FIC: Keep Calm and Carry On
Title: Keep Calm and Carry On
Word Count: 2,828
Prompt: Remus/Tonks and photograph
Rating: PG-13
Summary: The best laid plans of women and werewolves oft go awry; the real story behind the Lupin’s “quiet wedding.”
Author’s Note: This is for my good friend gilpin25, for the occasion of her birthday :D I don't know why I have such a fascination with writing weddings-gone-wrong, but this is where the prompt took me.
Strangely, the photograph does them perfect justice - the two are wind-whipped and pale, standing in front of a building the same drab gray as the sky, but both are grinning in a half-nervous, half-relieved way. Her hair is blinding and wild, his jacket is patched and he looks like death warmed-over, and it’s so very them that she can’t imagine it would have gone any other way.
Tonks slid the photo into the groove between the mirror and frame. Her reflection stared twice back at her, once in the speckled glass and again in the Polaroid, unmoving.
She sighed and let herself drop backwards onto the bed, kicking off her shoes.
“Hem hem…”
Remus was standing in the doorway with two glasses and a carton of orange juice. “Our finest bottle, madam.”
“I’m afraid I’m going to need something stronger than that,” she said wryly, beckoning him over. He left the drinks on the bedside table and stretched out next to her, toying with an unruly piece of her bright pink hair. Tonks sighed again, shooting him a sidelong look that read oh, god, what have we done?
She gave herself a moment to gloat over her husband - he really was handsome, with that perpetual thoughtful look in his soulful dark eyes, and he was so smart when he wanted to be, and wonderfully cheeky - an aspect of his personality fully evident in the laughing look he shot her.
“Well,” Remus said after a moment, trying not to smile. “It could have been worse.”
***
Even for an Auror, garnering the nerve to step into the Licensing Office was difficult. It had been bad enough at the visitor’s entrance to the Ministry, where a chubby young fellow named Ralph had inspected their wands and panicked so thoroughly at the whisper of ‘werewolf’ from the elderly witches behind them that another person had to be called to take his place. While poor young Ralph was carted off to an office to recuperate; her werewolf shrugged with indifference and shockingly, mauled no one, though she was tempted to do it on his behalf.
The madness that followed ensured that they had a lift compartment completely to themselves, which had been more of an enjoyable trip than usual. As they made their way to the Magical Creature department, she had the creeping feeling they were being followed - not that she would know anything about following people, no sir, not a bit.
Their foray into the Being Division had been an epic disaster. Apparently, her husband-to-be hadn’t been in to the Ministry (on a non-rescue mission) since ‘that regrettable incident at Hogwarts,’ and legislation had changed vastly. He was taken into another room, prodded, questioned and released an hour later, looking harried and somewhat in pain. He grabbed her hand and pulled her out of the room as soon as he signed a release, walking unusually fast.
“What happened to you?”
They had made it halfway back to the lift before he spoke again, sounding strangled.
“We-ell…you know that thing you’ve always said I should try but I’ve never done?”
She stared at him, completely confused.
He flushed slightly. “Not that thing. The other thing.”
“Remus, what are you talking about?”
As they walked, he shoved the sleeve of his shirt up and held out his arm. “I guess an identification card isn’t quite permanent enough for some people.”
“Oh, no they didn’t!” Tonks shouted, ignoring the group of witches that turned to glare. She whirled around and stormed back towards the Being Division, shouldering people out of her way.
He caught up with her, taking her arm and speaking low. “It’s fine, Nymphadora, calm down. Let’s just go finish this and go home, okay?”
“Fine,” she huffed, allowing him to escort her into the lift and back up to the MLE level. From the corner of her eye, she caught a flash of bright red hair and a skinny body in a suit dart past the golden grate of the lift.
When they arrived at the Office of Licensing, she was relieved to see there wasn’t a queue to wait in, just a man in a glassed-in booth at the back of the office. He slid his window open as they approached and smiled. The wizard behind the high desk was a friendly-looking, middle-aged man in a tweed jacket with leather patches on the elbows. The brass plate on his desk read D. Montgomery, Registrar. He twitched a wand and a stack of parchment flew into his waiting hand - he didn’t have to ask what the couple was after.
“Just take a seat over here and fill out the appropriate information.” He pointed them toward a table.
