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bronze_ribbonsTitle: On The Same Damn Side
Author: Mechaieh (Bronze Ribbons)
Warning: Assorted character deaths. Voyeurism; some kinks mentioned in passing.
Rating: NC-17
Pairings: Tonks/Remus, Snape/Remus
Summary: Tonks hadn't planned on becoming a ghost. Snape hadn't planned on Tonks.
Words: ~ 5400
Betas: MusIgneus, Aunty Marion, busaikko, and Stasia. And thanks to Lore and the other zine editors, too!
History: Written February-May 2007 (before DH). Published in Chocolate and Asphodel.
Nymphadora Tonks had known she might die during the War, but she hadn't anticipated how annoyed she would be about it. She was vexed, of course, that her demise had taken place in a clothing boutique, although it had also amused her to be proved right: she had told her mother for years that nothing good would come out of Andromeda's persistent campaigns to interest her in feminine frills.
To be fair, however, it was not her mum's fault that the shop had been ambushed by a gaggle of silk-robed Death Eaters during their visit. Thankfully, her mother had promptly obeyed Tonks's orders to Apparate the stunned proprietor away from the scene. With the older ladies safely out of the way, Tonks had actually enjoyed a good deal of the fighting. Outnumbered ten to one, she had literally thrown the contents of the store at the women she'd come to think of as "Voldemort's hens." As she ducked their hexes and dodged their missiles, she'd Transfigured little strappy shoes into grenades powerful enough to demolish walls. She'd converted jewel-embedded hair-sticks and gold-embroidered barrettes into self-propelling knives. She'd charmed soft scarves to melt flesh upon contact, flinging them across the room still half-tangled around their hangers. She'd blinded the women with jangling flurries of necklaces and whipped them with beaded belts.
She hadn't survived the battle, but neither had most of the hens. The instant before the end, recognising she would not be able to twist or lunge away from the final Avada Kedavra, Tonks hurled all of the wandless power at her command toward the roof of the boutique, ripping it free of its moorings. The rafters and plaster and shingles had already begun to avalanche down upon the remaining women as the green light struck her chest and she slumped across the floor-length mirror she'd knocked over earlier.
All told, it had been a good afternoon's work. Some hours later, however, once she returned to consciousness as a spirit, Tonks lingered in a corner of the building's ruins, disconsolately watching Kingsley Shacklebolt and his partner sift through the mess. Not only was she massively irritated that she hadn't managed to stay alive, she felt cheated. It had taken her so very long to persuade Remus Lupin that she was old enough, thrifty enough, and tough enough to cope with both his lycanthropic impairment and his work on behalf of the Order. He'd relocated himself and his few belongings to her flat in Camden Town right after Dumbledore's funeral, and the nights they'd spent in her bed, the kisses they'd stolen in between missions, the jokes they'd traded while sifting through reports and rumours -- there had been so much to share and not nearly enough time. It was grossly unfair that a single short summer was all the gods had seen fit to grant to them.
Not that there's ever enough time, she amended, catching sight of Bill Weasley. His family was still grappling with the death of his brother Charlie, who had perished in an ambush outside of Târgu-Mures the week before Bill and Fleur's original wedding date.
As Bill crouched down next to Kingsley, Tonks crept over to listen in.
". . . took the news well," Bill said, his voice low. "Kept asking how we were, even."
"That's Remus," Kingsley said, collecting the remnants of a shattered wand. "I've never once seen him lose control."
I have, Tonks thought. Both when he wanted to and when he didn't.
"Mum sent two pies," Bill continued. "And, on our way out, Hestia intercepted Isabelle Vautour on the stairs."
"Her, already? Merlin."
Tonks felt as though her intestines had been hit with a Shrivelling Hex. Isabelle Vautour was infamous for her eagerness to offer teacakes and sympathy to recently bereaved men.
"Claimed her Sight showed her what happened," Bill said. "I think she happened to be shopping."
"Oh?" Kingsley paused. "An eyewitness, even?"
"That's exactly what Hestia thought," Bill said. "She's detained Miss Vautour for questioning."
"Good," Kingsley said. "Women like her give vultures a bad name."
"If Tonks were here, she'd be hexed, stuffed, and mounted on a hat already."
Tonks could keep quiet no longer. "I am here," she gritted out. Both men jumped as she stepped into their line of sight. "I'd be at the flat already, but every time I touch a property line I rematerialise on the spot where I died."
Kingsley swore under his breath. "Merlin, Morgana, and Maeve--"
Bill looked at her sympathetically. "You, too? Charlie had the same problem. Took him weeks before he figured out how to show up at the Burrow."
"Strewth. I'd forgotten about that. Fuck. Why didn't Binns ever teach useful stuff, like how to deal with crap like this? A fat lot of good his history does me now."
"Steady there," Bill said. "How about I go find Charlie? He'll be happy to be useful."
"Remus, too?"
Bill hesitated, uncomfortable. "I doubt he'll be back just yet. He all but ordered us to leave because he had 'work to do'."
Tonks stared at him, nonplussed. "Work. You told him I'm dead and he's all about work?"
Kingsley stood up and Vanished the heap of fabric and rubble he had been examining. "Best way to avenge you, isn't it?" he said, the savage swish of his wand belying his cool, reasonable tone. "Keep doing his job, get this sodding war over with. It's not like moping over your body would bring you back."
You're right, of course. God, I hate that you're right. Instead of answering, Tonks kicked a crumpled hosiery rack. She stared at her foot as it glided straight through the tangle of metal and nylon, her consternation mirrored in the expressions on her friends' faces.
Finally, Kingsley muttered, "You'd think we'd be used to this."
"It's bloody fucking different when it's someone you know," Bill said.
"Will you fetch Charlie already?" Tonks pleaded. Nodding, Bill stepped through a gap in the wall and Disapparated.
Kingsley walked over to another clump of debris. Tonks floated to the other side of it.
He studied her for a minute, and then shook his head as if to clear it. He said, "Would you forgive me if I questioned you about it? You did a fine job taking out half of the flock, but more ammunition--"
"To bag a few more? Kingsley, you're brilliant. No wonder you get the worst assignments." Tonks took a deep breath and then walked straight through the mound between them.
Kingsley grimaced at the demonstration but sat down on the ground, patted a spot next to him, and pulled out a quill and scroll. "Why don't you start by listing everyone you recognised."
"Marlene Neelow," Tonks began, with alacrity. "Christine Gardini. Helene Zograf. Simone Laurens. Elspe -- noooooooo!"
A mistle thrush had swooped in, seemingly from nowhere. With a loud rattling call, it had brushed a wing against Tonks' forearm, sucking her whole into the shaft of one of its feathers.
Bitch, Tonks mentally hissed. You wouldn't have taken me alive.She could feel the bird jerk and plummet as a spell singed its tail -- come on, Kingsley, you can do better than that! -- but, to her dismay, the next shock of magic never came.
