Darkness met him like an old friend.
He should have been afraid of it by now. Instead, he found it almost kind.
A heavy blackness pressed in on all sides, so complete he was not sure at first whether his eyes were open. He blinked once, twice. Still nothing. His limbs felt weighed down, his chest tight, as though some invisible force were holding him to the bed. Every small movement made his joints ache. His head throbbed with a dull pressure behind his eyes, as if his mind had been packed with mist.
Where…?
The chill in the air was familiar. Then came the smell, sharp antiseptic beneath lavender. The Hospital Wing.
Of course. His body had recognised it before his mind had caught up: the starch in the sheets, the muted hum of spells keeping pain at bay, and the faint clink of bottles being moved on a tray nearby.
Footsteps followed, soft and measured. Curtains rustled. He turned his head, though the effort made his neck protest.
A figure stepped into view. Slim. Upright. Efficient.
Madam Pomfrey.
Even through the haze, he knew her. She carried the same air she always had: calm, brisk, overworked. But this time her face was not set in reprimand. She looked… relieved.
She let out a quiet breath and placed a hand briefly on the bed frame. "Thank Merlin," she murmured. "You are awake."
He tried to sit up, out of instinct rather than sense, and immediately regretted it. Pain seared through his muscles and settled like fire in his back. With a faint groan, he sank into the pillows again.
His throat felt raw. "What happened?" The words came broken and hoarse. He had meant them to sound calm, detached if possible, but they came out weak.
"You collapsed," Madam Pomfrey said, her voice gentler than usual but still edged with professional impatience. "Complete magical exhaustion. You should have come to me long before it reached this point."
He exhaled softly. That sounded like him. Always waiting until it was too late.
She adjusted the blanket, smoothing it across his chest. Then she hesitated.
"She stayed with you," she said. "The one with the pink hair. Sat here half the night and refused to leave."
He blinked. "She…?"
Madam Pomfrey gave a faint smile. "Ms Tonks. Determined girl. Like a Kneazle on watch."
He frowned slightly, trying to reach back through the fog. Tonks. Of course. They had been speaking, had they not? The rest blurred away, memories slipping like smoke through fingers.
"Why would she…" he muttered. He shifted and winced. "What time is it?"
"Just past seven," Pomfrey replied, gathering her tray. "I imagine she will be back before long."
He nodded faintly, though his thoughts were still slow to form. Before he could answer, the doors creaked open at the far end of the room.
He knew it was her before he saw her.
The air changed subtly, but enough. A quiet presence, not loud, not intrusive, simply there. Steady. Familiar in a way he could not quite name.
Tonks stepped into view. Her hair was a muted pink, dulled by fatigue. Her shoulders sagged, and her wand hand twitched at her side as if unsure what to do now it was no longer needed.
Madam Pomfrey murmured a farewell and disappeared with the tray, her footsteps fading beyond the curtain.
Tonks crossed the ward slowly, her boots scuffing the floor. When she reached the chair beside his bed, she sank into it with a thump, as though her legs had finally given in. Her robes were creased, her hair frizzed where she had run her fingers through it one too many times.
"You did not have to come," Remus said quietly. It was not reproach, only truth. He had had enough pity in his life.
"I know," she muttered, eyes fixed on the floor.
He studied her for a moment: the tightness in her jaw, the restless twitch of her shoulders, and the way she seemed to be holding herself together by will alone.
"Then why?" he asked.
Silence followed. Not empty. Weighted.
Her fingers worked at a loose thread on her sleeve; her foot tapped against the flagstones, uneven and impatient.
Still, she said nothing.
He waited.
"I do not know," she said at last, her voice faltering just enough to betray her. Something sat behind it, something unsaid.
"I just…" She hesitated. "I wanted to make sure you were all right."
That did something to him. Something small but sharp.
People did not say things like that to him. Not sincerely. Oh, they asked, 'are you well, Remus?′ but it was habit, politeness. Nothing that lingered.
But this was different.
