Night Out (PG-13; HP/Buffy crossover)
Title: Night Out
Main Characters: Oz (from Buffyverse), Tonks
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 2641
Author's Note: Written for a challenge at crossover_hp.
Oz sniffed at the air outside the club, shifting his case to his other hand out of nervousness. For days, he’d been able to detect just the slightest whiff of wolf and it was making him uneasy. Being in England, the land where fairy tales and fantasy were still alive and kicking, made him uneasy about what… or whom, he might encounter on this part of the tour.
“Get a move on, Ozzie boy! We’ve got to get set up and practicing. This is a big crowd they’re expecting tonight. If you don’t get that riff right tonight, Aric will have your hide.” There was the obligatory laughter at the pun but Oz didn’t even crack a smile. His hide was something of a worry with the full moon coming dangerously close to this leg of the trip and this unease taking part of his concentration off his constant desire to stay neutral. If he had to be a wolf, the least he could be a calm and centered wolf.
He let the solid door swing shut behind him, hoping to block out the feelings that had him looking over his shoulder and up at the sky. If he could get through tonight, he’d be home free.
-----
“You’re going,” Tanna murmured, having long given up trying to be assertive or pleading. She was just stating fact now, not letting the depressed girl on the other side of the room get out of another evening of fun.
“I don’t have anything to wear.”
“This red top will go striking with that brown hair you’ve decided to go back to. Have I told you how much like my mum you look right now in that housecoat and your hair all in disarray? Yes, it’s like being at home. Thanks for reminding me why I don’t move close enough to them to have to visit more often.”
Tonks watched her friend set out an outfit on the unmade bed. Since she hadn’t eaten in three days, her body didn’t seem to want to make the effort to move but it didn’t seem she was needed to move just yet. She could sit in the rocking chair for a little while longer and just try to forget. Easy enough to do when her brain had shut off yesterday due to lack of nutrition and stimulus.
“Do you really think the red is the best choice?” Randolph asked as he came into the room. “Put some color on that girl! Are you going to let me do her makeup?”
At that scary thought, Tonks sat up. “I don’t need your help with this one, Randy. Last time you tried to help, I looked like a drag queen. That may be fine for some of your friends but…”
The man smiled smugly, his chiseled cheekbones always appreciating the gesture so they were set off to the best advantage in the low light of the room. “Considering where we’re taking you tonight, you may want to look a little funky. I hear the opening band it to die for and the drinks are half price until ten. Imagine the damage the three of us can do! Just like old times.”
Tanna patted her recently expanded belly. “None for me tonight. I promised V that I’d take you somewhere normal tonight so no telling him we’re going to a club. No matter how much he pushes, Tonks. Promise me!”
“I promise. Cross my heart and all that,” Tonks promised, using her hand to make the swift X across her chest. “I’m not going to let you stay out late, though. That would definitely get me a stern look and a tongue-lashing. Bad enough he’s my superior officer and married to one of my best friends.”
“So sweet but don’t make her cry,” Randolph exclaimed, pulling out a bright yellow square of material to pat away some of the tears already strolling down the pregnant girl’s face. “She can’t pull together a pretty face in a matter of seconds the way you can.”
“Yes,” sniffed Tanna, taking the proffered kerchief and blowing her nose into it, to the horror of the owner. “You are so lucky to be able to change on a whim.”
A streak of pink ran through the brown locks as Tonks tried to muster up enough umph to do any changing. Depression was bad for her abilities, she now knew, but she still needed to mourn her broken heart a bit longer. Soon, she’d be back to her smiling, happy self again. At least she’d been given some time off so that she didn’t have to proclaim to everyone that she was lovesick. Once was definitely enough.
In a matter of moments, Tanna and Randolph had her up and into the shower. The hot water revived her somewhat and she was able to enjoy the dressing up part of the evening. The red top did look good with the brown hair, although she reddened it slightly to help out. A quick facial rearrangement and she was ready to go.
“I.D.’s?” Randolph asked as they stood in the front room, preparing to Apparate to the club. “Breath mints? Very small bags with incredibly quantities of space inside?” The girls kept nodding their heads, doing a final inventory themselves.
The club was already full of people when they arrived in a cleared patch of carpet with a popping sound. They hurried away from the spot in case some more club hoppers might need to Apparate in, but it didn’t look like the club could fit many more people.
“Find us a place near the stage,” Tonks yelled at Tanna. “I’ll go get us something to drink. Yes, I remember. Nothing alcoholic for you. Don’t worry. I’m depressed, not catatonic. You’ll get something sufficiently bubbling and innocent.”
As usual, the people attending a TWS concert were a varied and interesting mixture of the young and the old; the odd and the merely eccentric. She was well-known here even though she’d been away for most of the last year so was able to cozy up to the bar and place her order rather easily. But that was her problem, she reasoned as she silently waited for the drinks. Things were too easy for her these days. Even loving Remus had been the easy thing to do. He was friends with Sirius, knew more about her than anyone else other than her closest friends, and had been there when she decided she wanted to fall in love. Molly had furiously written to Charlie when she discovered Tonks’ idea but had failed to get her son back to England in time. It was already a done deal when he arrived, burned and irritable on his parent’s back stoop. For the four hours he’d been at the Burrows, Charlie had tried to figure out why his mother seemed as fit as ever, without nary a sign of the battle wounds she had mentioned suffering from in her letter.
