My titles are so unoriginal. Something I wrote just now which has no bearing on anything, except my interpretation of how this might've happened. Tonks and Sirius gen, with some twinkling Dumbledore. Feedback is lovely and welcome. Unbeta'd.
He pays a visit to her at her flat, and she’s sure the dingy little place has never seen anyone quite as memorable as Albus Dumbledore. He’s twinkling, like always, though she can detect a slightly more serious look than she ever remembers him having.
He sits in her tiny kitchen, seeming to fill up the whole room, though he’s hardly a big man. He drinks tea, and eats biscuits that her mum had made two days ago, and they talk. They talk about Hogwarts, and her job, and how she likes working for the Ministry, and if she’d heard the rumors about what had happened, and they get around to the point.
The point, which is that Voldemort is back, and he says that name in her kitchen and she tries not to flinch because she doesn’t want to show weakness to this man who is always so strong and calm.
And he gives her a smile and says, “We could use your help, Miss Tonks. If you are willing.”
He talks about the dangers involved, and tells her she is under no obligation to join what he calls the Order of the Phoenix, but Tonks knows she won’t say anything other than yes, because this is right, she knows it is and Dumbledore has such conviction and she would follow him to hell and back, and of course that might be exactly what will happen.
Then he stands up.
“Before I go, there is something else I ought to explain. Or rather, someone I would like you to meet…”
Then someone else walks into her kitchen, and her reaction is instinctual. She steps in front of the Headmaster, drawing her wand so that it is pointing directly at the man’s heart.
“Don’t come any closer,” she says warningly. “I’m a trained Auror, and - “
Sirius Black smiles wanly at Dumbledore. “I suppose this is the way it’s going to be every time we do this,” he says, his voice wry. He’s hoarse, and coarse looking, and doesn’t look much like the handsome young man she’d known as a small child. He meets her eyes and doesn’t make a move. “Nice to see you again, Dora.”
It is a jolt to hear him say that name. He used to call her that, but now only her parents do. Dumbledore gently insists that she put her wand away, and that Sirius is not going to harm anyone.
Then all three of them are sitting at her battered little kitchen table, and Sirius and Dumbledore spend the next hour explaining everything - that Sirius is innocent, that he was framed, that he wasn’t a traitor after all - everything she’d wanted desperately to believe at age seven, but had been forced to throw away.
When the story is done, and everything agreed to, Dumbledore passes her a slip of paper with an address on it, and gives her instructions for getting to Headquarters, as there is a meeting tomorrow she ought to try and get to.
They both shake her hand, and Sirius says, “See you tomorrow, Dora.”
“Tonks, call me Tonks,” she says.
He laughs, a familiar bark of a laugh, and suddenly he’s Sirius Black, her handsome cousin who always smiled at her and gave her sweets, and she bites her lip and gives him a big hug.
“I’m so glad you’re back.”
Word count: 565