Tonks sat down in a straight-backed wooden chair and piles of paperwork neatly arranged before her, quills and ink appearing from nowhere. Outside the door witches and wizards milled by, making their way from offices to lift and back. She took up a quill and started filling in her vital information in patches, pausing at the hair color and height spaces - wondering to what to write.
“Sorry,” Remus said turning around before he reached the table. “You probably need to see this.” He rolled up his left sleeve again, baring the freshly-tattooed ‘W’ halfway between his wrist and elbow; a black blight, giving his already-pale and skin an unearthly look.
Tonks bit back an angry remark and tapped her fingers impatiently against the tabletop, now too affronted to feel even the least bit nervous.
D. Montgomery’s eyebrows jumped into his receding hairline. “Hmm,” the man said plainly, pushing wire-framed glasses up his nose. “Let me go get that form from the back, eh? Nobody ever asks for that one.”
“Oh, wait, you’ll need mine too.” She pushed back her chair and stood up, pulling a card from her sleeve and passing it to Montgomery. He read it and handed it back - the look of incredulity on his face tactfully smoothed into a thin-lipped smile.
“This may take a moment,” he said faintly, and disappeared into the back.
And so they waited, casting anxious glances at one another. Tonks sat down at the table again, toying with one of the quills. Remus, she could tell, was fighting the urge to pace around the tiny office, but was trapped between desk and chairs, looking worriedly around. He jumped when a blonde head poked in the doorway.
“’Ello?”
“Fleur?”
Tonks turned in her chair, staring at Bill Weasley and his fiancée.
“Ah,” the registrar said, reappearing empty-handed. “I’m going to have to - I have to draft new paperwork for…erm, both of you. It may take a few minutes.”
“That’s fine,” she said, giving Remus a look that read why on earth are the bloody Weasleys here?
He shrugged almost imperceptibly, going wide-eyed as Fleur pulled him into a ferocious hug and kissed him soundly on each cheek. Tonks watched this with apprehension, inching away before she too was swept into the unnaturally shiny vortex of affection, but it was all in vain.
“We are so ‘appy for you both!”
“Yep,” she yelped, being tightly squeezed around the middle by the French girl, who planted lip-gloss kisses on her face. “We’re pretty ‘appy, ourselves.”
Bill grinned - it must have hurt, he had only just been allowed to take the bandages off his face. The eldest Weasley had always reminded her of a pirate, with his long hair and earring, and for a moment she imagined him with a parrot on his shoulder and Fleur in a pirate wench’s gown. This image was dashed when he spoke in his posh, well-traveled accent.
“Dad said you two were down here, we thought we’d stop by and say bonjour.”
“Surely you’re not getting married in zat,” Fleur said, taking in her long black Auror cloak, Smashing Pumpkins t-shirt and jeans.
“I’d be married bare-arse naked if we could get the hell out of the Ministry in the next five minutes,” she said tersely, receiving a look of outright mortification from the blonde. Tonks extracted herself from Fleur’s grip and dashed toward Remus, who was now listening interestedly about Bill’s newfound craving for sashimi.
They stood around for ten minutes, attempting to make small talk - a rather difficult task if you only know each other through a secret society - until the registrar suddenly reappeared with a sheaf of parchment in hand.
“Sorry about the delay, I’ve never had…well, never mind. I took the liberty of filling in your information for you both, it was a simple matter of retrieving your respective files-” He saw the look on Tonks’s face and said hurriedly, ”Now if I could have your signatures on these two lines here, we’ll be finished. Are you ready?”
They both nodded.
He sat the stack of paperwork on the ledge in front of his booth, produced a quill and ink, and cleared his throat, continuing in a more serious voice.
“You understand that by signing this document, you are betrothed in everlasting faithfulness, with trust and devotion, to honor, uphold and sustain one another in all truth and sincerity, in times of joy as well as hardship. All this you take upon yourselves to uphold to the best of your abilities?”
“Yes,” they said in unison, though he said it with an almost inaudible hint of trepidation. Tonks allowed him this, for she knew that before the poor, sweet absent-minded professor had met her, the only conviction he had ever born was that of the dubious state of his own mortality.
