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Tonks stood at the platform with her camo green duffle bag slung over her shoulder. Teetering back and fourth from heel to toe in anticipation for him to arrive.
Any minute.
Any minute now.
Any minute Remus would come up the stairs of the platform to meet her. To escape with her. To elope.
It started as a joke only she found funny. Then eventually he stopped rolling his eyes every time she mentioned hopping on a midnight train to somewhere new, somewhere no one knew them, to get married.
After weeks and months of her hinting that she meant it, that she wanted to marry him, that she wanted to run away with him, Remus started playing a long too.
He would say things, things out of character for Remus Lupin, things like, “You know, we could do it. Just hop on a train and disappear. Come back married. No one would object if it was already done. No one would tell you to stay away from the monster, Remus Lupin. And no one would tell me to stay away from the pink haired girl with sunshine in her eyes. No one would say a thing, because it would be too late. We would surprise them all.”
And so, they planned.
And decided, on this night.
And he should be here any minute now…
Tonks sat the bag down and stretched out her back. She stood on tip toes to see if she could make him out in the distance. She popped a stick of chewing into her mouth—gum that matched her hair—and began to anxiously chew it, smacking it, and chomping it so hard her jaw would hurt later.
He was late.
But he should be here any minute.
He said he would come.
He said they should run away. Disappear a while. Elope.
She swallowed the gun. She knew she shouldn’t. She often did things she knew she shouldn’t. Like, falling in love with Remus. It was one thing she had been warned against time and time again, yet she couldn’t stay away.
The clock seemed to be a liar tonight, surely Remus wasn’t an hour late. Silly clock, making her out to be a fool.
Only, clocks that are broken don’t usually speed up in time. They stop. And let time stay put a while longer. And this clock was tick-tick-ticking. She watched the long thin hand circle around again and again and again until her eyes began to blur and her head began to hurt and her heart began to race and her mind began to wonder.
Any minute now.
Any minute now.
Any minute now.
—
On a different platform miles away Remus Lupin stood, waiting for a train to take him away, to disappear—alone.
He stood with his posture defeated. His shoulders hanging. His heart broken—for her—for himself.
Sometimes the best way to say goodbye from a train station platform, was to not say it at all.