dollsome: (hp; remus + sirius)
dollsome ([personal profile] dollsome) wrote2007-07-23 12:48 am

hollow, like lines (Remus/Sirius, Remus/Tonks)

Title: hollow, like lines
Pairing: Remus/Sirius, Remus/Tonks
Spoilers: through Deathly Hallows
Word Count: 1,800
Rating: PG
Summary: The fact remains that she is miserable and he is empty and there is nothing left to lose.
Author's Note: Don't mind me. This is just my attempt to sort out my Remus/Tonks issues. Hurrah! This finally gave me the excuse to try out the reverse-storytelling tactic, which I've been wanting to do for awhile.



10.

Remus Lupin opens his eyes.

He is in a familiar, comfortably cluttered kitchen. It is nighttime, he observes in the window above the sink; the dim reflection of his own face informs him that he is younger now, perhaps twenty-two. Beyond his face, he can see the night sky. The stars glint happily; for the first time, the full moon seems docile, kind. He feels pleasantly groggy, like he’s just woken up from a long, long sleep.

“Hiya, Moony,” comes a whisper in his ear. The words sound like laughter.

He turns, and there is Sirius, effortlessly handsome and grinning, the way Remus tried to always remember him. He had known very well that Sirius wouldn’t want to be recalled as he was after Azkaban, sullen and wasting.

Now, Remus realizes, he is Sirius again, without any of the shadows. More than anything else, understanding this feels like coming home.

“I’ve died, then?” Remus asks. The idea is a welcome one.

“Yup,” Sirius confirms pleasantly. Mischievous, he adds, “Took you long enough.”

He sinks with easy grace down into the chair next to Remus’s.

Remus glances around, taking in details he’d already memorized long ago. “I never thought I’d come back here.”

“Me either.”

He recalls moving in at nineteen, unloading his own books onto hastily cleared shelves, unnerved somehow by his own happiness. ‘Are you sure?’ he remembers asking, again and again, before being stubbornly kissed into silence.

Sirius is remembering too. For some reason, he can tell the moment their eyes meet.

“What have you been doing?” Remus asks.

“Waiting, mostly.” Sirius sounds untroubled as he says it.

Me too, Remus wants to say, but finds he doesn’t need to. Sirius understands. Instead, he asks, “What are you going to do now?”

Sirius shrugs. Remus thinks he’s never seen him so at peace. “We’ll see, won’t we?”

He thinks, fleetingly, of the things he’s left behind – Teddy – Dora – a battle yet to be won or lost. For the first time, there is no sudden surge of panic, no sense that he is being smothered by his own mistakes. He finds they do not plague him here, consuming him, feeling like crimes committed in moments of weakness.

Now, he finds, he cannot worry. He is done. They’ll find their way without him. That much is simple and inevitable. That much he knows.

Sirius is watching him. His eyes are sharp and young and bright.

“We’ll see,” Remus agrees, and smiles.



09.

He will lose – he feels it in his bones, he knows with utter certainty, and yet the fight drags on. Dolohov is relentless, vicious, and there is no missing the thirst for triumph in his eyes. Remus tries to remind himself of the things he has to live for: Teddy, tiny and perfect and fragile, infinitely more terrifying than this moment; his wife, who he thinks lately he could come to love in time. Absurdly, he can’t stop thinking of the sound of James’s voice, the way Lily’s hair caught sunlight; and Sirius, laughing. He feels closer to them than he has in seventeen years. Perhaps this is how he knows.

He hears his name and turns to see Tonks speeding toward him, undaunted. She shoots a curse at a Death Eater in her path and doesn’t pause to watch him fall.

—Teddy—

“Dora!” he shouts; she freezes. “Go! Please!”

She opens her mouth to reply, but he doesn’t hear her. The words are lost in a flash of green.



08.

“I’m coming with you,” Tonks declares abruptly, following him from the sitting room of her mother’s house.

He turns, impatient; there is no time, and it’s in moments like these when her youth becomes so glaringly, maddeningly apparent.