What kind of Auror are you, Kingsley, that you can't even take down a bird? Tonks knew she wasn't being fair -- a moving target, after nightfall, out of range -- but, sweet Iris, this had not been part of any of her fantasies of the afterlife, and she couldn't think of anything she'd done that she considered heinous enough to merit such a fate.
As autumn deepened into winter, and winter sighed on and on, Tonks endured her imprisonment within the shell-like walls of the shaft as a dull, extended muddle of cold, damp waves. She could dimly perceive the lift and fall of the feather's barbs and filaments as they tugged the shaft to and fro during the thrush's travels from forest to feeder to field.
You pampered hen, Tonks silently groaned, shouldn't you be back in your human form by now? Even as she thought the question, however, Tonks already realised the answer: whatever Dark spell Elspeth Craig had called upon in order to trap a ghost within her flesh had almost certainly condemned her to retain the form in which she had performed the capture. Tonks took a measure of satisfaction in knowing that Elspeth likely hadn't been aware of this side-effect; Tonks herself had learned about it only near the end of a breakfast conversation with Remus that had turned unexpectedly creepy. She had never wanted to learn quite that much about physical transformations gone awry, and there had been a chilly detachment in his gruesome descriptions of torn and slashed hearts literally on sleeves -- still beating -- that had given her a screaming nightmare two nights later.
Fortunately, Remus had been away that night. Remus had been away many nights, and she had been away on so many others. As dark blurred into light and grey against white, it nagged at her, how he had not seemed inclined to spare any time for her memory the night of her death, but she told herself again and again, it doesn't mean he isn't mourning you.
No, but it doesn't mean he is, an inner demon retorted.
You will get nowhere, Tonks admonished herself, maundering over whether he ever loved you as much as you loved him.
It's not as if you're going anywhere as it is, the demon replied.
* * *
A frantic fluttering. A Stunning spell. Then an extended period of stillness before another jumble of dark and light and mustiness. Confined within the feather, Tonks couldn't tell if Elspeth had been freeze-dried or merely indefinitely Petrified, but it wasn't as if the change had altered the framework of her own existence. Her death should have released me -- but does that work on Dark spells? Damn, damn, damn, damn, damn . . .
* * *
When she was finally, suddenly, freed from the feather, toppling over the edge of a table, Tonks heard the clatter of a knife and then a string of guttural oaths and violent cursing. As her senses adjusted to human-scale sensations once more, she realised most of the shouting was coming from a very angry Severus Snape, all of it directed at a slender, sallow-faced man she recognised as Clive Hiverfond, a man she had thought to be an ally of the Order.
Gesturing furiously at the bleeding bird, Snape shouted at the other man, "You. Coward. With fastidious nincompoops like you, no wonder this war will never --"
"It's not like that at all," the other man insisted. "At least you can use --"
"Utility be damned!" Snape spat. "That's all any of you think of. Oh, we need a murderer -- Snape is just the man!" He slashed his wand through the air. As the body of the thrush careened into Hiverfond's chest, Snape continued, "Take her with you and do your own dirty work."
"Don't you think you should Legilimise her? Find out what--"
"I'm not going to waste any more of time on that birdbrain. Seeing that even you managed to catch her--"
"Right, right, fine," the man muttered. Cradling the bird against his chest, he looked around the room with an air of hastily collecting his belongings -- and then, only then, did he seem truly to register that Tonks was staring at him. Hiverfond swallowed, tightened his hold on the bird, and said, "Right. I'm going to Lupin."
"You -- what? No!" Tonks shrieked. Must keep Remus sa --
Snape bellowed "Enfermatôme!" the instant before she crashed into the spot from which the man had Disapparated. Out of Dark frying pans into Dark fires, she thought to herself.
Aloud, she said to Snape, "Over my dead body."
Snape sneered at that. "Is there a live one that's escaped our notice?"
"You utter bastard. Though I should thank you, I suppose, for your hen-carving skills."
"I assure you, your rescue was hardly on my mind." Snape scowled. "I hope Lupin tans Hiverfond's hide."
"You -- what? What does Remus have to do with any of this?" Tonks bounced up from the floor and hurled herself at her captor. "Snape, so help me --"
"Oh, for the love of Emrys," Snape snapped, "cool your heels, you daft bint." As she careened straight through him, he snatched up the knife he had dropped, inspecting the blade for damage. "Seeing that Hiverfond managed not to splinch himself, I imagine Lupin will find his way here soon enough. And then -- ah, see, what did I tell you?"
Remus, breathing as if he'd been running, had Apparated into the middle of the room. He took two steps toward Snape and demanded, "Are you all right?"
Snape narrowed his eyes. "Why are you asking that when she's here?"
"Is she . . .?" Remus frowned and stepped back, the better to sweep his eyes around the room."Hiverfond claimed she was, but where . . .?"
Tonks had seen a number of expressions on Severus Snape's face over the years, ranging from condescension and contempt to fury and foaming-at-the-mouth. "Dumbfounded," however, was a new one. And not a half-bad look on him, actually.
Aloud, she said, "Goddammit, Remus Lupin. Am I going to have to forgive you for being right?"
Snape's head swivelled around to her. "Right about what?"
Remus said, in a too-calm voice, "Severus, if this is your idea of a prank, I believe I'll take you up on that duel after all."
Snape whirled back around to face Remus. "You can't seriously think I would -- Hiverfond, Lupin. Who in their right mind would conspire with him?"
"Well, no," Remus admitted. "I thought that unlikely. And since I know how to turn animals back into people, Madame Elspeth Craig is now in the custody of Mr. Shacklebolt. So she survived your little bloodletting, for all the good that'll do her."
Tonks noticed the infinitesimal release of tension in the set of Snape's shoulders at the word "survived." Fuck me blind, she thought. He doesn't actually enjoy the killing? "You still haven't answered my question, Remus."
Snape turned around once again. "And you haven't answered mine. What do you mean, he was right?"
Remus stepped up to Snape, gently pried the handle of the knife out of the other man's fist, and peered at the blood still crusted on the blade. As Snape turned back to him, he bestowed a wry grimace on the other man. "Even if I had any inclination to consider this a joke, I know you well enough to know you wouldn't treat your tools this carelessly." Cocking his head, he added, "How did Hiverfond manage to trick you into slicing into Madame Craig?"
"Dosed the bird with Draught of Living Death," Snape said. "And mistle thrush broth makes a superlative glue when mixed with silvertoe vine-powder--"
"Which, as a binder of books, Hiverfond would be keen on keeping on hand," Remus concluded.
"Exactly. So when he said he had a commission for me to execute, it didn't occur to me the son of a bitch meant for me to be literal about it." Snape retrieved the knife from Remus and hissed a charm to clean the blade.
Remus leaned against the table. "Tonks wasn't the first murder she'd joined in on, you know. Hiverfond had a sister."