He studied her properly now. The way her shoulders curved inward, as if she were bracing for an answer she was not sure she wanted. Her fingers twitched slightly in her lap, uncertain of what to do. She looked worn down and far too young to be carrying whatever it was that shadowed her expression.
"You were worried about me?" he said, not unkindly. It came out softer than he intended, almost surprised. He even smiled a little, though it barely reached the rest of his face. "You barely know me."
That made her look up.
When their eyes met, the smile vanished at once.
Because what he saw there was not humour. It was not even defiance.
It was knowing.
"I know enough," she said.
Her tone was not stubborn or dramatic. It was quiet. Certain. The way people sound when they are done pretending not to care.
"You are Remus Lupin," she went on, her voice low but steady. "You teach History of Magic, though frankly, I still cannot work out how you make that subject bearable."
He gave a short, surprised huff of laughter. But she was not joking, not really. She had not finished.
"You try not to stand out. But you move like someone who used to. Someone who led people and does not quite trust himself to do it anymore."
His eyes drifted to the edge of the blanket. That one had landed. More than he expected.
"You are kind," she added, and it was the way she said it that caught him, as if it mattered. "You hold doors open even when your arms are full. You ask after students who do not bother answering. And you are quiet in that way people are when they have been lonely for a long time."
Remus swallowed hard. His chest tightened, though he was not entirely sure why.
He should stop this. Tell her she was wrong, or at least that it was not her place to say.
But he did not. Because none of it was wrong.
"And you are tired," she whispered. "Like someone who gave up on being happy a while ago."
That was the one that broke through.
He looked away sharply, lifting his gaze to the ceiling as if the ancient beams above could offer somewhere to hide. Somewhere to send whatever it was that had risen in his throat.
No one was meant to see him like this. Not properly. Not all the way through.
But somehow, she had.
The quiet stretched between them. Not awkward. Simply still. Honest, in the way silence can be when you allow it.
Then, without quite knowing why, he muttered, "Six foot two."
Beside him, she blinked. "What?"
"You said six-one earlier," he replied, glancing over at her with a faint, self-conscious smile. "I am six-two."
There was a pause, long enough for the mood to teeter, then she snorted. Actually snorted. And laughed.
It was short and surprised, as if it had caught her off guard. But it was genuine, and it lit the room in a way even Madam Pomfrey's charms never quite managed.
"Well," she said, leaning back in the chair with a grin that pulled more to one side than the other, "I was bloody close."
He smiled. Not a big one. Not showy. But real, all the same.
She smiled back. Tired, yes, but warm. Grounding.
After that, neither of them spoke for a while, and it did not feel as though anything was missing.
It was the kind of quiet Remus had almost forgotten existed, the comfortable sort, the sort that did not need filling.
"Anti-social is accurate," he murmured eventually, more to himself than to her.
The words slipped out before he could stop them. He usually saved that sort of thing for empty rooms and long, sleepless nights. Words like that were not meant for sharing.
But tonight he did not regret it.
Not with her sitting there, not looking away.
Tonks's eyes brightened—not with pity, thank Merlin, but with something far better. Curiosity. Amusement. As though he had handed her a rare puzzle piece she had not expected him to part with.
A slow, victorious grin spread across her face. "I knew it," she said, then added, "Was that a real smile?"
He scoffed, lifting a hand as if to bat the idea away. "No. Muscle spasm."
She laughed, a bright, easy sound that filled the room and seemed to linger in the air, warmer even than the fire flickering behind her. "You absolutely smiled," she said, grinning at him with delighted defiance. "You are a terrible liar, by the way."
"I have never smiled in my life," he replied evenly.
His mouth twitched again, traitorously.
"Liar," she whispered, almost glowing now.
The sound of her laughter echoed against the stone walls like something rare and badly needed. It softened the room. Softened him, if he was being honest, which he rarely was. He looked at her then, and something inside him stilled. There was no pretence in her. No calculation. Just Tonks, utterly and unapologetically present.
And Merlin help him; he did not want her to stop.