Without hesitation, she signed her name across the first line on the bottom of the page and Remus took the second. Tonks was hardly bothered by the lack of fluffy white sentimentality, being quite through with violent public displays of undying devotion. Once was enough, thank you very much.
“Hem, hem.”
The quill in his hand snapped in two, and Remus Lupin whispered a string of swear words she had never heard him say before, and probably wouldn't again.
“Oh, no,” she breathed, watching Montgomery’s face pale slightly. “Umbitch.”
“Excuse me,” a sickly sweet, pious voice sounded from behind. Everyone in the room turned to see a squat, frog-faced woman in mauve robes, taking up much of the doorway. She strode into the room, eyes greedy. “Section Twelve of the New Regulation for Protection of Magical Blood states that no werewolf is allowed-“
“I know exactly what it states,” Remus said quietly. “And I also know it doesn’t go into effect for another four days-“
“That is no matter, the spirit of the law must be obeyed as well as the letter. It is for the protection of-“
“Undersecretary Umbit-Umbridge, they are well within their rights,” the registrar spoke.
“Montgomery!” Umbridge squeaked. “Your own son was killed-“
“By a werewolf,” he interrupted, looking at the file. “Not a schoolteacher.”
The room fell into thick silence, broken only when Percy Weasley strode imperiously in, saw his brother, choked on whatever he was about to say and went bright purple in the face, then turned on his heel and left. Umbridge finally seemed to have realized what she had walked into - a room full of what she feared most.
“You’re throwing away your career,” she said hotly, her face turning a clashing shade of orange. “I can’t believe this! An Auror of my own Ministry, marrying a dangerous beast-“
“I’ll show you who the dangerous one is!” Nymphadora drew her wand before anyone could stop her, though how she refrained from hexing the woman, she had no idea. “Sign it quick, Remus, I don’t want to spend my wedding night in Azkaban.”
There was the scratching of a quill on paper as she barred Umbridge’s way, willing herself not to go Lestrange on the old hag - the Black in her blood started to boil, and it would have been all too easy for her to give way to murderous rage and reduce the woman to squat little pile of hair bow-adorned ash.
“This certificate is valid and binding,” Montgomery said, almost smugly, tapping the parchment with his wand. A gold seal appeared and the document rolled up of its own accord. “Here you are, Mr. and Mrs. Lupin, you’re free to go.”
“It’s your mistake, not mine,” Dolores hissed. The toady woman snorted and turned away, marching down the hall.
Everyone was still silent on the way back to the lift - Remus especially; he was ashen with what she could only imagine was fury. Whatever he wanted to say, he wasn’t about to say it in front of the other couple. The ride seemed to take an eternity, and when they stepped into the Atrium, Umbridge was waiting.
“You’re under arrest.”
“No, I’m not,” Tonks said boredly, walking right past her. She caught a glance of Dawlish, standing behind the toad. He rolled his eyes and shook his head, mouthing the words ‘crazy old slag.’
“Indeed you are! Take her into custody, Weatherby,” she demanded. Percy flanked her, looking swotty and nervous. Nymphadora glared at the younger Weasley as they passed, and he blanched.
“Perce, touch me and I’ll destroy you.”
“Another threat! I’ll see that you’re fired!” Dolores seethed, glaring at them with her velvet bow askew, all the while Dawlish held up his fingers behind her head and made devil horns.
“I’ll do you one better,” Tonks said, unclipping her silver Auror badge from her hip and sending it ringing across the Atrium floor and into the still-damaged Fountain of Magical Brethren.
“Filthy half-breeds!”
Remus stopped dead in his tracks and turned around, his jaw set and violence in the stare he gave her. Umbridge scrambled backwards as he stalked towards her, looking for once as if he was actually capable of rending someone limb from limb. He leaned down to glare the woman in the eye and spoke in a voice so chilling Tonks thought she heard molecular movement grind to a screeching halt.
“Since my arrival at the Ministry this afternoon, I’ve been insulted, spied upon, examined by someone with insanely cold hands, tattooed without my permission, misrepresented and publically humiliated…and I can live with that, but if you don’t leave my wife alone, there will be hell to pay, woman.”
Dolores stood speechless and white-faced, and there was silence enough in the Atrium so that everyone heard what he said next, echoing in the vaulted room.
“Let’s go, Nymphadora. I’ve seen enough of this bloody circus for one day.”