“Stay,” he orders, or maybe pleads, and places his hands on her slim shoulders.

She shakes her head. “It’s not right. This is my fight just as much as yours, and I’m not letting you go alone.”

“Voldemort tore apart my life,” he tells her, low, fighting for composure. “All of the people I’d ever cared about were ripped from me because of him. You cannot understand how that feels.”

“My father’s dead,” she snaps. “Or maybe you’d forgotten that.”

“This is something I need to do without you,” he answers sharply, without pausing to think. There is a terrible relief in it; telling her the truth, without consideration or mercy.

She sways slightly, but her gaze doesn’t waver. “No.”

“Stay with Teddy,” he implores, and knows at once that this is the only thing that has the power to stop her now. “He needs you.”

He does not say more than I do, but he’s sure she’ll hear it in his voice. She doesn’t, though – just nods, once, and turns away without saying anything else – and he finds that even now, he cannot decide whether her blindness is a curse or a blessing.



07.

Teddy makes things harder and easier all at once.

“Have you ever seen anything so beautiful?” Tonks breathes, exhausted and luminous, her fingers tracing the lines of the baby’s tiny, perfect face.

“No,” he answers, and savors it, the relief that comes with being entirely truthful to her. He presses a kiss into her hair, and for once, this seems right.



06.

Saying “I do” is easier than he had anticipated; it is an unremarkable, necessary thing, just like every other lie he’s told her.

It isn’t until afterwards that he realizes the gravity of his mistake. Her mother is civil but eyes him with unmistakable distaste; he accidentally overhears her muttering to Tonks, quiet and fretful, “a man like that,” and he recalls Sirius speaking of Andromeda, his favourite cousin; one of the only decent ones in the whole lot. Her husband is Muggleborn and still her smile cannot reach her eyes when she watches him (a werewolf, a halfbreed, an outcast) with her daughter.

“They don’t understand,” Tonks insists, her determined fingers twining with his. He knows all at once that there is no honor in this.

The decision to leave comes to him swiftly in the middle of the night as he lies awake, restless and unconsciously counting her breaths. Recklessness isn’t something that comes naturally to him; he has always been the one who follows. This time, the choice is his. He goes over it in his head, realizes with a sharp sickening thrill just how much sense it makes not to stay. He owes it to the friends he’s lost to help Harry now, after all; he would be a lesser man if he abandoned him. He tries to tell himself that this is what Sirius would have done.



05.

She’s pregnant.

She tells him over coffee one morning, not meeting his eyes; it twists his stomach, and he thinks for a second that she’s joking. She’s a little like Sirius in that way; a penchant for untimely humour. But she doesn’t smile, just looks at him, hopeful and scared and God, so young.

He does not allow himself to think that this is punishment for knowing this was wrong and doing it anyhow; does not allow himself to realize that this binds him to her now; does not contemplate what it will mean for this child, to have a father like him.

A second too late, he forces himself to smile. She bursts into tears and throws her arms around him, mumbling against his shoulder that she was scared he wouldn’t want it. “Of course I do,” he says again and again, and he’s glad that she can’t see his face. The words taste hollow, like lines.

Ultimately, he’s the one who suggests that they marry. It’s the honorable thing to do, after all.



04.

The truth, simple and cruel as it may be, is that he grows tired of saying no.

Dumbledore’s death seems to shroud everything; there is no point, he thinks, in hoping much. Some things cannot be made right again. They will lose this war.

“Well?” Tonks asks that night. “I’m not giving up on you.”

He sighs. “Tonks – Nymphadora—”

“Don’t call me that,” she orders automatically, and there is a flicker of recognition, a trace of the woman he’d befriended the year before. He has learned very well how to be alone in his life, but it has been agony this past year, and it shows no sign of getting easier this time. There is a weak, lonesome part of him that almost wishes Sirius had never come back at all.

The fact remains that she is miserable and he is empty and there is nothing left to lose. He thinks this and he kisses her.



03.