Something stirred in his chest. Subtle. Quiet. Not fear, though he half-expected it. Not guilt. Something gentler. Something tentative and unfamiliar.
"I am not good with people," he said, before he had properly decided to. The words landed between them like something heavy and soft. "Never have been."
But she did not flinch. Did not correct him. Her grin softened into something else—something patient.
"Well," she said lightly, tilting her head, "lucky for you, people are my thing."
Their eyes met. And this time, neither of them looked away.
It was not planned. Yet the moment it happened, it held. Her gaze did not press or pry. She simply saw him. Not the mask. Not the careful restraint. Him.
And for once, it did not make him want to disappear.
After a quiet pause, she said, carefully, "Professor…"
His heart had the audacity to stumble. Ridiculous.
"…Would you consider giving me private History of Magic lessons?"
Remus blinked. "Private lessons?" he echoed, brow creasing slightly. "Why on earth? You are not behind. You have barely had time to fall behind."
She leaned back, mischief flickering at the corners of her mouth. "Why?" she repeated, all innocence. "Because I saved your life, did I not?"
He allowed himself a smile, brief and restrained. "Heroism rarely earns academic privileges," he said drily. "Though I will admit, it is a creative excuse."
"I am full of creative excuses," she said brightly. "Also wit, charm, and a tragic lack of recognition."
He raised an eyebrow. "Modest, too."
"Oh, exhaustingly so."
He laughed then, quietly, from somewhere deep in his chest. And beneath all the cheek, beneath the sparkle she wore like armour, he saw it: the glimmer of something unguarded. A kind of hope, carefully hidden. She did not just want tutoring.
She wanted time.
And the truly reckless part of him, the part he usually buried deep, wanted that too.
"…All right," he said at last, the words slower than usual. "Next Monday. Seven o'clock."
Her whole face lit up like it was morning.
"I will be there," she said, the words almost reverent.
He gave a small nod, glancing down as if the stack of parchment beside him might anchor him. It did not. But still—for a moment—he let himself enjoy the quiet. And the knowledge that, come next Monday, she would return.
Before he could speak again, the curtain rustled aside.
Madam Pomfrey's head appeared, her expression as brisk as ever. "Remus, you have another visitor."
And then another voice followed, warm and unmistakably familiar.
"Hope I am not interrupting."
Remus looked up, and his heart gave a small, foolish jolt.
Lily.
She looked much the same—and yet not quite. A trace of sadness lingered around her eyes that had not been there before.
He straightened automatically, schooling his expression into something vaguely composed. "Not at all," he said quickly. "We were just finishing."
Lily's gaze slid to the young woman at his bedside. There was no suspicion in it, only mild curiosity and a flicker of polite recognition.
"A student?" she asked lightly.
"Yes," Remus said evenly.
But beside him, Tonks had gone very still.
He did not need to look at her to feel the change. The air shifted. She drew inward, like a breath held too long. Her posture stiffened, shoulders square, and spine rigid, as if she were bracing for impact. The colour drained from her cheeks.
Then, too quickly, she stood. The scrape of the chair against the stone rang far louder than it should have.
"I was just leaving," she said, voice clipped, already turning away.
"Ms Tonks," Remus began, rising too fast. The room tilted, his vision dipping as he caught the curtain to steady himself. "Wait, please."
She paused.
Turned.
Her face had flushed now, but not from embarrassment. It was something else. Her jaw was tight, her mouth set in a line that looked close to breaking.
"What?" she asked. The word was sharp but fragile, the edges cracking. Not angry.
Wounded.
Remus stared at her, caught off guard by how much it hurt to see her like that. He lifted a hand, unsure what to say—what could possibly make it better—and then let it fall.
"Ms Tonks, Lily is—"
"I know who she is," Tonks interrupted, too quickly. Her voice wavered on the last syllable. "You do not have to explain."
Before he could form another word, she turned again.
Walked out.
"I am not dismissing you," he said, stepping after her, but too late. His voice landed in her absence.
"I get it," she said, still walking. Her voice reached him just before the door did. "It is not my business."