"Ah," Snape and Tonks said, both at same time. Then they reflexively glared at each other.
Remus stared at the spot where Snape had aimed his glare. Tonks could practically sense him willing himself to see her where she stood, but the spark of recognition remained absent from his face.
After a taut, tense silence, Remus knelt in front of Snape, locking his eyes with the other man's. "I hoped I wouldn't have to ask," he softly said, "but I see no other way I can join your conversation with her. Please, let me in."
"No," Snape automatically replied. "You ask too much."
"Do I?" Remus murmured, "I've asked you for very little, up to now. I didn't ask you for the Wolfsbane, though I'm grateful beyond words. I didn't ask you to set your wards to allow me in at any time, though I'm well aware that we're safer here than anywhere else in Britain, thanks to Draco and Peter doing each other in."
"As if I could have truly kept you out," Snape retorted. "I'm not fooled by you, Lupin." He added, grudgingly, "All your faults notwithstanding, you are as well-versed in barrier spells as any other salamander-brain hired by Albus."
Remus observed, without rancour, "There were many years without Wolfsbane. Keeping myself in as well as keeping other people out was a top priority once a month."
"So that's how you recognised the Certesbielde the night Dumbledore died," Tonks murmured.
Snape jerked back, eyes wide. "You..."
Remus leaned forward. "What did she just say?"
Snape said, his voice husky, "Certesbielde. . ."
Remus captured Snape's hands in his. "That night -- that stair-blocking curse you cast? Something about it kept nagging at me, and not because I ended up with a sprained elbow when it threw me back. Everyone else assumed you'd cast something Dark, but I taught DADA too, and I know a Dark spell when I run into it."
"Miss Tonks," Snape said, "what did Professor Lupin have to say about Certesbielde spells?"
"That they aren't Dark," she recited. "And that they're not even all that complicated," she added, earning a glower from Snape. She continued, "That they're traditionally used as sheltering spells. They keep animals from following their masters into danger and thwart children too intent on going where their parents went. There are legends about them being used to forestall the recently bereaved from throwing themselves into the graves of loved ones."
"Salazar be praised, Lupin didn't make a scene over yours," Snape muttered.
"You were there?" Tonks said, startled.
"Are you talking about graves?" Remus asked. "There were crocuses on hers last week."
"Who did you think Lupin had to meet the night you died?" Snape said to Tonks.
"His rendezvous was with you?" Tonks's voice rose. "He chose you over me?"
Snape rolled his eyes. "He didn't have a choice that night, you stupid woman. It was meet with me or get me killed."
"For Christ's sake," Remus interrupted. "If you're going to argue about me, let me in."
"There's nothing to argue about," Snape said. "We're talking about people merely doing what they must."
Tonks had floated in front of him so that she could look him in the eyes. "Only what they must? You're one to talk."
Remus simultaneously exclaimed, "'Merely'? Do you think I've been meeting you all this time 'merely' because I must?"
As their words overlapped, Snape glared at them both and then dropped his head into his hands. Remus turned to the empty space Snape had scowled at and tentatively said, "Tonks . . .?"
At that, Snape jerked his head up and said, "Fine. I will not have you say I kept her from you."
Remus glared back, exasperation writ large across his features. "Severus, it's not about -- oh, sod it. Legilimens!"
Tonks could tell the instant she became visible to him: his face lit up with the same pleasure he had shown the nights she'd arrived home safe. It was a subtle change in his expression -- a casual observer would have mistaken it for the same mask of reserve Remus wore for most of his interactions with other people -- but she had watched him so closely for so long that she could tell the difference.
And, apparently, so could Snape, if the man's flinch at the same instant was anything to go by. Which suggested that Snape had likely been studying Remus just as closely for just as long.
Which . . . the taunts and jibes Snape had needlessly directed at her all the last year suddenly took on a different colour. She had assumed he despised Remus as much as he'd hated her cousin -- and, until now, that's why she hadn't truly believed Remus's conclusions about the Certesbielde --
Gazing at both of the men, she quietly said to Snape, "Remus is convinced there were two barrier spells cast on the stairs the night Dumbledore died."
Snape said, "That would have been doing more what was necessary. A simple 'Keep Out!' incantation would have sufficed."
Remus said, "Would have, yes. It would have kept out both friend and foe -- and also you yourself. That's why Minerva and Harry thought the first barrier had been Dark -- something able to let through only Death Eaters, since you ran right through it as though it hadn't been there."
Snape snorted. "As if anyone there that night had the wits required --"
Remus said, a little too casually, "They could have perused a book someone left for them to find."
Tonks had no idea what Remus was on about. Snape flushed but said only, "That was something that had to be done."
"So it was," Remus agreed, "but how you helped Harry isn't the issue at hand."
"No?" Snape said. "My vaunted ability to run through a barrier --"
"A barrier that wasn't there by the time you reached it," Remus said. "As you say, it doesn't take brains to cast a 'Keep Out' curse. It doesn't take much in the way of brains to dispel it. Which is why I was gobsmacked when I couldn't follow you up those stairs."
Snape manufactured a sneer. "You were shocked I wanted to keep you out?"
Remus said, "I was stunned that your Certesbielde could keep me out. Since it works only on people for whom the caster is willing to die."
Snape retorted, "And also on devoted animals."
Remus conceded, "There is that. But in spite of your penchant for calling me a beast, I somehow doubt you've ever seen me as your pet."
Which leaves the category of "willing to die for Remus," Tonks thought.
Snape said to Remus, "You are confident of your conclusions."
"I'm quite familiar with Certesbielde," Remus said. His voice steady, he added, "I almost cast it on Harry the night Sirius fell through the veil."
"Willing to die for does not mean in love with, Lupin."
Tonks spoke up. "He never claimed you were. But I say you are."
Snape whipped his head toward her, but then remembered Remus would not be able to see or hear her without the Legilimentic connection. As he re-established the contact, Tonks slid behind Remus, wrapping her arms around his shoulders. He was unnaturally still, although his right hand stole up to her left wrist, hovering where he would have once felt a pulse.
She couldn't resist. "Why so wan and pale, fond lover? Prithee, why so pale?"
Remus choked out a laugh. "You're terrible. Nice to know some things haven't changed."
She nuzzled his ear. "It is nice," she echoed, "but it won't do."
"No," Remus nodded. "Severus doesn't owe me this."
"Better here with me," Snape reluctantly stated, "than elsewhere without."
Tonks couldn't feel Remus's flesh, but she could see how the drape of his robes shifted as his shoulders tensed. She couldn't see his face, but she was familiar with how his throat would be working -- how new creases would have appeared at the corners of his mouth as he scrambled for an appropriate response. She'd seen that expression often enough during their own pre-relationship arguments.