The day before he leaves to go underground, she pulls him aside. Her hair is a dull brown; it hangs, lifeless, past her shoulders. “There’s something I need to tell you.”

He listens because he knows it will eat her alive if he doesn’t, because she deserves the freedom of having confessed before he goes off to meet what might be death.

“I can’t,” is all he can offer in reply. She blinks back tears and nods, and as he walks away, he thinks, foolishly, well, that’s the end of that.



02.

“You loved him,” Tonks says in a whisper, by melancholy firelight, and although it could mean so many things – for they were best friends, after all; brothers, in a fashion; a valued camaraderie, an unbreakable bond in and of itself – he knows all at once that she has stumbled upon the truth.

Denying it seems meaningless.

“Yes,” Remus answers hoarsely.

This is the only time they speak of him.



01.

He is fond of Tonks, her vivacity and her wit and, maybe most of all, her innocence; it seems remarkable, that in these dark times she remains young enough and sweet enough not to let it touch her. They get along well; he grows pleasantly used to her company right away. She makes him laugh, with her cheerful sarcasm and her religious devotion to The Weird Sisters, and laughter is a welcome distraction as the world is crumbling.

“She likes you,” Sirius tells him one morning over breakfast, and Remus tries his best to think the idea is ridiculous.

At Christmas, he finds himself standing beneath some mistletoe with her; he leans down to kiss her cheek, in accordance with tradition, and she turns. He accidentally catches the corner of her mouth. He pulls back quickly, and the way she looks at him makes it clear that there’s not much use denying anymore.

“Told you,” Sirius says later, smug and maybe a little irritated (it’s hard to tell these days).

“Worried?” Remus answers, as lightly as he can.

The corner of Sirius’s mouth twists in a smile. “Should I be?”



[identity profile] dinobombs.livejournal.com 2007-07-25 09:43 pm (UTC)(link)
;_; this made me sad, but i'm still happy.

adding to my memoriesss. ;D

[identity profile] dollsome.livejournal.com 2007-08-02 09:25 pm (UTC)(link)
Aw, thank you. I'm glad it could spark happy/sad-type feelings. ;-)

[identity profile] secretsolitaire.livejournal.com 2007-07-26 02:03 am (UTC)(link)
This is lovely, and does my puppy shipper heart good. :-) Thanks for helping me make a bit more sense of the rather bizarre R/T storyline in DH.

[identity profile] dollsome.livejournal.com 2007-08-02 09:26 pm (UTC)(link)
Aw, I'm glad you liked it! :) Thank you very much!

[identity profile] dr-schreaber.livejournal.com 2007-07-26 04:38 am (UTC)(link)
ahhh, this is good. I like it, despite the R/T >_> great job grappling with it :D. oh canon, you mangle us so...

[identity profile] dollsome.livejournal.com 2007-08-02 09:26 pm (UTC)(link)
:D Thank you! I'm glad you liked it!

[identity profile] aperfectsong.livejournal.com 2007-07-27 12:08 am (UTC)(link)
That was pretty much amazing. I love the backwards storytelling and how well it fits this story. And this is definitely the way I understood it in canon - R/S is canon!

Anyway, I'm adding this to my memories and I hope its okay if it ends up on a rec list of mine sometime in the future.

[identity profile] dollsome.livejournal.com 2007-08-02 09:28 pm (UTC)(link)
Oh, R/S is so canon. ;-) If JKR wanted to convince me otherwise, then she shouldn't have had the last appearance of both characters be them all together and young and happy and did I mention together? Yep, that's my story and I'm stickin' to it!

And, um, anyway. Thank you so, so much for reading, and it is certainly beyond okay if this pops up on a rec list in the future! :)

[identity profile] theleapingmuse.livejournal.com 2007-07-27 01:57 am (UTC)(link)
I was never one to really dislike Tonks, and the only reason I did after Book 7 was because of the fact that Tonks and Remus felt wrong. I have no problem with characters following the path that the author set out for them- that's the luxury and safe haven of fandom, afterall. If Remus/Tonks had felt right in the book, I would have been satisfied and found my slashy pleasures here, with lovely individuals like yourself. But Remus/Tonks was never right, for reasons I couldn't put my finger on. The type of character Rowling had originally written wouldn't have randomly gotten married to such a spunky, unusually unique individual like Tonks. He was quiet and bookish, full of pain and regret, and people like that don't find themselves involved, much less married, to people like Tonks.