The door clicked shut behind her.
Her footsteps echoed in the corridor, each one louder than it should have been. Like full stops at the end of something unfinished.
Remus stood there, hand resting on the curtain, staring at the space where she had been. The room felt colder now. Still, but not peaceful. Just… quiet, in the wrong sort of way.
Behind him, Lily said nothing. She did not need to.
After a moment, she crossed the room and took the chair Tonks had left behind. Her hands folded neatly in her lap. Her presence was gentle and measured, but her eyes were sharp. Watching.
"Are you all right?" she asked softly.
Remus released a breath he had not realised he was holding. He sat down heavily on the edge of the bed and rubbed a hand across his face.
"I do not know."
Lily made a quiet, thoughtful sound.
"She likes you," she said after a pause.
He let out a bitter little laugh. "She should not."
Lily arched one eyebrow. "And why not?"
"Because I will only disappoint her," he said. A beat passed. "And she is a minor."
Lily did not argue. She did not offer comfort or denial. She simply looked at him, steady and level, as she always had.
"She is probably nearly seventeen," she said. "Old enough to decide whether you are a disappointment or not."
He did not respond. He could not.
The chair beside him still held the warmth she had left behind.
But it felt painfully empty all the same.
The Room of Requirement had outdone itself.
It shimmered like some dreamt-up fantasy, a little too perfect and a little too golden at the edges. Everything glowed with that warm, lazy kind of magic, as if the room knew you wanted to forget something and had dressed accordingly. Fairy lights bobbed gently above velvet pouffes, and students lounged in soft heaps, flushed and laughing, the air thick with sugar and noise. From a gramophone tucked in the corner came the slow lilt of jazz, old and curling, as if the notes were half-asleep and had nothing left to prove.
At the far end, the drinks table was showing off. Bottles fizzed and glowed, pouring themselves without invitation. The kind of thing that would have given any decent professor heart palpitations. But that was the point. No rules here. No eyes. Just too much sparkle and the gentle hum of denial.
Tonks strode in as though she owned the place.
Her hair was a punchy pink cropped close to her skull, her eyeliner a little smudged, and her boots loud against the floor. She looked as if she had kicked the door open on purpose, which, to be fair, she nearly had.
Wild Tonks. Mad Tonks. Always-up-for-a-laugh Tonks.
She gave them the version they expected. She always did.
Even when her stomach was twisted into something small and sour. Even when her thoughts were still tangled up in the hospital wing, with the man who had not meant to hurt her but had anyway.
Remus.
The way he had looked at her, soft and startled, as if kindness was something he was not sure he deserved. And then the change. The shift when she walked in and Lily followed. That name. That memory.
And she, Nymphadora bloody Tonks, had stood there like a spare chair. Like a silly girl with a crush.
She pushed the thought down, deep.
"Tonks! About time!"
Penny's voice rang above the chatter. Already half-cut, she stood on a pouffe like a general surveying her troops, Butterbeer in one hand, glitter on her cheek, grinning as if the ceiling might cave in from sheer joy.
Tonks threw a lazy salute, flashing her usual grin. "Could not let you lot start the bad decisions without me."
The room cheered. Of course it did.
That was her part: a bit of cheek, a bit of chaos. The Hufflepuff who tripped over her own feet and somehow made it look deliberate.
Someone nearby, one of the Ravenclaws, Jules or something, was nursing a drink that looked positively radioactive, blue and bubbling ominously.
Tonks clocked him and said, loudly enough to raise eyebrows, "That is my boyfriend, apparently."
He gave a vague nod without even lifting his eyes.
She turned to Chiara with a theatrical groan. "Honestly, I could set myself on fire, and he would still call me that Hufflepuff with the hair."
Chiara snorted. "He has that emotionally constipated artist thing going on."
"The worst genre of boy," Tonks replied at once. "All angst, no arc."
Laughter rippled. Penny whooped. Someone conjured more confetti than was strictly necessary.
And for a moment, it worked. The ache loosened its grip.