Bill followed, looking vaguely impressed, and Fleur sniffed haughtily as she brushed past the Undersecretary, knocking her out of the way.
“You see? Zees ees why nobody likes you.”
***
Tonks sat up on the bed, clearly concerned for his mental health. “Okay, Professor, explain to me how that could have been worse.”
“Rita Skeeter could have been there. That would have made it much worse-”
“Oh, don’t even mention her to me!”
“Or you could’ve been forced to wear a dress.”
She hit him with a pillow. “How could it have been worse, Remus? You were tattooed! And it’s not even a cool one.”
“Well,” he said, looking at his arm and shooting her a laughing look. “At least it’s not something shallow, like a girl’s name.” She poked him in the ribs for that remark, but he continued. “To me, it looks like an M.”
“For Moony?”
“Hmm. No, I don’t think so.”
She rolled her eyes, laughing. “For Marauder, is it?”
“Goodness, no! It’s for ‘married,’ of course, so other women will know to leave me be.”
“You’re insufferable.”
“You married me,” he said roguishly, but then sobered, shooting her a serious look. “Speaking of which, you’re not going to wake up someday and resent that our wedding photo is a Polaroid?” He nodded toward the photo tacked to their mirror, but she knew he meant more than just the picture.
“And you’re not going to wake up and resent that you’re married?” she countered, having prepared her argument earlier because she knew him all too well.
“I promise I won’t. I’ll promise if you promise.”
“I will,” she said. “Shake on it?”
They shook hands with an air of solemnity uncommon to both of them, missing even during the signing of their marriage certificate, until she smiled.
“Okay, now seal it with a kiss.”
“I think I can do much better than a kiss,” he laughed, with a grin that said he indeed could.
It was hours later, after more celebration, and just as he was falling asleep that she kissed his forehead, noting how blissfully worry-free he looked. There was only one thing to do, Tonks thought rather wickedly, envying how easily he rested after such an eventful day. She leaned close to him, admiring the sleepy smile on his face for a moment, hardly able to keep from chuckling and preparing herself to duck out of the way of a well-aimed feather pillow.
“Hem, hem!”
***
Word Count: 2,828
Prompt: Remus/Tonks and photograph
Rating: PG-13
Summary: The best laid plans of women and werewolves oft go awry; the real story behind the Lupin’s “quiet wedding.”
Author’s Note: This is for my good friend gilpin25, for the occasion of her birthday :D I don't know why I have such a fascination with writing weddings-gone-wrong, but this is where the prompt took me.
Strangely, the photograph does them perfect justice - the two are wind-whipped and pale, standing in front of a building the same drab gray as the sky, but both are grinning in a half-nervous, half-relieved way. Her hair is blinding and wild, his jacket is patched and he looks like death warmed-over, and it’s so very them that she can’t imagine it would have gone any other way.
Tonks slid the photo into the groove between the mirror and frame. Her reflection stared twice back at her, once in the speckled glass and again in the Polaroid, unmoving.
She sighed and let herself drop backwards onto the bed, kicking off her shoes.
“Hem hem…”
Remus was standing in the doorway with two glasses and a carton of orange juice. “Our finest bottle, madam.”
“I’m afraid I’m going to need something stronger than that,” she said wryly, beckoning him over. He left the drinks on the bedside table and stretched out next to her, toying with an unruly piece of her bright pink hair. Tonks sighed again, shooting him a sidelong look that read oh, god, what have we done?
She gave herself a moment to gloat over her husband - he really was handsome, with that perpetual thoughtful look in his soulful dark eyes, and he was so smart when he wanted to be, and wonderfully cheeky - an aspect of his personality fully evident in the laughing look he shot her.
“Well,” Remus said after a moment, trying not to smile. “It could have been worse.”
***
Even for an Auror, garnering the nerve to step into the Licensing Office was difficult. It had been bad enough at the visitor’s entrance to the Ministry, where a chubby young fellow named Ralph had inspected their wands and panicked so thoroughly at the whisper of ‘werewolf’ from the elderly witches behind them that another person had to be called to take his place. While poor young Ralph was carted off to an office to recuperate; her werewolf shrugged with indifference and shockingly, mauled no one, though she was tempted to do it on his behalf.
