban. …And they immediately said 'no'. And I didn't really mean it because at that point they would have gotten in trouble for harbouring me. But I finally said it aloud because I wanted to see it in their eyes. And I did. We all wondered: would it actually be worse than what our homes had become?

"The reason Sirius started the whole Animagus thing was because he convinced me to let him give me some of his old clothes, and he tricked me into letting him be in the room while I tried some on, and he saw me shirtless. I never let anyone see me without… He did it on purpose of course 'cause he had a theory I was being abused. And I mean, he was right, he just assumed my abuser was someone in my family because that was his story and we all project ourselves. He didn't know my abuser was myself. I finally told him to get him not to go after my poor parents—who were my victims too.

"Whether someone who likes me—even loves me—accepts me or not… No. That's not the whole battle. That's not enough to make it okay for me within myself. And I know… I'm learning better control… even if not as the wolf, then as a wizard… so much is different… and people will say that they're better able to take care of themselves but my dad was a wizard too and… Someone saying they accept me, they like me… I know. I know I may not be rational. But that's still not the only active variable to overcome my conviction that I'm a death sentence. And they think they know what I mean. Yeah. I mean maybe from the world's politics resulting in homelessness. Yeah, I mean maybe from getting horribly suddenly killed. Yeah, I mean maybe getting bitten. But also I mean maybe a very slow one. And when people just tell me I'm being stupid…"

He glanced up… and the look wasn't for her, it was somewhere past her… but for a moment his eyes glinted like an animal's reflecting the moon.

"I don't know who's right and who's wrong. But if the goal with that is to make me pull away less and be less mournful and angry… It doesn't fucking work."

The glint faded. What was left was a teenage boy looking at her, looking so empty, like he'd never gotten to say that in full to anyone before, and he'd so wanted and needed to… but now that he had, especially to her who he didn't want to feel blamed or disliked at all, he also regretted it so badly. It hadn't even been in response to anything she said, beyond revealing she knew. Stick a pin in him and all the air came out.

"So… maybe… in the future… That might help? Get around my defensiveness? 'Cause I think adult me would be so stupid not to… try… to get out of his own way with you.

"But I don't think people show enough… um… It totally backfires how people are so dismissive, without having lived it, to what 'his'—'my'—'own way' actually is. It's not just the political stuff. Which is bad too."

…
He still doesn’t know who provides this gift. Hopefully, exactly as she says, only not an accident: her.




[ooc: being a little ahead of his time, both in maturity and in sociopolitical ideation. But why that bloody scene in whichever book it was made me, even then, fucking furious. Not from Tonks but from friggin' everyone else just calling him 'ridiculous'.
I usually don't pay attention to anything not in the books for RP backstory, but Hope Lupin's likely deterioration/death from this is from HPwiki/Pottermore]

Tonks wants to give him cookies and hugs

[metamorphical]

She finds herself braced, ready for the argument that she’s had with his older counterpart too many times for her to count – truly only three, maybe four times, but sometimes the simplicity of the matter to her (“I like you, you like me, we’ll figure the details out together”) makes the argument to the contrary seem innumerous. But when Remus sinks into himself, Tonks then relaxes in contrast. She doesn’t have to be obtusely stubborn, though a certain (and large) degree of stubbornness is innate, and can listen instead of debate.

Contrary to what some people may think, Tonks is rather good at listening.

Her head tilts and she reaches out slowly, not touching him (even if she just wants to hug the shit of out him) but leaving her hand beside his, a reminder to them both that she’s right there, staying quiet as he talks. As he does, she takes the information given and allows it to paint a fuller picture of what she already knows of the man. Idly, she wonders if the strange magic of the bedknob gave her her friend as he is now because she needs the younger one to better understand the older one.

He's spoken about how his childhood was difficult, but not to this extent. Not in such a raw manner. And she watches as he pointedly looks away from her, from her hair specifically, the physical embodiment of colourfulness as he talks about his mother. Things begin to make more sense to Tonks than they ever had.

Not that it changes her mind in the slightest, but she understands more now. Why he fights back so much.

As Remus quiets down, Tonks smiles ruefully because her brain is jumping around in a million places. There are questions, myriad questions, she wants to ask and things she wants to say and she can’t figure out where to start. It’s all there, an open book of expressions on her face, and finally she presses her lips together for a moment before choosing a place to begin.

“To die will be an awfully big adventure.” She starts softly, hoping that he takes the quote from the boy who never grew up as the meaning that it’s intended. Death and dying are a part of life, Tonks knows that. She also knows that, like Peter Pan, the adventure to that juncture is the whole point of it all.

Tonks continues though. Because no, she does not and could not understand. Only in pieces, only in the fragments that her own unique nature – in its through-the-looking-glass version of lycanthropy -- allows her. But she wants to.

Their childhoods are, in that not-alike-but-somehow-not-dissimilar way, inversions of the other. He knows her now, Dora the child, as a five year old..and it's one of the last peaceful years for many people in the Wizarding World. It was definitely the last peaceful one she'd remember for a few years. But whereas the Lupins moved constantly, trying to survive by outrunning, the Tonkses survived the first war by closing up ranks, the house and small family of three only open to those closest. Those trusted. The fallen from grace sister of Voldemort's second-in-command made for a huge target, after all. So Dora's nursery school years were lonely as well.

But discussing that with this Remus breaks time travel rules. Instead, she brings up a different time in her life. “My boggart in school was a mirror with no reflection.”

“There are exactly two books in the entire Hogwarts library that even mention Metamorphmagi. We’re -- I’m -- not rather common, apparently.” She’s older now, and can take the hits from stuffy old books with a wry smile, which she flashes. “But those two books…weren’t the most flattering. They theorized that creatures who could take on the face of anyone have no real reflection. A mirror shows things at face value, yeah? Can’t show what you don’t have without taking from someone.”

Her fingers shift, idly tracing a line along the table. “Know who else doesn’t have a reflection? Vampires. Because they don’t have souls. So guess what else the books theorized?” She looks up at him, head tilted before she chuckles lightly. “I think Muggle literature treats us a bit more fairly than our own society.” Werewolves and shapeshifters don’t seem to get as much of the shaft.

“Now. Add the theory of having no soul to the worry of a teenaged girl about going batshit insane like Bellatrix Lestrange.” And why would plucky Tonks even think about that old hag? “That’s my mum’s sister.” And insanity runs in bloodlines, doesn’t it? “So I get being afraid of how big your emotions can be.” She still worries about it sometimes. Not often, but in the heat of the battle, anger in her veins, a curse on her lips. The ability to cast stronger curses just there, ready to use. Easy to take because Dark Magic isn’t really about evil or non-evil. It’s about power, and the easy, corruptible way to it. But that’s neither here nor there at the moment.

“I’m rambling, I’m sorry.” She realizes too late and smiles apologetically. “But…my point is..what if no one’s right? Or everybody’s right?” She moves again, turning her head to look Remus full on. “I don’t think you can live life and love people without hurting them. That’s part of being human.” And before he argues that point, she stares at him pointedly. “Your worry about the implications of you – both parts of you -- is decidedly human.”

Tonks ruffles her hair, grateful for the insight but still flustered at the impasses she comes across. “There’s a song..you won’t hear it for another handful of years..” But she sings a part of it softly.

To die by your side…well, the pleasure and the privilege is mine.