Then came a small voice.
"Wow."
Tonks turned.
Badeea stood near the doorway, small and blinking, as if she was not quite sure she was meant to be there. Her satchel clung to her shoulder like a lifeline, sleeves pulled down over her hands. She looked one half ready to bolt and the other half determined not to.
Tonks hesitated.
Had she invited her? No, probably Chiara or Penny. They had a habit of dragging in quiet ones, like cats rescuing birds.
Still, Tonks offered a half-smile, something easy, something safe.
Badeea was looking at her as though she had just seen something impossible, as if Tonks had stepped off the page of a story she had not been brave enough to finish.
Tonks shoved her hands into her pockets, rocking back on her heels. "You alright?"
Badeea hesitated, then nodded, the kind of nod people gave when yes was easier than the truth.
"I am fine," she said at last, and then, after a beat, "You are… good at this."
Tonks tilted her head. "Good at what? Barging in like I own the place?"
Badeea's gaze dropped. "No. At… being here. Talking. Acting like you belong."
There was a pause.
Then Tonks huffed a short breath. "Oh, love, no one actually belongs at these things. We just learn to fake it better every time."
Chiara sidled up, catching the tail end of the conversation. "Speak for yourself," she said breezily. "I thrive on social chaos."
Tonks grinned. "You survive on snacks and spite."
"Which is thriving," Chiara agreed, beaming.
Penny staggered back with two drinks and an unapologetic slosh. "Want something, Badeea? I know you are underage, but honestly, who is keeping count?"
Tonks shot her a look. "Oi. Be nice. She is with me."
Even she was a little surprised at how quickly that came out. But she did not take it back.
Badeea blinked, startled, as if she was not used to being claimed. She looked at Tonks properly this time, and Tonks thought perhaps there was hope flickering behind her eyes.
Penny raised her hands, all mock innocence. "Right, right. Hufflepuff heart in action."
Tonks turned back to Badeea, lowering her voice slightly. "You do not have to be clever, you know. Half the people here are just recycling someone else's sarcasm or inventing new personalities."
Badeea frowned. "Inventing… what?"
"Fake backstories," Tonks said easily. "Julian over there tells anyone who will listen that he is descended from Merlin. That girl near the bookshelf reckons she is a quarter Veela. Complete nonsense. Completely brilliant."
That earned a faint smile from Badeea. "And what about you? What is yours?"
Tonks smirked. "Cursed Inferius, raised by pixies and sarcasm. But only on Thursdays."
Badeea let out a quiet laugh, small and surprised, as though it had slipped out before she could stop it.
Tonks tilted her head. "See? You have already passed the vibe check."
"I did not realise I was taking one."
"You always are." Tonks gave Chiara a nudge with her elbow but kept her eyes on Badeea.
Too soft for this crowd.
Too open. Too earnest. The sort of person the world nibbled at slowly until the best parts wore thin.
She should have warned her. Walked her back to the library and left her to something safer. Instead, she scanned the crowd and spotted Rowan Khanna by the drinks table, deep in animated conversation with the punch bowl.
"Oi, Khanna!" she called.
Rowan looked up sharply, blinking as though summoned, and made his way over, grinning already. All limbs and enthusiasm.
Tonks gestured. "This is Badeea."
Rowan's eyes widened. "Oh! Badeea Ali! You built that kinetic sculpture in the Ravenclaw tower, the one with the quills and copper wire?"
Badeea stared. "You… know about that?"
"Know about it?" Rowan looked delighted. "I told my cousin about it in a letter. You are sort of a minor legend in our study room."
Badeea went bright red. "I did not think anyone noticed."
Rowan waved a hand. "Rubbish. You have got 'underestimated genius' written all over you. Come on, I will show you which bookcase does not try to eat your fingers."
As they wandered off, Tonks caught Badeea's eye and gave her a thumbs-up. Badeea smiled, a proper one this time, small but real.
Good.
That was better. That was safe.
Someone else could be kind to her now.