And had she looked like Snape did now -- not nearly as greasy or curdled or worn, thank Godric, but with that same terrible yearning (I want all of you, body and soul, but I'll take what I can get)? She said, slowly, "You're the one who's alive, Snape. And you're the one who cast the Enfermatôme. A Finite Incantatem and a manoeuvre against a wall -- that's all it would take to banish me right back to the boutique."
"There's still a war on," Snape informed her. "I won't do that to Lupin."
Tonks took a deep breath. "I can't help existing. I can't help having existed. But you're willing to die for Remus, and I'm not in your way."
Snape bestowed on her a sour smile. "You won't stop me from dying, is what you mean?"
Remus said, teeth clenched, "Don't even joke about that."
Snape froze, arrested by the expression on Remus's face. Tonks drifted around his shoulder to see for herself.
Oh. Oh, it hurt, that that look was for someone other than her. But then he tried to look at her, forgetting he could see her only within Snape's mind, and the flash of anguish across his face -- oh, love, I never should have doubted you.
"You see," Snape said to her, as if the matter were settled.
"You don't do him justice," she snapped at him.
Remus stood up and grabbed Snape's shoulders, looking dangerously close to shaking the other man. "Severus, I loved her and I always will," he said. He pressed a hand against Snape's chin, forcing the other man to look him in the eyes once more. "But if I cast a Certesbielde right this moment, it would most certainly keep you out."
"A willingness to die is not a proof of love," Snape intoned.
"Neither are kisses," Tonks said, "but they're far more fun than the dying. What the hell are you waiting for?"
"It's not all up to me," Snape retorted.
"No," Remus agreed, his voice thick. "But . . ." He looked at Tonks, who gazed back at him sadly.
"Snape's alive," she said. "I'm not. And better him than Isabelle Vautour."
"I'm not putting on a show for you," Snape hissed, wrenching himself free from Remus's grip. "Finite Incantatem."
She heard Remus's intake of breath as he saw her outside of Snape's mind, but she didn't feel any different from the moment before, other than the new frisson of danger: one false step and she would be the one outside of the three, even though Snape seemed utterly convinced Remus would choose her.
She pinned both men with a stare and said, "You don't get to use me as an excuse. If you're scared of what comes next --"
She smirked as they both reacted.
"I am not a coward!" Snape snarled.
"Tonks, I'm not a saint," Remus groaned.
"I know," she said, "but you need to prove it to him." She glided behind him, drew her hand back and gestured as if she were shoving against his shoulderblades. While Remus couldn't feel or see her pushing him, Snape instantly rushed forward to catch him.
She smirked again as Snape swore at her upon realising he'd been tricked into the contact. He had ripped only a single oath at her, however, when Remus crushed his mouth against his, silencing whatever Snape had intended to shout next. Tonks savoured Remus's muffled groan as Snape clutched his arms, and, oh God, Remus's hands lifting up to stroke Snape's hair and sliding down to grope Snape's arse and Snape hungrily kissing Remus's cheek and lips and jaw and lips again and throat and lips yet again and more more more.
Tonks's own mouth tingled with the memory of such kisses -- how they had felt like being drenched in a cascade of fire, flowing and searing and so much everywhereness in each glide and nip and press of lips against skin and tongue. Tonks could feel herself starting to melt into a blessed nothingness as she watched the two men devour each other -- not enough to disappear completely, but enough to crave more of it.
I was meant to see this, she realised. If this is what it takes . . .
Snape broke away from Remus, gasping, his hands possessively sliding over Remus's limbs and chest and hips even as he locked eyes once more with Remus. "Too soon?" he challenged. "Too much?"
"Not enough," Remus panted. "Don't you dare think it's enough, now we've started."
Snape eased them to the ground and splayed his palms across Remus's chest. "What are you willing to give me?"
Remus stared back at him, every bit his match in aggression. "As much as you're willing to take. You think I won't be enough?"
Tonks said to Snape, "At least he's not giving you the 'too old, too poor' song and dance."
His shoulders shaking, Snape lowered his mouth to Remus's. As the kiss deepened between them, Tonks again felt the force of their passion surge through her own ghostly fibres. Whatever forced me to linger -- this is part of its answer. She watched avidly as Snape's hands roamed all over Remus's body, deftly undoing buttons and fastenings, and her heart soared at the sight of Remus writhing in pleasure as Snape's mouth travelled from lips to throat to nipple to navel.
As Snape pulled the last folds of cloth away from Remus's hips and legs, Tonks couldn't resist drifting closer. Her eyes still focused on her beloved's face, she began to speak into Snape's ear.
. . . You see that birthmark just inside his thigh? He can't get enough of being licked right there, especially if you're stroking the backs of his knees at the same time. No, that's too light -- it should be almost a pinch, but not so hard that it stings. Yeah, oh yeah, just like that -- you see how much he likes it? And when you've had enough of that, there's also this spot, just to the right of his cock. Just scrape your teeth there -- oh, doesn't he sound so good? I don't know why it doesn't work on the left. His body's just weird that way. Stay away from his ankles -- something's not right down there. No ropes, no chains, no leather -- he does like clothes pegs, though. Metal, not wood. Up and down the ribs and thighs --
Tonks watched Remus's right fist beat against the ground as Snape's fingers lightly pinched their way down and up where the clothes pegs would have gone, his breathing increasingly ragged as Snape revisited his birthmark, tonguing its outline over and over. When Snape's hand closed over Remus's erection, Tonks eased herself away from his side, gliding to a spot where she could view Remus's entire body as it responded to the attention Snape was now lavishing on his member. She savoured the raw, desperate note in Remus's moans as Snape alternated stroking and sucking him, and the way Remus's fists continued to pound the floor as he struggled not to come, not so soon, not just yet...
There. Oh, yes. Yes, yes, yes . . . Tonks basked in the bliss streaming through her phantom veins, feeling lighter and lighter as Remus lost all control, his hands uncurling as pleasure consumed him. Even with his lips and fingers still wrapped around Remus's cock, Snape radiated satisfaction. He's almost handsome when he looks like that, Tonks hazily mused. And he actually listened to me . . .
Snape stretched back up toward Remus, and Remus lifted his head just enough for their lips to meet in a long, seeking kiss. Cupping his hand against Snape's hardness, Remus murmured, "Shall we continue in your bedroom?"
Snape's expression was a curious mix of tenderness and trepidation. He moistened his lips several times before he managed to say "Yes."
Remus turned his head to look at Tonks, his gaze suffused with both wonder and sorrow. "You . . ."
She drifted up to them. Snape whispered, "You've become almost invisible."
She simply replied, "I trust you'll take care . . .?"
She saw his arm tighten around Remus as he answered, "To my dying breath."
"Good," she said, and focused one last time on Remus. Acting on pure instinct, she leaned in and pressed her lips to his brow.
There. This is a better farewell.
The thought resonated through her entire being as she finally, fully melted into the peace of nothingness.
