Painful Memories (Tonks)

[Remus Lupin "Romulus Cage"]

Just being here made things well up inside of him.  He couldn't hold anything in any more.  He couldn't bottle up anymore.  He didn't know if he could even continue living on.  All the memories of these years.  Everything was too much.  He had to let it out.  He leaned against the railing looking out at the lake before closing his eyes, trying to prevent any tears from forming.  They were alive and well.  He was a happy young boy with a family at Hogwarts.  He wasn't this broken man who had lost everything important to him, and saw any other friendship more than he already had as extremely dangerous.  He couldn't let anyone else close, because they were leave him eventually too, even if it wasn't their choice to leave him.  No one could like him, be his friend, without getting hurt.  It was more of a curse than being a werewolf.  It was dangerous to be his friend for not only them but for him because they would make him feel like this again. 

He opened his eyes once more and looked at the lake, trying to focus his thought process.  He had just gotten back from a meeting with Dumbledore and was heading out of Hogwarts, but couldn't seem to go any farther.  He just had to regain his composure and then he could go again.  A little voice in the back of his head was asking, 'why would you ever want to leave a place as great as this?'  And he gave his reasons of danger and having already lived through this time, and he had to move on, but it was still there in the back of his head.  He pictured Nymphadora Tonks, the spunky pink haired amazing, beautiful, kind, fun person whom he was NOT in love with.  At all.  Yeah.  That was it.  Her smile and her eyes they cheered him up.  He was almost lost in the imagination of her being there that he nearly forgot where he was. 

"I wish I was back with you," Remus whispered to himself, without even realizing he was whispering until after the words were whispered.  He placed his hand over his eyes, and slid the hand down his face.  Sleep, that was what he needed.  Hopefully, that was all he needed.  Either that or his coping mechanism of pushing everything back had slowly broken down and now was in ruins before him.  Then that would take rebuilding, and alone time.  At least, that is how he viewed it. 

[Nymphadora Tonks]

Tonks was walking around just bored as can be, Remus was studying and her sister was flirting with Teddy. That was something she still didn't understand, but oh well, nothing could happen between the two. At the moment she felt the same way about Remus, even though she wanted be with him, she couldn't because she was from a decade later. At some point she found herself on the bridge, things like that happened when she wasn't paying attention and started thinking about everything.

Her hair was a curled bright pink with platinum blonde highlights, it almost looked like a strawberry milkshake. She passed someone by running into them on accident then tripped. From the quick glance she got, it almost looked like an adult. She pushed herself up on her knees and then all the way. And blew hair from her face and smiled.

"I'm sorry, I didn't see you!" she smiled, "I'm Dora, Dora Vulpe." She didn't know this person and there was no way of telling if he was from the future or not just by looking at him. She wasn't the brightest when it came to telling that sort of thing.

[Remus Lupin "Romulus Cage"]

Remus quickly turned and saw the young girl and something about her made him smile. Something was so familiar about her. Dora. Dora. Nymphadora was called that by her parents, he remembered. But this wasn't her, unless she had made herself look like a kid and pretend not to know him. No, it wasn't her. She hadn't transported back in time in his recollection. Unless, there was something really odd going on here, it couldn't be her. That was just his hopes getting up and being dropped because he let them get raised.  He shouldn't do that. 

"It's fine," Remus said quietly, not being able to figure out what was it about the girl that made him want to smile the small smile he was smiling, "I'm Re- Romulus Cage."  He almost had introduced himself with his real name, which would have turned out extremely hard to explain without posing any more danger than he was at the moment by just being there.  It was second nature to introduce himself as himself, and so going by a different name took a bit getting used to.  He even had practiced in front of a mirror in a flat that Dumbledore had somehow gotten for him, because it was dangerous to go unprepared. If he hadn't he would have blown his cover right then and there. 

"I shouldn't even be here," Remus said looking towards the exit, "Sorry about being in the way.  I was just... remembering my home.  It's... so far away."  Remus looked back at the lake thinking of Nymphadora... and the other Order members.  They were so comforting to think about, even if he knew he couldn't get close to... them because it was too dangerous.  Not to mention he was 13 years older than them and he was a werewolf.

[Nymphadora Tonks]

"Romulus? As in Remus and Romulus? The brothers who were raised by Lupa? Founders of Rome?" Tonks raised an eyebrow. "My boyfriend knows a lot about them. And I usually go sit with him in the library so I listen to a lot of his babble. Its so cute though... His name is Remus." Her eyes became the colour of chocolate just thinking about him. She moved the hair from behind her ears and smiled again.

"I just wandered... When you get lost in thought, you never know where your feet will take you." she shrugged. "Its fine, you weren't in the way, I just wasn't paying attention. My home its pretty far too. I don't know if I'll ever be able to get back to them. Hopefully no ones noticed my absense, heaven knows my sister did. Although some of my teachers might... darn it I'm babbling again. Sorry, I babble a lot." She scratched the back of her head.