Tonks turned before she had to watch. Rowan was harmless, the way bookish boys often were. Sweet and strange and utterly unaware of how the world could tear you to pieces with a smile on its face.
She moved through the crowd again, past the fizzing lights, the false laughter, and the sound of something too cheerful to be trusted. Someone shoved a drink into her hand. She took it without looking.
The glass stayed full. Her grin did too.
She did not want fun tonight.
She wanted silence to shut up. She wanted the ache in her chest to stop echoing with the words, 'You will never be her.′
Not Lily.
Not someone you write songs about.
That voice, sharp and certain, knew where to cut. Clean and deep.
You are the storm, Nymphadora. The mess. The footnote.
And even your chaos is getting predictable.
She looked around and saw faces and movement and magic, but none of it meant anything. Just noise. Just performance. All of them trying to be seen.
For a flicker, a breath, she thought of Badeea again. The way she had looked at her. Like she was something remarkable.
Like she mattered.
And for that one stupid moment, Tonks had almost believed it.
Almost.
But not tonight.
Not yet.
She drank. The burn barely registered.
A laugh rang out across the room, sharp and bright and horribly familiar. It cut straight through her like lightning.
She did not break.
She did not cry.
She just stood there, glass in hand, surrounded and somehow still utterly alone.
Much later.
The party had drained away, leaving behind velvet shadows and the echo of laughter that lingered like perfume, faint and far-off and not quite real anymore. The fire had long since burnt down to a dull glow, but something in the air still pulsed faintly, like embers that had not yet accepted the quiet.
The Room of Requirement had shifted again. It always did when no one was watching, when someone needed it. It had read something in her, some ache she had not named, and answered like a loyal, slightly deranged friend.
Gone was the chaos. In its place came hush.
Pillows were scattered like clouds. The light had dipped into a soft violet hum, casting sleepy halos across the floor. Lavender hung in the air, sweet, steady and just a bit sad. The gramophone had stopped crooning. Even the magic itself seemed to have curled up and drifted off.
Tonks sat cross-legged on a cushion that floated an inch above the ground, cradling a drink that fizzed green and sweet against her tongue. She was not drunk.
She rather wished she were.
Because even now, with the quiet draped around her like a blanket, she could still hear it.
Lily.
That name did not belong to her. It never had.
Her name was Nymphadora. Tonks, if she had the choice. But never Lily.
Movement stirred behind her.
She did not turn. She lifted her chin slightly and murmured, "You are up. Morning."
A rustle followed. Then a groan.
Badeea blinked blearily awake, tangled in a nest of cushions and a robe that definitely was not hers. She looked as if she had been gently misplaced by the universe and was only just noticing.
"Why am I…?" she croaked, voice rough, eyes squinting.
"You had three Firewhiskies," Tonks said breezily. "Went down like a bloody champion. I floated you off before you introduced your face to the table leg. Might have bumped you into a beam or two on the way. Oops."
Badeea groaned, scrubbing at her eyes. "Merlin. Did I really?"
Tonks turned to look at her at last.
Oh, bless.
Her hair stuck up in every direction, lipstick smeared halfway across one cheek as though she had tried to kiss a hurricane. She looked like a slightly confused portrait someone had started and then abandoned for tea.
"You were magnificent," Tonks said. "Like a rag doll swimming through curtains. You got tangled in your own scarf and accused it of betrayal."
Badeea made a small, strangled sound and buried her face in her hands. "Did I say anything terrible?"
"You kept asking if Rowan's nose was a Glamour Charm," Tonks said cheerfully. "Then you cried about clouds."
"I cried?"
"Just a bit. You said something about the ephemeral sorrow of condensation. Very moving."
"I have to leave," Badeea muttered, already trying to sit up.
"You can barely see straight, love." Tonks waved her wand, summoning a glass of water to her hand. "Here. Drink this. And let me sort your face out, all right?"
Badeea took the glass with trembling fingers. "My face?"
"You have got mascara trying to escape into another century. Very 'haunted governess with regrets'. Cute, but tragic."