Author: Mechaieh (Bronze Ribbons)
Warning: Assorted character deaths. Voyeurism; some kinks mentioned in passing.
Rating: NC-17
Pairings: Tonks/Remus, Snape/Remus
Summary: Tonks hadn't planned on becoming a ghost. Snape hadn't planned on Tonks.
Words: ~ 5400
Betas: MusIgneus, Aunty Marion, busaikko, and Stasia. And thanks to Lore and the other zine editors, too!
History: Written February-May 2007 (before DH). Published in Chocolate and Asphodel.
I can imagine the moment
Breaking out through the silence
All the things that we both might say
And the heart it will not be denied
'til we're both on the same damn side
All the barriers blown away- Peter Gabriel, "Come Talk to Me"
Nymphadora Tonks had known she might die during the War, but she hadn't anticipated how annoyed she would be about it. She was vexed, of course, that her demise had taken place in a clothing boutique, although it had also amused her to be proved right: she had told her mother for years that nothing good would come out of Andromeda's persistent campaigns to interest her in feminine frills.
To be fair, however, it was not her mum's fault that the shop had been ambushed by a gaggle of silk-robed Death Eaters during their visit. Thankfully, her mother had promptly obeyed Tonks's orders to Apparate the stunned proprietor away from the scene. With the older ladies safely out of the way, Tonks had actually enjoyed a good deal of the fighting. Outnumbered ten to one, she had literally thrown the contents of the store at the women she'd come to think of as "Voldemort's hens." As she ducked their hexes and dodged their missiles, she'd Transfigured little strappy shoes into grenades powerful enough to demolish walls. She'd converted jewel-embedded hair-sticks and gold-embroidered barrettes into self-propelling knives. She'd charmed soft scarves to melt flesh upon contact, flinging them across the room still half-tangled around their hangers. She'd blinded the women with jangling flurries of necklaces and whipped them with beaded belts.
She hadn't survived the battle, but neither had most of the hens. The instant before the end, recognising she would not be able to twist or lunge away from the final Avada Kedavra, Tonks hurled all of the wandless power at her command toward the roof of the boutique, ripping it free of its moorings. The rafters and plaster and shingles had already begun to avalanche down upon the remaining women as the green light struck her chest and she slumped across the floor-length mirror she'd knocked over earlier.
All told, it had been a good afternoon's work. Some hours later, however, once she returned to consciousness as a spirit, Tonks lingered in a corner of the building's ruins, disconsolately watching Kingsley Shacklebolt and his partner sift through the mess. Not only was she massively irritated that she hadn't managed to stay alive, she felt cheated. It had taken her so very long to persuade Remus Lupin that she was old enough, thrifty enough, and tough enough to cope with both his lycanthropic impairment and his work on behalf of the Order. He'd relocated himself and his few belongings to her flat in Camden Town right after Dumbledore's funeral, and the nights they'd spent in her bed, the kisses they'd stolen in between missions, the jokes they'd traded while sifting through reports and rumours -- there had been so much to share and not nearly enough time. It was grossly unfair that a single short summer was all the gods had seen fit to grant to them.
Not that there's ever enough time, she amended, catching sight of Bill Weasley. His family was still grappling with the death of his brother Charlie, who had perished in an ambush outside of Târgu-Mures the week before Bill and Fleur's original wedding date.
As Bill crouched down next to Kingsley, Tonks crept over to listen in.
". . . took the news well," Bill said, his voice low. "Kept asking how we were, even."
"That's Remus," Kingsley said, collecting the remnants of a shattered wand. "I've never once seen him lose control."
I have, Tonks thought. Both when he wanted to and when he didn't.
"Mum sent two pies," Bill continued. "And, on our way out, Hestia intercepted Isabelle Vautour on the stairs."
"Her, already? Merlin."
Tonks felt as though her intestines had been hit with a Shrivelling Hex. Isabelle Vautour was infamous for her eagerness to offer teacakes and sympathy to recently bereaved men.
"Claimed her Sight showed her what happened," Bill said. "I think she happened to be shopping."
"Oh?" Kingsley paused. "An eyewitness, even?"
"That's exactly what Hestia thought," Bill said. "She's detained Miss Vautour for questioning."
"Good," Kingsley said. "Women like her give vultures a bad name."
"If Tonks were here, she'd be hexed, stuffed, and mounted on a hat already."
Tonks could keep quiet no longer. "I am here," she gritted out. Both men jumped as she stepped into their line of sight. "I'd be at the flat already, but every time I touch a property line I rematerialise on the spot where I died."
Kingsley swore under his breath. "Merlin, Morgana, and Maeve--"
Bill looked at her sympathetically. "You, too? Charlie had the same problem. Took him weeks before he figured out how to show up at the Burrow."
"Strewth. I'd forgotten about that. Fuck. Why didn't Binns ever teach useful stuff, like how to deal with crap like this? A fat lot of good his history does me now."
"Steady there," Bill said. "How about I go find Charlie? He'll be happy to be useful."
"Remus, too?"
Bill hesitated, uncomfortable. "I doubt he'll be back just yet. He all but ordered us to leave because he had 'work to do'."
Tonks stared at him, nonplussed. "Work. You told him I'm dead and he's all about work?"
Kingsley stood up and Vanished the heap of fabric and rubble he had been examining. "Best way to avenge you, isn't it?" he said, the savage swish of his wand belying his cool, reasonable tone. "Keep doing his job, get this sodding war over with. It's not like moping over your body would bring you back."
You're right, of course. God, I hate that you're right. Instead of answering, Tonks kicked a crumpled hosiery rack. She stared at her foot as it glided straight through the tangle of metal and nylon, her consternation mirrored in the expressions on her friends' faces.
Finally, Kingsley muttered, "You'd think we'd be used to this."
"It's bloody fucking different when it's someone you know," Bill said.
"Will you fetch Charlie already?" Tonks pleaded. Nodding, Bill stepped through a gap in the wall and Disapparated.
Kingsley walked over to another clump of debris. Tonks floated to the other side of it.
He studied her for a minute, and then shook his head as if to clear it. He said, "Would you forgive me if I questioned you about it? You did a fine job taking out half of the flock, but more ammunition--"
"To bag a few more? Kingsley, you're brilliant. No wonder you get the worst assignments." Tonks took a deep breath and then walked straight through the mound between them.
Kingsley grimaced at the demonstration but sat down on the ground, patted a spot next to him, and pulled out a quill and scroll. "Why don't you start by listing everyone you recognised."
"Marlene Neelow," Tonks began, with alacrity. "Christine Gardini. Helene Zograf. Simone Laurens. Elspe -- noooooooo!"
A mistle thrush had swooped in, seemingly from nowhere. With a loud rattling call, it had brushed a wing against Tonks' forearm, sucking her whole into the shaft of one of its feathers.
