(I finally decided how to split the now-10K words into two lol so I forced this out, the next might be ready by the weekend, unsure...)
"I thought it might be easier if we were somewhere private." Dawlish began as they sat. "I know this might be difficult, but I need to know if you've been in contact with any Death Eaters or enthusiasts since the war's end."
"Absolutely not." Draco snapped immediately, unable to stop the offence from rising. He did understand why Dawlish had to ask, and he forced himself to swallow the inherit instinct to get overly defensive.
Keep your head, you've done nothing wrong.
"If you have any information, Draco, we need it."
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I have a genuinely important question that has been bothering me for the past few days.
BH is currently almost 360k words and 59 chapters, and the story covers years 1–4, which means we’re roughly halfway through.
So… should I keep updating this fic, or would it be better to start a new fic in the series covering years 5–7?
Does it make any difference to you? Is there anyone who would like to read the story but doesn’t want to slog through four years of school and would rather start with year 5? (For anyone who doesn’t know, this is an AU where Tonks goes to Hogwarts with the Marauders.) Do you think a new fic could work better because it would let me start with a more mature version of the characters? Or would you rather see them grow up gradually throughout the original fic?
If you have any thoughts on this, let me know in the comments or in my inbox!
So, what should I do with BH?
Keep writing it in the original fic
Split the fic into two parts
I don’t care, I don’t read this fic — I just want to see the results
"Would you like my robes?" Remus offered at once, noticing how tightly she was hunching her shoulders, already reaching for the clasp at his chest.
"No, it's fine, really!" Tonks objected hastily, though her palms, tucked inside the long sleeves of her jumper, had already turned into two icicles. "You'll freeze to death yourself then."
"I thought we had already established this," he gave a restrained chuckle, warm sparks glinting in his eyes. "I hardly ever feel the chill. Besides, watching you turn into an ice statue mid-match is quite beyond my endurance."
"It's all part of my master plan, Lupin," Tonks attempted a joke, though her teeth were beginning to chatter faintly in the wind.
"Practising changing my lip colour to a delicate pale blue. I hear it's all the rage with Ravenclaws at the moment."
"I fear that particular shade of blue doesn't suit you, Nymphadora," he said softly and very gently, using her full name in a way that sent goosebumps down her spine that had nothing to do with the cold.
"Besides, your outfit is dreadfully inadequate for a Scottish March."
"Oh, here we go. You sound just like my mother," she grumbled in feigned annoyance, though a sheepish smile broke across her face.
"Your mother is evidently a wise woman, then. Allow me to help."
tyvm @vauxhallroadnewsagents and @ri--rina for the tags! <3
...struggling to come up with anyone who hasn't been tagged, if you fancy it go ahead (pls @ me if you take me up on it even if we've never spoken, i'd love to see it).
here's the opening scene from pt 2 of the garden path... which i've been dragging my feet on finalising to post lol rip. swear it's coming (so are tonks and lupin - not quite yet in this extract)
——
A cavernous kitchen. Hearth fire crackling, the flickering amber light pushing back the dark. Heat rising.
"Do me a favour and get my back Remus? Can't reach," Tonks asks, sliding the bruise paste along the table. Appealing eyes saucer-wide, fluttering today's long, russet eyelashes.
Remus swallows.
"Err — right. Yes. I suppose I could," he manages, biting back a panicked whimper when she turns in her chair and pulls her jumper over her head.
The fire's glow dances across alabaster skin, reddish blotches blighting where the stinging hex struck, disappearing and reappearing under her sports bra. Lithe muscles shifting as she rolls strong shoulders, tapering down to a slender waist. A pretty constellation of moles. Dimpled indents to either side of her spine, just above the low rise waistband of her jeans, about the size of his fingertip.
He averts his eyes. Eventually. Hands shaking on the jar's lid, feeling every inch a loathsome pervert.
"Cheers. Not my best work in that last round, leaving my back exposed. Reckon Mad-Eye wanted to string me up," she says, oblivious to his torment.