The madness that followed ensured that they had a lift compartment completely to themselves, which had been more of an enjoyable trip than usual. As they made their way to the Magical Creature department, she had the creeping feeling they were being followed - not that she would know anything about following people, no sir, not a bit.
Their foray into the Being Division had been an epic disaster. Apparently, her husband-to-be hadn’t been in to the Ministry (on a non-rescue mission) since ‘that regrettable incident at Hogwarts,’ and legislation had changed vastly. He was taken into another room, prodded, questioned and released an hour later, looking harried and somewhat in pain. He grabbed her hand and pulled her out of the room as soon as he signed a release, walking unusually fast.
“What happened to you?”
They had made it halfway back to the lift before he spoke again, sounding strangled.
“We-ell…you know that thing you’ve always said I should try but I’ve never done?”
She stared at him, completely confused.
He flushed slightly. “Not that thing. The other thing.”
“Remus, what are you talking about?”
As they walked, he shoved the sleeve of his shirt up and held out his arm. “I guess an identification card isn’t quite permanent enough for some people.”
“Oh, no they didn’t!” Tonks shouted, ignoring the group of witches that turned to glare. She whirled around and stormed back towards the Being Division, shouldering people out of her way.
He caught up with her, taking her arm and speaking low. “It’s fine, Nymphadora, calm down. Let’s just go finish this and go home, okay?”
“Fine,” she huffed, allowing him to escort her into the lift and back up to the MLE level. From the corner of her eye, she caught a flash of bright red hair and a skinny body in a suit dart past the golden grate of the lift.
When they arrived at the Office of Licensing, she was relieved to see there wasn’t a queue to wait in, just a man in a glassed-in booth at the back of the office. He slid his window open as they approached and smiled. The wizard behind the high desk was a friendly-looking, middle-aged man in a tweed jacket with leather patches on the elbows. The brass plate on his desk read D. Montgomery, Registrar. He twitched a wand and a stack of parchment flew into his waiting hand - he didn’t have to ask what the couple was after.
“Just take a seat over here and fill out the appropriate information.” He pointed them toward a table.
Tonks sat down in a straight-backed wooden chair and piles of paperwork neatly arranged before her, quills and ink appearing from nowhere. Outside the door witches and wizards milled by, making their way from offices to lift and back. She took up a quill and started filling in her vital information in patches, pausing at the hair color and height spaces - wondering to what to write.
“Sorry,” Remus said turning around before he reached the table. “You probably need to see this.” He rolled up his left sleeve again, baring the freshly-tattooed ‘W’ halfway between his wrist and elbow; a black blight, giving his already-pale and skin an unearthly look.
Tonks bit back an angry remark and tapped her fingers impatiently against the tabletop, now too affronted to feel even the least bit nervous.
D. Montgomery’s eyebrows jumped into his receding hairline. “Hmm,” the man said plainly, pushing wire-framed glasses up his nose. “Let me go get that form from the back, eh? Nobody ever asks for that one.”
“Oh, wait, you’ll need mine too.” She pushed back her chair and stood up, pulling a card from her sleeve and passing it to Montgomery. He read it and handed it back - the look of incredulity on his face tactfully smoothed into a thin-lipped smile.
“This may take a moment,” he said faintly, and disappeared into the back.
And so they waited, casting anxious glances at one another. Tonks sat down at the table again, toying with one of the quills. Remus, she could tell, was fighting the urge to pace around the tiny office, but was trapped between desk and chairs, looking worriedly around. He jumped when a blonde head poked in the doorway.
“’Ello?”
“Fleur?”
Tonks turned in her chair, staring at Bill Weasley and his fiancée.
“Ah,” the registrar said, reappearing empty-handed. “I’m going to have to - I have to draft new paperwork for…erm, both of you. It may take a few minutes.”
“That’s fine,” she said, giving Remus a look that read why on earth are the bloody Weasleys here?
He shrugged almost imperceptibly, going wide-eyed as Fleur pulled him into a ferocious hug and kissed him soundly on each cheek. Tonks watched this with apprehension, inching away before she too was swept into the unnaturally shiny vortex of affection, but it was all in vain.
“We are so ‘appy for you both!”