Bitch, Tonks mentally hissed. You wouldn't have taken me alive.She could feel the bird jerk and plummet as a spell singed its tail -- come on, Kingsley, you can do better than that! -- but, to her dismay, the next shock of magic never came.
What kind of Auror are you, Kingsley, that you can't even take down a bird? Tonks knew she wasn't being fair -- a moving target, after nightfall, out of range -- but, sweet Iris, this had not been part of any of her fantasies of the afterlife, and she couldn't think of anything she'd done that she considered heinous enough to merit such a fate.
As autumn deepened into winter, and winter sighed on and on, Tonks endured her imprisonment within the shell-like walls of the shaft as a dull, extended muddle of cold, damp waves. She could dimly perceive the lift and fall of the feather's barbs and filaments as they tugged the shaft to and fro during the thrush's travels from forest to feeder to field.
You pampered hen, Tonks silently groaned, shouldn't you be back in your human form by now? Even as she thought the question, however, Tonks already realised the answer: whatever Dark spell Elspeth Craig had called upon in order to trap a ghost within her flesh had almost certainly condemned her to retain the form in which she had performed the capture. Tonks took a measure of satisfaction in knowing that Elspeth likely hadn't been aware of this side-effect; Tonks herself had learned about it only near the end of a breakfast conversation with Remus that had turned unexpectedly creepy. She had never wanted to learn quite that much about physical transformations gone awry, and there had been a chilly detachment in his gruesome descriptions of torn and slashed hearts literally on sleeves -- still beating -- that had given her a screaming nightmare two nights later.
Fortunately, Remus had been away that night. Remus had been away many nights, and she had been away on so many others. As dark blurred into light and grey against white, it nagged at her, how he had not seemed inclined to spare any time for her memory the night of her death, but she told herself again and again, it doesn't mean he isn't mourning you.
No, but it doesn't mean he is, an inner demon retorted.
You will get nowhere, Tonks admonished herself, maundering over whether he ever loved you as much as you loved him.
It's not as if you're going anywhere as it is, the demon replied.
A frantic fluttering. A Stunning spell. Then an extended period of stillness before another jumble of dark and light and mustiness. Confined within the feather, Tonks couldn't tell if Elspeth had been freeze-dried or merely indefinitely Petrified, but it wasn't as if the change had altered the framework of her own existence. Her death should have released me -- but does that work on Dark spells? Damn, damn, damn, damn, damn . . .
When she was finally, suddenly, freed from the feather, toppling over the edge of a table, Tonks heard the clatter of a knife and then a string of guttural oaths and violent cursing. As her senses adjusted to human-scale sensations once more, she realised most of the shouting was coming from a very angry Severus Snape, all of it directed at a slender, sallow-faced man she recognised as Clive Hiverfond, a man she had thought to be an ally of the Order.
Gesturing furiously at the bleeding bird, Snape shouted at the other man, "You. Coward. With fastidious nincompoops like you, no wonder this war will never --"
"It's not like that at all," the other man insisted. "At least you can use --"
"Utility be damned!" Snape spat. "That's all any of you think of. Oh, we need a murderer -- Snape is just the man!" He slashed his wand through the air. As the body of the thrush careened into Hiverfond's chest, Snape continued, "Take her with you and do your own dirty work."
"Don't you think you should Legilimise her? Find out what--"
"I'm not going to waste any more of time on that birdbrain. Seeing that even you managed to catch her--"
"Right, right, fine," the man muttered. Cradling the bird against his chest, he looked around the room with an air of hastily collecting his belongings -- and then, only then, did he seem truly to register that Tonks was staring at him. Hiverfond swallowed, tightened his hold on the bird, and said, "Right. I'm going to Lupin."
"You -- what? No!" Tonks shrieked. Must keep Remus sa --
Snape bellowed "Enfermatôme!" the instant before she crashed into the spot from which the man had Disapparated. Out of Dark frying pans into Dark fires, she thought to herself.
Aloud, she said to Snape, "Over my dead body."
Snape sneered at that. "Is there a live one that's escaped our notice?"
"You utter bastard. Though I should thank you, I suppose, for your hen-carving skills."
"I assure you, your rescue was hardly on my mind." Snape scowled. "I hope Lupin tans Hiverfond's hide."
"You -- what? What does Remus have to do with any of this?" Tonks bounced up from the floor and hurled herself at her captor. "Snape, so help me --"
"Oh, for the love of Emrys," Snape snapped, "cool your heels, you daft bint." As she careened straight through him, he snatched up the knife he had dropped, inspecting the blade for damage. "Seeing that Hiverfond managed not to splinch himself, I imagine Lupin will find his way here soon enough. And then -- ah, see, what did I tell you?"
Remus, breathing as if he'd been running, had Apparated into the middle of the room. He took two steps toward Snape and demanded, "Are you all right?"
Snape narrowed his eyes. "Why are you asking that when she's here?"
"Is she . . .?" Remus frowned and stepped back, the better to sweep his eyes around the room."Hiverfond claimed she was, but where . . .?"
Tonks had seen a number of expressions on Severus Snape's face over the years, ranging from condescension and contempt to fury and foaming-at-the-mouth. "Dumbfounded," however, was a new one. And not a half-bad look on him, actually.
Aloud, she said, "Goddammit, Remus Lupin. Am I going to have to forgive you for being right?"
Snape's head swivelled around to her. "Right about what?"
Remus said, in a too-calm voice, "Severus, if this is your idea of a prank, I believe I'll take you up on that duel after all."
Snape whirled back around to face Remus. "You can't seriously think I would -- Hiverfond, Lupin. Who in their right mind would conspire with him?"
"Well, no," Remus admitted. "I thought that unlikely. And since I know how to turn animals back into people, Madame Elspeth Craig is now in the custody of Mr. Shacklebolt. So she survived your little bloodletting, for all the good that'll do her."
Tonks noticed the infinitesimal release of tension in the set of Snape's shoulders at the word "survived." Fuck me blind, she thought. He doesn't actually enjoy the killing? "You still haven't answered my question, Remus."
Snape turned around once again. "And you haven't answered mine. What do you mean, he was right?"
Remus stepped up to Snape, gently pried the handle of the knife out of the other man's fist, and peered at the blood still crusted on the blade. As Snape turned back to him, he bestowed a wry grimace on the other man. "Even if I had any inclination to consider this a joke, I know you well enough to know you wouldn't treat your tools this carelessly." Cocking his head, he added, "How did Hiverfond manage to trick you into slicing into Madame Craig?"
"Dosed the bird with Draught of Living Death," Snape said. "And mistle thrush broth makes a superlative glue when mixed with silvertoe vine-powder--"
"Which, as a binder of books, Hiverfond would be keen on keeping on hand," Remus concluded.
"Exactly. So when he said he had a commission for me to execute, it didn't occur to me the son of a bitch meant for me to be literal about it." Snape retrieved the knife from Remus and hissed a charm to clean the blade.