"Well, Sirius is an excellent duellist. He always was. You got him with that knee reversal."
A lowball from her, but it seems unkind to agree with her self-deprecation. He dips his fingers in the jar, taking a moment to warm the paste in his hand before it touches her skin.
And to summon up the nerve.
"Nah, no excuse, I was crap," she says affably, eyeing him over her shoulder. "Not the only one. Molly destroyed you, eh?"
He nods. "Yes, she was on top form."
Tonks scoffs at that.
"Ha! Piss off. Molly's more alright than she thinks, but you're better. If you'd tried you'd have won that."
Tempting to deny it, but the accusation strikes him remarkably like a confession. Molly had needed the confidence boost about as much as Sirius had needed his mood lifted.
He eyes her speculatively — her face. Much safer.
"Auror Tonks, I suspect I might say the same to you."
Her vulpine smile, a vice around his skittering heart. Not safer after all.
"Not unprompted, or you would've. Don't tell him. You ever gonna put that on my back or just play about with it?"
He summons an unimpressed look to skewer her with, then obediently shuffles his chair closer anyway.
Taking a fortifying breath, he reaches up to skim his fingertips across the uppermost welt on her right shoulder.
Tonks sighs, her shoulders dropping and relaxing. When it's clear she won't recoil, he starts to rub the bruise paste in small, widening circles. Her skin is unfathomably soft and supple.
"Let me know if I hurt you," he says, and it comes out in a gravelly whisper. He winces at the sound, clearing his throat.
"Mmm? No, that feels great," she breathes, leaning back into his touch. "Make sure you get under the band of my bra, I'm sore there."
Somehow, his free hand finds its way to cupping her left shoulder as he works, scooping a more generous helping of the paste up before allowing his fingers to slip underneath the tight band. This time his whole hand makes contact with her skin. Sternly, he reminds himself not to enjoy it too much or linger longer than necessary. A challenging undertaking.
The back of her neck exposed under curling, copper wisps of her sweet smelling hair.
A sudden, mad urge to lean in and press his lips behind her ear. Appalling. He wrestles the impulse down.
Lecher. Disgusting. Taking advantage of her trusting nature.
"That's sooo good. D'you know, I bet you'd give amazing massages," she purrs as his thumb rubs idly along her lower back.
He titters awkwardly, face uncomfortably warm. "Oh. Err, can't say I ever have."
"That's a shame. You've got dead nice hands."
With no idea what to do with a statement like that or what an appropriate response might be, he continues with the task at hand.
He's leisurably treating the last of her nascent bruises when the kitchen door swings opens. Sirius lofts a brow at the scene in front of him, meeting his eye for a second knowingly.
"Well, well. I'd wondered where the two of you skulked off to."
Remus startles back at once, shame-burned. A cringing record-scratch screech of chair legs across stone floor.
"Excellent. Looks better already. Tea, anyone?" he asks, strained.
Mugs come wordlessly flying from each of them. A flick of his wand to pop the kettle on; hunching forward over the table, gazes unmet all around.
Sirius hobbles his way into the room and hurls himself into a seat, knees evidently stiff from their earlier reversal. Tonks stretches langorously, lets out a decadent groan he can feel in his pulse, then shrugs her jumper back over her head.
"Wotcher arsehole," she yawns. "We're duelling again next time, that was pathetic of me."
Sirius's lip curls upwards, eyes saccading between them. "The duel?"
Steam flowing from the kettle. When he stands to pour the tea, Remus is grateful for the forgiving billow of his robes.
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Thank you so much for tagging me, @stoneislandbutch! 🤍
Here's the beginning of the next chapter of Golden Cage:
Quiet, melancholic music drifted across the room, mingling with the barely audible, measured rustling—her owl on the wardrobe was lazily preening its feathers. A gentle summer breeze, slipping through the wide-open window, fluttered the edge of a thin parchment. Nymphadora gripped it a little tighter with confident fingers, forcing herself not to look away from the lines.
Condition after condition. Duty after duty. Rule after rule.