With another flick, Tonks cleaned the smudges, straightened Badeea's fringe and coaxed some kind of order back into her general chaos.
Badeea flushed a soft pink, her eyes wandering around the room as though she was seeing it properly for the first time.
The velvet drapes glowed faintly, wine-red and whisper-soft. Candles hovered in the air like half-dreams. The picture frames on the walls flickered between different versions of Tonks: laughing, pulling faces, and one with bright turquoise hair and a wink every few seconds.
"This is your flat?" Badeea asked, voice low and awed.
Tonks shook her head, leaning back on her elbows. "Still the Room. I just nudged it a bit. Tried to make it look like my dad's old place in London." She shrugged. "Or how I remember it."
"Really?"
There was something reverent in the way Badeea said it, as though she was not just looking at furniture but at a memory someone had left open.
"It is beautiful," she said after a pause, quiet and careful, as if the words might break if she said them wrong.
Tonks shrugged, suddenly a little awkward. "It is memory-heavy," she muttered. "But yes. He was… connected."
Connected. That was the word she used when everything else was a mess.
Messy. Twisted. Gone. Connected made it sound neat. Manageable. Less likely to come spilling out if she poked it too hard.
Badeea glanced towards the wall again. "That one," she said, pointing at a moving photo, "with your hair all bright green… what were you doing?"
Tonks leaned forward, squinting. "Oh, that," she said with a short laugh. "Trying to cook an omelette. Ended up setting the cooker on fire. Took out half the kitchen wall. He laughed for ten straight minutes, the absolute nutcase."
"You look happy," Badeea murmured.
Tonks did not answer right away. Her eyes stayed fixed on the photo. The loop played again: her face mid-laugh, the flames behind her licking the wallpaper, his hand just in frame, reaching for her shoulder.
A perfect moment. Frozen in time.
"I was," she said finally. "That is the worst part."
A pause followed.
"You do not talk about him much, do you?" Badeea asked, her voice gentle, not prying.
Tonks shook her head. "Not unless I have had at least four Firewhiskies and someone starts playing dusty old Muggle records. Then I get ridiculous and sentimental. It is not pretty."
"I would still like to hear about him," Badeea said softly. "Even without the music."
Tonks looked at her properly then. Badeea's face was still blotchy with sleep, her fringe half-stuck to her forehead, but her eyes had that look. Steady. Open. Waiting. Not out of nosiness. Out of care.
And that…
That did something.
"Maybe," Tonks said quietly. "One day."
Badeea did not push. Just nodded, as though she understood.
Then she turned her head, caught sight of herself in the tall mirror by the bookshelf, and froze.
"Is that… me?"
Tonks put her glass down. "You are gorgeous," she said, too fast, too honestly. It slipped out before she could stop it. "Thought you might want to wake up looking a bit… well. Brilliant."
She tried to laugh it off, to swallow whatever that was that rose in her throat after she said it. Just a joke. Just friendly.
But her voice had come out wrong. Not playful. Not distant. Something in it sounded like hope.
"Smokin' hot," came Penny's voice from the doorway, all drawl and swagger. She strolled in as if she owned the place, boots gleaming despite everything, eyes sharp with leftover glitter.
Chiara trailed behind her, silent, pale, wrapped in a cardigan three sizes too big and clutching a mug as though it were a lifeline.
"I would want to look sexier for our next job," Penny added with a wink, stretching like a cat across the arm of the settee.
"Job?" Badeea echoed, still blinking slowly. She looked as if she had woken up inside the wrong fairytale and had not yet figured out the plot twist.
"We freelance," Chiara said airily, flopping into a nearby beanbag with the kind of grace that suggested she had never tripped on a staircase in her life. "Help out where we are needed. Magical odds and ends."
Badeea tilted her head, brow furrowed. "Like… helping Madam Pince catalogue the library?"
Tonks let out a snort, raising an eyebrow.
"Not quite," she said.
"Oh," Badeea said again. She sounded like she could not tell whether this was still banter or if she had missed something important.