Remus leaned against the table. "Tonks wasn't the first murder she'd joined in on, you know. Hiverfond had a sister."
"Ah," Snape and Tonks said, both at same time. Then they reflexively glared at each other.
Remus stared at the spot where Snape had aimed his glare. Tonks could practically sense him willing himself to see her where she stood, but the spark of recognition remained absent from his face.
After a taut, tense silence, Remus knelt in front of Snape, locking his eyes with the other man's. "I hoped I wouldn't have to ask," he softly said, "but I see no other way I can join your conversation with her. Please, let me in."
"No," Snape automatically replied. "You ask too much."
"Do I?" Remus murmured, "I've asked you for very little, up to now. I didn't ask you for the Wolfsbane, though I'm grateful beyond words. I didn't ask you to set your wards to allow me in at any time, though I'm well aware that we're safer here than anywhere else in Britain, thanks to Draco and Peter doing each other in."
"As if I could have truly kept you out," Snape retorted. "I'm not fooled by you, Lupin." He added, grudgingly, "All your faults notwithstanding, you are as well-versed in barrier spells as any other salamander-brain hired by Albus."
Remus observed, without rancour, "There were many years without Wolfsbane. Keeping myself in as well as keeping other people out was a top priority once a month."
"So that's how you recognised the Certesbielde the night Dumbledore died," Tonks murmured.
Snape jerked back, eyes wide. "You..."
Remus leaned forward. "What did she just say?"
Snape said, his voice husky, "Certesbielde. . ."
Remus captured Snape's hands in his. "That night -- that stair-blocking curse you cast? Something about it kept nagging at me, and not because I ended up with a sprained elbow when it threw me back. Everyone else assumed you'd cast something Dark, but I taught DADA too, and I know a Dark spell when I run into it."
"Miss Tonks," Snape said, "what did Professor Lupin have to say about Certesbielde spells?"
"That they aren't Dark," she recited. "And that they're not even all that complicated," she added, earning a glower from Snape. She continued, "That they're traditionally used as sheltering spells. They keep animals from following their masters into danger and thwart children too intent on going where their parents went. There are legends about them being used to forestall the recently bereaved from throwing themselves into the graves of loved ones."
"Salazar be praised, Lupin didn't make a scene over yours," Snape muttered.
"You were there?" Tonks said, startled.
"Are you talking about graves?" Remus asked. "There were crocuses on hers last week."
"Who did you think Lupin had to meet the night you died?" Snape said to Tonks.
"His rendezvous was with you?" Tonks's voice rose. "He chose you over me?"
Snape rolled his eyes. "He didn't have a choice that night, you stupid woman. It was meet with me or get me killed."
"For Christ's sake," Remus interrupted. "If you're going to argue about me, let me in."
"There's nothing to argue about," Snape said. "We're talking about people merely doing what they must."
Tonks had floated in front of him so that she could look him in the eyes. "Only what they must? You're one to talk."
Remus simultaneously exclaimed, "'Merely'? Do you think I've been meeting you all this time 'merely' because I must?"
As their words overlapped, Snape glared at them both and then dropped his head into his hands. Remus turned to the empty space Snape had scowled at and tentatively said, "Tonks . . .?"
At that, Snape jerked his head up and said, "Fine. I will not have you say I kept her from you."
Remus glared back, exasperation writ large across his features. "Severus, it's not about -- oh, sod it. Legilimens!"
Tonks could tell the instant she became visible to him: his face lit up with the same pleasure he had shown the nights she'd arrived home safe. It was a subtle change in his expression -- a casual observer would have mistaken it for the same mask of reserve Remus wore for most of his interactions with other people -- but she had watched him so closely for so long that she could tell the difference.
And, apparently, so could Snape, if the man's flinch at the same instant was anything to go by. Which suggested that Snape had likely been studying Remus just as closely for just as long.
Which . . . the taunts and jibes Snape had needlessly directed at her all the last year suddenly took on a different colour. She had assumed he despised Remus as much as he'd hated her cousin -- and, until now, that's why she hadn't truly believed Remus's conclusions about the Certesbielde --
Gazing at both of the men, she quietly said to Snape, "Remus is convinced there were two barrier spells cast on the stairs the night Dumbledore died."
Snape said, "That would have been doing more what was necessary. A simple 'Keep Out!' incantation would have sufficed."
Remus said, "Would have, yes. It would have kept out both friend and foe -- and also you yourself. That's why Minerva and Harry thought the first barrier had been Dark -- something able to let through only Death Eaters, since you ran right through it as though it hadn't been there."
Snape snorted. "As if anyone there that night had the wits required --"
Remus said, a little too casually, "They could have perused a book someone left for them to find."
Tonks had no idea what Remus was on about. Snape flushed but said only, "That was something that had to be done."
"So it was," Remus agreed, "but how you helped Harry isn't the issue at hand."
"No?" Snape said. "My vaunted ability to run through a barrier --"
"A barrier that wasn't there by the time you reached it," Remus said. "As you say, it doesn't take brains to cast a 'Keep Out' curse. It doesn't take much in the way of brains to dispel it. Which is why I was gobsmacked when I couldn't follow you up those stairs."
Snape manufactured a sneer. "You were shocked I wanted to keep you out?"
Remus said, "I was stunned that your Certesbielde could keep me out. Since it works only on people for whom the caster is willing to die."
Snape retorted, "And also on devoted animals."
Remus conceded, "There is that. But in spite of your penchant for calling me a beast, I somehow doubt you've ever seen me as your pet."
Which leaves the category of "willing to die for Remus," Tonks thought.
Snape said to Remus, "You are confident of your conclusions."
"I'm quite familiar with Certesbielde," Remus said. His voice steady, he added, "I almost cast it on Harry the night Sirius fell through the veil."
"Willing to die for does not mean in love with, Lupin."
Tonks spoke up. "He never claimed you were. But I say you are."
Snape whipped his head toward her, but then remembered Remus would not be able to see or hear her without the Legilimentic connection. As he re-established the contact, Tonks slid behind Remus, wrapping her arms around his shoulders. He was unnaturally still, although his right hand stole up to her left wrist, hovering where he would have once felt a pulse.
She couldn't resist. "Why so wan and pale, fond lover? Prithee, why so pale?"
Remus choked out a laugh. "You're terrible. Nice to know some things haven't changed."
She nuzzled his ear. "It is nice," she echoed, "but it won't do."
"No," Remus nodded. "Severus doesn't owe me this."
"Better here with me," Snape reluctantly stated, "than elsewhere without."
Tonks couldn't feel Remus's flesh, but she could see how the drape of his robes shifted as his shoulders tensed. She couldn't see his face, but she was familiar with how his throat would be working -- how new creases would have appeared at the corners of his mouth as he scrambled for an appropriate response. She'd seen that expression often enough during their own pre-relationship arguments.