“Yep,” she yelped, being tightly squeezed around the middle by the French girl, who planted lip-gloss kisses on her face. “We’re pretty ‘appy, ourselves.”
Bill grinned - it must have hurt, he had only just been allowed to take the bandages off his face. The eldest Weasley had always reminded her of a pirate, with his long hair and earring, and for a moment she imagined him with a parrot on his shoulder and Fleur in a pirate wench’s gown. This image was dashed when he spoke in his posh, well-traveled accent.
“Dad said you two were down here, we thought we’d stop by and say bonjour.”
“Surely you’re not getting married in zat,” Fleur said, taking in her long black Auror cloak, Smashing Pumpkins t-shirt and jeans.
“I’d be married bare-arse naked if we could get the hell out of the Ministry in the next five minutes,” she said tersely, receiving a look of outright mortification from the blonde. Tonks extracted herself from Fleur’s grip and dashed toward Remus, who was now listening interestedly about Bill’s newfound craving for sashimi.
They stood around for ten minutes, attempting to make small talk - a rather difficult task if you only know each other through a secret society - until the registrar suddenly reappeared with a sheaf of parchment in hand.
“Sorry about the delay, I’ve never had…well, never mind. I took the liberty of filling in your information for you both, it was a simple matter of retrieving your respective files-” He saw the look on Tonks’s face and said hurriedly, ”Now if I could have your signatures on these two lines here, we’ll be finished. Are you ready?”
They both nodded.
He sat the stack of paperwork on the ledge in front of his booth, produced a quill and ink, and cleared his throat, continuing in a more serious voice.
“You understand that by signing this document, you are betrothed in everlasting faithfulness, with trust and devotion, to honor, uphold and sustain one another in all truth and sincerity, in times of joy as well as hardship. All this you take upon yourselves to uphold to the best of your abilities?”
“Yes,” they said in unison, though he said it with an almost inaudible hint of trepidation. Tonks allowed him this, for she knew that before the poor, sweet absent-minded professor had met her, the only conviction he had ever born was that of the dubious state of his own mortality.
Without hesitation, she signed her name across the first line on the bottom of the page and Remus took the second. Tonks was hardly bothered by the lack of fluffy white sentimentality, being quite through with violent public displays of undying devotion. Once was enough, thank you very much.
“Hem, hem.”
The quill in his hand snapped in two, and Remus Lupin whispered a string of swear words she had never heard him say before, and probably wouldn't again.
“Oh, no,” she breathed, watching Montgomery’s face pale slightly. “Umbitch.”
“Excuse me,” a sickly sweet, pious voice sounded from behind. Everyone in the room turned to see a squat, frog-faced woman in mauve robes, taking up much of the doorway. She strode into the room, eyes greedy. “Section Twelve of the New Regulation for Protection of Magical Blood states that no werewolf is allowed-“
“I know exactly what it states,” Remus said quietly. “And I also know it doesn’t go into effect for another four days-“
“That is no matter, the spirit of the law must be obeyed as well as the letter. It is for the protection of-“
“Undersecretary Umbit-Umbridge, they are well within their rights,” the registrar spoke.
“Montgomery!” Umbridge squeaked. “Your own son was killed-“
“By a werewolf,” he interrupted, looking at the file. “Not a schoolteacher.”
The room fell into thick silence, broken only when Percy Weasley strode imperiously in, saw his brother, choked on whatever he was about to say and went bright purple in the face, then turned on his heel and left. Umbridge finally seemed to have realized what she had walked into - a room full of what she feared most.
“You’re throwing away your career,” she said hotly, her face turning a clashing shade of orange. “I can’t believe this! An Auror of my own Ministry, marrying a dangerous beast-“
“I’ll show you who the dangerous one is!” Nymphadora drew her wand before anyone could stop her, though how she refrained from hexing the woman, she had no idea. “Sign it quick, Remus, I don’t want to spend my wedding night in Azkaban.”
There was the scratching of a quill on paper as she barred Umbridge’s way, willing herself not to go Lestrange on the old hag - the Black in her blood started to boil, and it would have been all too easy for her to give way to murderous rage and reduce the woman to squat little pile of hair bow-adorned ash.
“This certificate is valid and binding,” Montgomery said, almost smugly, tapping the parchment with his wand. A gold seal appeared and the document rolled up of its own accord. “Here you are, Mr. and Mrs. Lupin, you’re free to go.”