Penny's grin widened, bright and polished, just a touch too sharp. "We date sugar daddies," she said sweetly.
Silence fell like a dropped book.
Heavy. Whole. Complete.
Chiara sighed into her tea. Penny winked again. Badeea looked as though someone had hexed her eyebrows halfway up her forehead.
Tonks just sipped her drink and did not correct anything.
Let them sit in it for a bit.
"What?" Badeea breathed, her voice barely more than mist on glass.
Tonks leant back, arms folded behind her head, eyes on the cracked ceiling tiles above. "It is just sex," she said plainly, as if she were commenting on the weather. "Paid. Stupid amounts too. A couple of hundred Galleons for a night. More if they are feeling generous, or lonely, or trying to prove something to someone."
She said it like it did not matter anymore. Like it had stopped meaning anything long before Badeea had asked.
Badeea looked around the room again, properly this time. The gilded embroidery on the cushions, the crystal perfume bottles glinting like spoils of war, and the robes that shimmered if you stared too long. Luxury conjured not from money, but from want. From magic and carefully performed affection.
"But…" she began, faltering, her voice catching.
Tonks spread her arms, half defiant, half bone-tired. "This place? The sponsor sorted it. 'Daddy', if we are being technical." Her voice curled around the word, dry and brittle with irony.
"Daddy," Badeea repeated quietly. As if she were trying it out on her tongue, testing if it could sound less sharp.
Chiara stepped forward, quiet as snowfall, voice soft as candlelight. "We like you, Badeea," she said simply. "You could stay. If you wanted."
Tonks watched her. That flicker of uncertainty, the tight pull around the mouth, the ache behind the eyes. She recognised it. Knew it too well. It was the look you gave when you wanted something you did not understand. When you did not belong anywhere, and someone offered you somewhere. Even if it was wrong. Even if it cost too much.
"You do not want this," Tonks said gently. Not accusing. Just wondering. Quiet hope underneath.
"I do!" Badeea said quickly, too quickly. Her voice cracked at the end. "I do, but—"
"But what?" Penny drawled, already bored, already pouring herself a glass of something that fizzed with malice. "She is not like us."
Tonks stood. The weight of the night caught her all at once. "Go, Badeea," she said, not unkindly. "This was a mistake. I should not have dragged you in. I do that sometimes. Think people will fit into the cracks I have carved out."
She hesitated. Swallowed something down.
Then, softer, almost not there: "You stay soft, all right? Stay whole. We have already splintered. That is our thing now."
Chiara gave a slow nod, arms loosely crossed. "It was short," she murmured. "But we liked you."
Tonks turned then, ready to vanish into another room, another lie.
"Wait!"
She paused. Badeea had scrambled upright, swaying slightly, but her eyes were clear now. Wide. Bright.
"Let me stay," she said. "I want to."
Penny raised an eyebrow, unimpressed. "What?"
"I want to be part of this. With you."
Tonks blinked, startled. "You do not need to," she said carefully. "No one is asking you to prove anything."
"It is not exactly a knitting circle," Penny muttered, swilling her drink. "She will run the moment someone cries on her new shoes."
"No. I will be fine," Badeea said, firmer this time. Her voice did not wobble. "I like being with you."
Tonks looked at her. Something in her chest twisted, tight and strange. Not painful. Not quite.
Just… unexpected.
Like a window cracking open in a room you had forgotten had air.
She gave a small, crooked smile. Sad at the edges. Hopeful in the middle.
"Oh, Badeea," she said quietly. "Thanks."
Badeea drew her knees to her chest, perched on the edge of the cushion as if one wrong move might shatter whatever fragile thing she had just chosen.
"So," she said, soft but steady, "what do I do first?"
Penny groaned theatrically. "Merlin's beard, we are going to have to do the vetting talk again, are we not?"
Tonks laughed. It was low, warm, and almost real.
"First," she said, "you get breakfast. Then we start corrupting you."
And Badeea smiled back.
Not scared this time.
But Tonks was. Because she had seen that look before. And it never ended kindly.