Your fic feels right, because it feels like Remus. This is the Remus I've known, throughout the entire series. Here is the man who gave his heart to another (Sirius, or someone else) and here he is, finding comfort where there is none. He turns to Tonks, who can give him *something* in a world that has nothing left, and he does what's right. Honorable, our Remus, even if his decisions make him miserable.

Great job- I look forward to reading more of your work. :)

[identity profile] dollsome.livejournal.com 2007-08-02 09:32 pm (UTC)(link)
Aw, thank you so much! :) Such lovely feedback; I'm glad you enjoyed it.

And I definitely agree about Remus/Tonks feeling wrong in the books. They never quite went together convincingly, which was weird for this series, because all of the characters seem to have excellent chemistry with each other without fail. I can't help suspecting that Remus/Tonks was a later addition to the series, one that she hadn't originally intended, because it feels so incredibly out of nowhere, and when they're together, they somehow stop feeling like the characters they are when they're apart. Which is just . . . uncool, and stuff. There's such a distinct difference to me between how the character of Remus feels in PoA and OotP as opposed to HBP and DH; he seems like a stranger sometimes. Of course, I have just decided that it's because losing Sirius shook him up so much that he went a little crazy and permanently lost himself a bit. :)

And, er, now that I have rambled sufficiently, thank you again!

[identity profile] kazura-uyurin.livejournal.com 2007-07-27 08:02 am (UTC)(link)
Wonderful. Your story finally, finally made Remus/Tonks plausible to me. The whole thing felt weird from when it happened at the end of HBP, but I put that down to them being side characters and hence, less coverage. Then in came DH, which just made me go, "What?! They married?!" Still, R/T is a rather sad pairing, although I've always envisioned it to be something like that.

I love it that Remus was with Sirius again at the end and how they were together at the start. Kinda reminds me of how hard I cried when Harry used the Resurrection Stone and saw Lily, James, Sirius and Remus again for some reason.

Thank you so much for writing this! =)

[identity profile] dollsome.livejournal.com 2007-08-02 09:34 pm (UTC)(link)
Aw, thank you very much! :) Remus/Tonks has always been so perplexing to me, too, so this was a helpful writing experience, in that it kinda made them make sense to me. I'm glad it kinda helped you out along those lines, too.

Thanks again!

[identity profile] imagines.livejournal.com 2007-07-28 03:09 am (UTC)(link)
Ooh yes. The reason I didn't like R/T in DH was that the relationship was a bit screwed-up, yet I didn't get the impression that it was supposed to seem that way. But this I like! This with their problems laid bare, and Remus thinking maybe he could love her eventually... it seems far more real, and I love it.

And Sirius's "Hiya, Moony" just about made my heart burst.

[identity profile] dollsome.livejournal.com 2007-08-02 09:37 pm (UTC)(link)
Aw, thank you so much! :)

The reason I didn't like R/T in DH was that the relationship was a bit screwed-up, yet I didn't get the impression that it was supposed to seem that way.

Oh, I totally agree. Even without the slight issue of him, ya know, being in love with Sirius (which he so was), he regretted marrying her immediately! He was miserable for the first few months of their marriage! He was going to leave her and their unborn child to go traipsing around with three teenagers doing super-dangerous stuff! Theirs was not a relationship of the functional variety, but it never quite got enough attention for me to figure out whether that was on purpose or not.

Oh, Remus/Tonks. Maybe someday, you'll make sense all the way.

Thanks again! :)

[identity profile] irishmizzy.livejournal.com 2007-07-28 06:39 pm (UTC)(link)
This is fantastic and gorgeous and makes me flail about on the inside. I love the backwards-ness and pretty much everything about it.