She didn't know why but she felt like he reminded her of Remus. Why was that? She'd never seen Remus yet in her time, she was still in school and according to Teddy they didn't meet until several years later. After Tonks was out of school. She was going to have to do some dirt digging here too. She already knew Teddy's secret from going through his book, maybe Romulus had something with him she could go through... hmm...

[Remus Lupin "Romulus Cage"]

Remus studied Dora curiously, seeing her eyes change color, into a color of chocolate that just made him want to smile, but he forced the smile back. He calmed the frenzy of conclusions that came from such a simple gesture and tried to remember back to this time. He hadn't got a girl friend unless Sirius or James tried to set him up, and even then none of them were long lasting. He certainly didn't remember a Metamorphagus or someone who could change their eye color, so it meant that she was also a time traveler.  His emotions were trying to get away from him, but he reigned them in as best as he could.  And that phrase of getting lost.  Hadn't Tonks told him that before?  Oh... he felt an even larger weight dropped.  Not only did he have to avoid himself and his friends, but the only other person he had cared about almost to the level of the other Marauders (except Peter)

"Are you Nymphadora Tonks?" the question had just popped from his mouth without him even thinking.  He looked at her with fright from letting his mouth run away before he could stop it.  "Sorry.  I... I am just supposed to meet her... and she told me that before," Remus said quickly trying to make his question not seem bad.  But if she was in fact dating... him, then she might have heard of Sirius's little cousin.  Oh he hoped that she didn't think it was a stupid question.  It was just those eyes changing color.  To that color, specifically.  He had seen Nymphadora do that before when around him, and it just made him... very happy, with his... tiny addiction to chocolate.  He liked her eyes most of the time anyways, but that color always made it hard not to look at her eyes and grin.  Which he was holding back.  After all, she was a kid, he was an adult.  That would be creepy. 

[Nymphadora Tonks]

“Don’t. Call. Me. Nymphadora.” Tonks tensed up. She despised the name Nymphadora. No one was allowed to use it, not even her parents. “Well, I don’t know how she’s supposed to meet you when she doesn’t exist yet… well… sort of. She’s almost two. Where did you hear her name anyway?” Curiosity overpowered her anger at her full name. “Shoot… I really need to think before I speak. But since its out in the open!! I’m Nymphadora Tonks, do NOT call me Nymphadora or I will kill you. Here I’m know Dora Vulpe . Call me Vulpe, please, I have issues with first names. Yea, that’s about it.”
She messed with her hair, changing it rapidly, trying to decide what color to keep it. “Such a big decision, what color hair to have.” She looked at him, “what do you think? Lime green, bright pink, or red?” She hated deciding, usually she stuck with some shade of pink, it was simplest. She shrugged, making a ‘W’ out of her arms, “I never know which to pick.” She knew that Remus liked her hair chocolate colored, or anything of hers chocolate colored for that matter… she’d have to get him a bear named chocolate.

[Remus Lupin "Romulus Cage"]

Remus couldn't help but smile widely at Tonks's reaction, thinking of much she had not changed when he was a grown up, though she did seem quite different. After all, he didn't want to think that if she was undercover and someone asked if she was who she really was, she wouldn't tell them. He had a feeling she might not have been an auror if that was really the case, but then again, she wasn't in much danger if someone guessed that she was that two year old baby girl, but from the future. Seeing her as a young woman, even younger than him made him feel even worse about the age difference, and that his feelings for her slightly older self was just wrong, at least that was what he was telling himself. Though, he would admit, her as a younger woman didn't stir up those feelings towards her younger self, that would be just weird, but it was the memories of her older self that seemed to melt him down and make him drop his barriers, which only really happened for her.

"I know you do," Remus said with a small smile, trying to push back the many memories of her getting onto him for calling her Nymphadora all the time, insisting that he loved the name, which he did, "I-I know you... When you're older. I-I just came back to this time recently myself. Supposed to help others like us adjust, Dumbledore said so, at least." Why should she have to know? She was probably well adjusted to this time anyways, didn't need his help, right? At least he didn't tell her that he was using a cover name as well, though he had a feeling he wouldn't be able to lie to her if she asked.

"How about... a brownish color, lighter brown, like... chocolate," Remus suggested, knowing that he loved that color and how it looked on her, especially her eyes and hair, though the bright bubblegum pink was great and just so her, he loved it as much as he loved he- chocolate, yeah, as much as he loved chocolate.

[Nymphadora Tonks]

Tonks took a step back, "When I'm older? Who are you? Dumbledore? Who are you?" she repeated herself. Even if he did look a bit familliar, why would he know she hated being called Nymphadora? She had told several people before but, why would she have told an old guy? Any normal girl wouldn't have. She would have suffered through the name. But he'd said he knew her when she was older, could that mean he knew her when she was out of school? Or when she was in her last years of school?

"Like chocolate? Remus likes it when my hair is that colour..." she raised an eyebrow questioningly, "Your name isn't Romulus... is it?" she asked pursing her lips. If he knew the older her, he was most likely using an alias like most of the others.

She ended up going with chocolate brown hair with bubblegum highlights. This was ironic since she was chewing a piece of pink bubblegum. She blew a bubble and popped it, loudly. She laughed nervously, and apologised.