And had she looked like Snape did now -- not nearly as greasy or curdled or worn, thank Godric, but with that same terrible yearning (I want all of you, body and soul, but I'll take what I can get)? She said, slowly, "You're the one who's alive, Snape. And you're the one who cast the Enfermatôme. A Finite Incantatem and a manoeuvre against a wall -- that's all it would take to banish me right back to the boutique."
"There's still a war on," Snape informed her. "I won't do that to Lupin."
Tonks took a deep breath. "I can't help existing. I can't help having existed. But you're willing to die for Remus, and I'm not in your way."
Snape bestowed on her a sour smile. "You won't stop me from dying, is what you mean?"
Remus said, teeth clenched, "Don't even joke about that."
Snape froze, arrested by the expression on Remus's face. Tonks drifted around his shoulder to see for herself.
Oh. Oh, it hurt, that that look was for someone other than her. But then he tried to look at her, forgetting he could see her only within Snape's mind, and the flash of anguish across his face -- oh, love, I never should have doubted you.
"You see," Snape said to her, as if the matter were settled.
"You don't do him justice," she snapped at him.
Remus stood up and grabbed Snape's shoulders, looking dangerously close to shaking the other man. "Severus, I loved her and I always will," he said. He pressed a hand against Snape's chin, forcing the other man to look him in the eyes once more. "But if I cast a Certesbielde right this moment, it would most certainly keep you out."
"A willingness to die is not a proof of love," Snape intoned.
"Neither are kisses," Tonks said, "but they're far more fun than the dying. What the hell are you waiting for?"
"It's not all up to me," Snape retorted.
"No," Remus agreed, his voice thick. "But . . ." He looked at Tonks, who gazed back at him sadly.
"Snape's alive," she said. "I'm not. And better him than Isabelle Vautour."
"I'm not putting on a show for you," Snape hissed, wrenching himself free from Remus's grip. "Finite Incantatem."
She heard Remus's intake of breath as he saw her outside of Snape's mind, but she didn't feel any different from the moment before, other than the new frisson of danger: one false step and she would be the one outside of the three, even though Snape seemed utterly convinced Remus would choose her.
She pinned both men with a stare and said, "You don't get to use me as an excuse. If you're scared of what comes next --"
She smirked as they both reacted.
"I am not a coward!" Snape snarled.
"Tonks, I'm not a saint," Remus groaned.
"I know," she said, "but you need to prove it to him." She glided behind him, drew her hand back and gestured as if she were shoving against his shoulderblades. While Remus couldn't feel or see her pushing him, Snape instantly rushed forward to catch him.
She smirked again as Snape swore at her upon realising he'd been tricked into the contact. He had ripped only a single oath at her, however, when Remus crushed his mouth against his, silencing whatever Snape had intended to shout next. Tonks savoured Remus's muffled groan as Snape clutched his arms, and, oh God, Remus's hands lifting up to stroke Snape's hair and sliding down to grope Snape's arse and Snape hungrily kissing Remus's cheek and lips and jaw and lips again and throat and lips yet again and more more more.
Tonks's own mouth tingled with the memory of such kisses -- how they had felt like being drenched in a cascade of fire, flowing and searing and so much everywhereness in each glide and nip and press of lips against skin and tongue. Tonks could feel herself starting to melt into a blessed nothingness as she watched the two men devour each other -- not enough to disappear completely, but enough to crave more of it.
I was meant to see this, she realised. If this is what it takes . . .
Snape broke away from Remus, gasping, his hands possessively sliding over Remus's limbs and chest and hips even as he locked eyes once more with Remus. "Too soon?" he challenged. "Too much?"
"Not enough," Remus panted. "Don't you dare think it's enough, now we've started."
Snape eased them to the ground and splayed his palms across Remus's chest. "What are you willing to give me?"
Remus stared back at him, every bit his match in aggression. "As much as you're willing to take. You think I won't be enough?"
Tonks said to Snape, "At least he's not giving you the 'too old, too poor' song and dance."
His shoulders shaking, Snape lowered his mouth to Remus's. As the kiss deepened between them, Tonks again felt the force of their passion surge through her own ghostly fibres. Whatever forced me to linger -- this is part of its answer. She watched avidly as Snape's hands roamed all over Remus's body, deftly undoing buttons and fastenings, and her heart soared at the sight of Remus writhing in pleasure as Snape's mouth travelled from lips to throat to nipple to navel.
As Snape pulled the last folds of cloth away from Remus's hips and legs, Tonks couldn't resist drifting closer. Her eyes still focused on her beloved's face, she began to speak into Snape's ear.
. . . You see that birthmark just inside his thigh? He can't get enough of being licked right there, especially if you're stroking the backs of his knees at the same time. No, that's too light -- it should be almost a pinch, but not so hard that it stings. Yeah, oh yeah, just like that -- you see how much he likes it? And when you've had enough of that, there's also this spot, just to the right of his cock. Just scrape your teeth there -- oh, doesn't he sound so good? I don't know why it doesn't work on the left. His body's just weird that way. Stay away from his ankles -- something's not right down there. No ropes, no chains, no leather -- he does like clothes pegs, though. Metal, not wood. Up and down the ribs and thighs --
Tonks watched Remus's right fist beat against the ground as Snape's fingers lightly pinched their way down and up where the clothes pegs would have gone, his breathing increasingly ragged as Snape revisited his birthmark, tonguing its outline over and over. When Snape's hand closed over Remus's erection, Tonks eased herself away from his side, gliding to a spot where she could view Remus's entire body as it responded to the attention Snape was now lavishing on his member. She savoured the raw, desperate note in Remus's moans as Snape alternated stroking and sucking him, and the way Remus's fists continued to pound the floor as he struggled not to come, not so soon, not just yet...
There. Oh, yes. Yes, yes, yes . . . Tonks basked in the bliss streaming through her phantom veins, feeling lighter and lighter as Remus lost all control, his hands uncurling as pleasure consumed him. Even with his lips and fingers still wrapped around Remus's cock, Snape radiated satisfaction. He's almost handsome when he looks like that, Tonks hazily mused. And he actually listened to me . . .
Snape stretched back up toward Remus, and Remus lifted his head just enough for their lips to meet in a long, seeking kiss. Cupping his hand against Snape's hardness, Remus murmured, "Shall we continue in your bedroom?"
Snape's expression was a curious mix of tenderness and trepidation. He moistened his lips several times before he managed to say "Yes."
Remus turned his head to look at Tonks, his gaze suffused with both wonder and sorrow. "You . . ."
She drifted up to them. Snape whispered, "You've become almost invisible."
She simply replied, "I trust you'll take care . . .?"
She saw his arm tighten around Remus as he answered, "To my dying breath."
"Good," she said, and focused one last time on Remus. Acting on pure instinct, she leaned in and pressed her lips to his brow.
There. This is a better farewell.
The thought resonated through her entire being as she finally, fully melted into the peace of nothingness.