[identity profile] dollsome.livejournal.com 2007-08-02 09:38 pm (UTC)(link)
Aww, thank you. :) I'm glad!

[identity profile] sundancekid.livejournal.com 2007-07-29 11:47 pm (UTC)(link)
Ooh, very nice. The reverse chronology really suits the story, and your desperate, drowning Remus... oh. The way he thinks about Tonks' youth, yes, and how maybe she knows and he doesn't realize... And the writing is really beautiful here.

[identity profile] dollsome.livejournal.com 2007-08-02 09:38 pm (UTC)(link)
Aww, thank you so much!

[identity profile] love-ology.livejournal.com 2007-08-02 09:23 pm (UTC)(link)
Aww! I love your writing stile! Something about it is very concise and espressive, and I love how it's non-canon but the characters still seem like themselves. And I've never been much of a slasher, but I really liked this sone, and how you filled in the cracks of the real story. Thanks for posting!

[identity profile] love-ology.livejournal.com 2007-08-02 09:26 pm (UTC)(link)
*is a spelling/grammar stickler, as well as vaguely OCD*

I meant "writing style", "expressive" and "this one", of course.

(no subject)

[identity profile] dollsome.livejournal.com - 2007-08-02 21:39 (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

[identity profile] dollsome.livejournal.com - 2007-08-02 21:39 (UTC) - Expand
ext_13504: Kara Thrace, Starbuck, BSG (Default)

[identity profile] unicornvamp3z.livejournal.com 2007-08-03 12:40 am (UTC)(link)
i love how you tell the story backwards, starting with the ending, then explaining why it ends the way it does. brilliant ^_^

[identity profile] dollsome.livejournal.com 2007-08-04 01:06 am (UTC)(link)
Thank you very much! :)

[identity profile] czgoldedition.livejournal.com 2007-08-03 05:39 am (UTC)(link)
This fic is a work of epic win.

I was going to write my own Tonk-rationalization, and may still; but damn, you've done a fine job here!

[identity profile] dollsome.livejournal.com 2007-08-04 01:07 am (UTC)(link)
Aw, thank you very much! :)

[identity profile] aeternitasbeach.livejournal.com 2007-08-05 09:07 am (UTC)(link)
+mem

this helped me sort out my R/T issues too *bows to you*

loved the reverse-storytelling

first and last scene = love.

(the first thing I thought of when Remus died: TOGETHER AT LAST!)

<3

[identity profile] dollsome.livejournal.com 2007-08-06 11:01 pm (UTC)(link)
Aw, yay, thank you! :)

the first thing I thought of when Remus died: TOGETHER AT LAST!

Oh, man, I was right there with ya, my friend.

[identity profile] operatingroom.livejournal.com 2007-08-05 11:40 pm (UTC)(link)
I know I've been commenting a lot on fics (haha sorry about that), but this is really an amazing piece. I'm—my heart is trembling right now, because the end (or the start?) is just really, really right for them. It's like I know it in my bones that that is how they are going to end up. You also made me feel for Tonks, and that is saying a lot because I really hate her. Oh, Remus. Oh, Sirius. This is golden. Thank you.

[identity profile] dollsome.livejournal.com 2007-08-06 11:03 pm (UTC)(link)
Ohhh, man, thank you so much. :) I'm really glad you liked it!

[identity profile] freed-wings.livejournal.com 2007-09-19 02:24 am (UTC)(link)
Oh my god. I nearly cried. Beautiful.

[identity profile] dollsome.livejournal.com 2007-09-19 04:28 am (UTC)(link)
Aw, thank you!
ext_24538: (her name was rose.)