At first glance, Lupin's contract contained nothing glaringly obvious, yet at the same time, absolutely everything about it was terrifying. Despite years of working in the Ministry and attending sessions of the Wizengamot, despite the fact that this document had been read by her a dozen times over the past few days, she was still struck by how flawless phrasing, artful terminology, and legal euphemisms could disguise a frightening, primitive cruelty.
As, for instance, how the dry clause "Ensuring containment during periods of cyclical instability" actually meant heavy, silver-reinforced bonds in basement cells where the werewolf would be locked away during a transformation. Or how the wording "Automated verification of statement reliability" was merely an exquisite way of saying: "a slave's ankle bears a bracelet that burns the internals with a Cruciatus shock each time he attempts to conceal the truth." The line "Disposal of illiquid assets in the event of premature termination of obligations"—legal code for a Dementor's Kiss within twenty-four hours.
Her eyes dropped to the very bottom of the page, where Dorian Travers's signature stood in a sweeping, confident hand.
Nymphadora bit her lip until it ached, still not knowing what to think.
tagging @insertcpnhere @grindylowtank @duplicitlywistful @usaigi and anyone else who fancies it!
The creak of the front door, which should have been oiled a couple of months ago.
The quiet rustle of a heavy cloak as it was slipped off shoulders and carelessly tossed onto a hook.
Dora’s not-so-quiet curse when the cloak slipped to the floor, and she had to hang it up again.
The dull thud of heavy boots kicked off by the threshold, which someone was bound to trip over tomorrow. By 'someone', of course, Remus always meant her.
Eight and a half short, creaking steps—something really needed to be done about the floorboards in this house, too—from the hallway to the kitchen doorway.
"Wotcher, I'm home."
"Hey," Remus offered a soft smile, wiping an already dry plate with a rag. More imitating activity than actually doing anything useful. "Are you hungry? We have pasta for dinner."
"Oh. No, thanks, I ate at work."
Remus’s gaze dropped to the plate, from which a faint curl of steam was still rising under the lingering warming charm.
Well. Another wasted dinner.
Perhaps he should stop making dinner for her too, just to avoid wasting food that was already scarce enough. Stop setting out that extra plate every evening, only to wash it when she hadn't even touched it.
But doing that would mean admitting there was a problem. And Remus wasn't ready for that.
Perhaps he should have asked what these regular refusals meant. Had she just grabbed a quick bite on the go? Or had a heavy meal at the Ministry cafeteria and simply wasn't hungry now? Maybe she was just exhausted and couldn't bring herself to eat? Or... did she no longer want to have dinner with her family? Was there someone else she preferred having dinner with? Who?
Perhaps he should have asked these questions instead of torturing himself with guesses. But when they had first popped into his head about six months ago, voicing them felt absurd. As if he didn't trust her. As if he suspected her of something or was trying to control her.
And now... now it was too late to ask.
"Where’s Teddy?"
Another expected question. Tonight, everything was running strictly on schedule.
"He's already asleep. We had dinner, took a bath, I read to him—"
"But it was my turn tonight!" A sharp note of accusation cut through her voice. "I was supposed to—"
"I know. And we waited for you. Really. But it was getting late, and—"
"It’s not that late, it’s only—" Dora turned abruptly, glancing at the wall clock.
11:43 PM.
She cleared her throat awkwardly, averting her eyes and shoving her cuffs—damp from the dampness outside—deep into her pockets.
"I’ll come home earlier tomorrow."
She had said that yesterday.
"And I’ll try to take Friday off. We could all go to the park together."
He had heard that two weeks ago. That morning, a Ministry owl had arrived with an urgent summons regarding another wave of suspected Death Eater activity. Dora had faithfully promised to go to the park on Saturday. Which, of course, hadn't happened—she only returned home late Sunday evening, exhausted and with dark circles under her eyes.
Remus hadn't reminded her of anything back then. He didn't now, either.
"That sounds great, dear." Remus smiled softly and reached for the plate. He scraped the pasta into the bin and picked up the sponge to finish washing the last dish. "I think Teddy will be thrilled."