“It’s your mistake, not mine,” Dolores hissed. The toady woman snorted and turned away, marching down the hall.
Everyone was still silent on the way back to the lift - Remus especially; he was ashen with what she could only imagine was fury. Whatever he wanted to say, he wasn’t about to say it in front of the other couple. The ride seemed to take an eternity, and when they stepped into the Atrium, Umbridge was waiting.
“You’re under arrest.”
“No, I’m not,” Tonks said boredly, walking right past her. She caught a glance of Dawlish, standing behind the toad. He rolled his eyes and shook his head, mouthing the words ‘crazy old slag.’
“Indeed you are! Take her into custody, Weatherby,” she demanded. Percy flanked her, looking swotty and nervous. Nymphadora glared at the younger Weasley as they passed, and he blanched.
“Perce, touch me and I’ll destroy you.”
“Another threat! I’ll see that you’re fired!” Dolores seethed, glaring at them with her velvet bow askew, all the while Dawlish held up his fingers behind her head and made devil horns.
“I’ll do you one better,” Tonks said, unclipping her silver Auror badge from her hip and sending it ringing across the Atrium floor and into the still-damaged Fountain of Magical Brethren.
“Filthy half-breeds!”
Remus stopped dead in his tracks and turned around, his jaw set and violence in the stare he gave her. Umbridge scrambled backwards as he stalked towards her, looking for once as if he was actually capable of rending someone limb from limb. He leaned down to glare the woman in the eye and spoke in a voice so chilling Tonks thought she heard molecular movement grind to a screeching halt.
“Since my arrival at the Ministry this afternoon, I’ve been insulted, spied upon, examined by someone with insanely cold hands, tattooed without my permission, misrepresented and publically humiliated…and I can live with that, but if you don’t leave my wife alone, there will be hell to pay, woman.”
Dolores stood speechless and white-faced, and there was silence enough in the Atrium so that everyone heard what he said next, echoing in the vaulted room.
“Let’s go, Nymphadora. I’ve seen enough of this bloody circus for one day.”
Bill followed, looking vaguely impressed, and Fleur sniffed haughtily as she brushed past the Undersecretary, knocking her out of the way.
“You see? Zees ees why nobody likes you.”
***
Tonks sat up on the bed, clearly concerned for his mental health. “Okay, Professor, explain to me how that could have been worse.”
“Rita Skeeter could have been there. That would have made it much worse-”
“Oh, don’t even mention her to me!”
“Or you could’ve been forced to wear a dress.”
She hit him with a pillow. “How could it have been worse, Remus? You were tattooed! And it’s not even a cool one.”
“Well,” he said, looking at his arm and shooting her a laughing look. “At least it’s not something shallow, like a girl’s name.” She poked him in the ribs for that remark, but he continued. “To me, it looks like an M.”
“For Moony?”
“Hmm. No, I don’t think so.”
She rolled her eyes, laughing. “For Marauder, is it?”
“Goodness, no! It’s for ‘married,’ of course, so other women will know to leave me be.”
“You’re insufferable.”
“You married me,” he said roguishly, but then sobered, shooting her a serious look. “Speaking of which, you’re not going to wake up someday and resent that our wedding photo is a Polaroid?” He nodded toward the photo tacked to their mirror, but she knew he meant more than just the picture.
“And you’re not going to wake up and resent that you’re married?” she countered, having prepared her argument earlier because she knew him all too well.
“I promise I won’t. I’ll promise if you promise.”
“I will,” she said. “Shake on it?”
They shook hands with an air of solemnity uncommon to both of them, missing even during the signing of their marriage certificate, until she smiled.
“Okay, now seal it with a kiss.”
“I think I can do much better than a kiss,” he laughed, with a grin that said he indeed could.
It was hours later, after more celebration, and just as he was falling asleep that she kissed his forehead, noting how blissfully worry-free he looked. There was only one thing to do, Tonks thought rather wickedly, envying how easily he rested after such an eventful day. She leaned close to him, admiring the sleepy smile on his face for a moment, hardly able to keep from chuckling and preparing herself to duck out of the way of a well-aimed feather pillow.
“Hem, hem!”
***