[identity profile] xbriyeon.livejournal.com 2007-11-06 02:00 am (UTC)(link)
Oh god, thank you for exorcising some of my R/T!demons.. this was absolutely wonderful though slightly bittersweet (how could it not be though --

[identity profile] dollsome.livejournal.com 2007-11-06 05:49 am (UTC)(link)
Aw, thank you very much! Glad to help exorcise some of those demons. ;-)

[identity profile] taigne.livejournal.com 2007-11-06 04:35 pm (UTC)(link)
Hi, I followed a link here from accio_rs_fics and had to say how it's great, I totally agree with your take on the situation! The reverse order works very well, the little links and how you get the realizations before the justifications Remus makes, You've managed to make Remus flawed but totally understandable and somewhat sympathetic, I love it.

[identity profile] dollsome.livejournal.com 2007-11-07 03:23 am (UTC)(link)
Aw, thank you very much. :) I'm glad you enjoyed it!

[identity profile] bronze-ribbons.livejournal.com 2008-01-15 02:45 pm (UTC)(link)
Here via a crack_broom rec. This is honest and beautiful, and I'll be rec'ing it myself on my insanejournal.

[identity profile] dollsome.livejournal.com 2008-01-15 05:43 pm (UTC)(link)
Aw, thank you very much! I'm glad you enjoyed it.

[identity profile] lefaym.livejournal.com 2008-02-03 02:39 am (UTC)(link)
I only just found this-- but this is pretty much exactly how I saw Tonks and Remus after DH. This is one of those fics that really makes me believe Remus/Sirius.

[identity profile] dollsome.livejournal.com 2008-02-03 02:55 am (UTC)(link)
Aw, thank you! :D

here via trailingoff

[identity profile] secretsolitaire.livejournal.com 2008-02-05 12:08 am (UTC)(link)
Gorgeous! Really helps fill in a few holes in DH. ;-)

Re: here via trailingoff

[identity profile] dollsome.livejournal.com 2008-02-05 12:09 am (UTC)(link)
Thank you! :)
ext_114030: i'll chase you. to the sun and the moon and back again. i won't stop. (Default)

[identity profile] roterhimmel.livejournal.com 2008-09-28 10:09 am (UTC)(link)
He feels closer to them than he has in seventeen years. Perhaps this is how he knows.

Goodness, this killed me. There's so much in this line, there's been the waiting for seventeen years, for death, the longing to be with his friends again, and the inevitable knowledge... 'he knows', he's going to die.

The effect of telling the story reversible works very well. In any case it shows the reader which way the R/T relationship went, and it's so very sad. But it's a great effect, and the ending, the end of all, really did me in. After all this time, it's the end that makes him happy like never before...

Do you mind me reccing this?

[identity profile] dollsome.livejournal.com 2008-09-28 07:57 pm (UTC)(link)
Aw, thank you very much! :) And, no, I don't mind you reccing it at all! I'm flattered that you'd want to!

[identity profile] phiso-kun.livejournal.com 2010-04-15 03:30 am (UTC)(link)
This is amazing. Amazing amazing AMAZING~

It's sad and sweet and it makes me want to sing with joy and sadness. I love how you tie it together, how the beginning is the end and vice versa, and how while chronologically things get worse before they get better, in your story the strings are at first tied together before they are cut and forced to unravel.

I don't know. That didn't make much sense. But this is beautiful and I don't know how many S/R + R/T stories I've read that could be considered as gorgeous as this. FANTASTIC job.

[identity profile] dollsome.livejournal.com 2010-04-15 03:56 am (UTC)(link)
Aw, thank you so much! :D I've become a bit uncertain about this one over the years, so it's great to hear that it worked for you!

[identity profile] ladyannikaa.livejournal.com 2010-05-03 09:38 pm (UTC)(link)
Great job!

[identity profile] bloodrebel333.livejournal.com 2010-09-14 06:55 pm (UTC)(link)
Now, Remus realizes, he is Sirius again, without any of the shadows. More than anything else, understanding this feels like coming home.

Teddy, tiny and perfect and fragile, infinitely more terrifying than this moment; his wife, who he thinks lately he could come to love in time. Absurdly, he can’t stop thinking of the sound of James’s voice, the way Lily’s hair caught sunlight; and Sirius, laughing. He feels closer to them than he has in seventeen years. Perhaps this is how he knows.

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