But Charlie was her mate. She liked him but had never liked him in that way she figured love grew from. Granted, she hadn’t loved Remus like that either… but he needed her. Or, rather, had needed her. Well, not really. In her dreams, he had needed her. Never in reality.
“Can I get a bottled water?”
Tonks shook herself out of her reverie as she heard the gruff voice behind her. There was something else familiar about the person but she wasn’t able to figure out what it was. As she turned to see him, her hip caught one of the barstools. Not one that was unoccupied and would fall to the ground with a clatter. No, this one had a nice looking woman perched on it. Her strappy heels were hooked on the bottom rung and she had no way of stopping her chair from tipping over and sending her clattering to the floor.
After apologizing profusely and offering the woman everything from another drink (hers had spilled down the front of her rather garish dress) to an assist to St. Mungo’s (which was turned down as the woman’s companion didn’t figure that Tonks could get her there in one piece if she tried), Tonks took the drinks she’d ordered and made her way to the table that Tanna was sitting at. It was in a perfect position by the stage but well away from the dance floor in the very middle of the room.
“Great view,” she yelled, handing Tanna the glass full of golden liquid and sitting down with her own brightly coloured drink. “When does the band-“
But the band members themselves answered her question, coming out onto the stage as the announcer merely mentioned the name of the band. “Did he really say something dingoes eating a baby?” Tanna asked, her mind trying to wrap itself around the lurid idea.
Tonks just shrugged and leaned back. She had time before the best band of all time got up to perform. Over the past ten years, she’d made every The Weird Sisters concert, even when she’d been on a case. It was a running joke with the Aurors that Tonks was easy to track down twelve to fifteen days a year. Find the screaming girl at the front of the stage and you’ve probably found Tonks. Once, when she snuck off to catch a performance at Dover, Kingsley and Savage had come to bring her back and ended up taking back a scared Sixth Year who had snuck out of Hogwarts. The girl vowed never to leave the school grounds again; even for something as important as seeing what new haircut Kirley Duke would sport.
The music was grating on the ears and heavy with bass. Just things that Tonks loved in her music. And there was something… familiar about them. No, just about one of them. As the last song faded and the announcer sent the band on their way with only another mention of their name, Tonks made up her mind to figure out what was bothering her.
“I’m going to go-“ she started to say but Tanna stopped her with a firm grip on her wrist and a narrowed glare.
“You are not going to throw yourself on the stage, again. I swear, Tonks, that Kirley is nearly as upset with me as he is with you. I don’t know why I had to tell you he’s a family friend but-“
“No, I’m not going to do anything stupid to Kirley. He’s still got that restraining order so I’m not even supposed to be here. I want to go talk to the other band, though. We might be able to use them for… um…” but she couldn’t think of anything a group of Aurors would need a band for. “Fundraising,” she called over her shoulder as she hurried away but the pulsing introduction music that was sending the crowd into a frenzy drowned her out.
The thickly muscled man at the backstage entrance eyed her as she tried to explain her plan for asking the opening band to perform as a fundraiser for the Auror’s new training facility (well, V had said that Gawain had been talking about getting a new facility on the budget in the next couple of year so it wasn’t a complete lie).
“You want a bunch of Muggles?” he asked, his eyebrow raised skeptically.
“Muggles?” Tonks asked, blinking as she tried to fit this bit of information into what little she knew of the band… which wasn’t much.
“The whole lot of ‘em. Came over from America on a grand tour. The drummer, the one with the long hair, is related to Kirley and he did this as a favor for ‘em. Nice bloke, that Kirley.”
Tonks rolled her eyes in frustration at being kept out here to talk about things she already knew. What she didn’t know was why the other bank, the Dingo Boys or whatever they were called, was so eerily familiar.
She let him ramble on for another minute before flashing him a smile she hoped was wide enough to dazzle him with her pearly whites. “Um, I’m on a time crunch. The head of my department really needs me to find out if they can help us out. Would it be possible for me to go-“
“Won’t do you any good. They’ve left.”
“Bastard,” she murmured as she spun away, heading toward the front entrance as fast as she could. The crowd was thick, becoming irritated as she tried to push against the flow of movement. Pulling out her wand, she did something she’d always sworn to Kingsley she’d never do… again. With a couple of words, she had all the people moved out of her path and she was on her way to the back of the building.
She was in time to see a van pull away. “Bastard!” This time she yelled the word, irritated that she wasn’t going to be able to figure out what it was about this guy that made her run around, charming people into doing what she wanted them to do when she’d been told never to do that again.
“Can I help you? Is there are particular guy you were talking to?”
The bloke behind her was only a hair taller than she was and had Weasley red hair. He and Charlie looked similar but Charlie’s arms were definitely larger. And those eyes… they held nightmares.
“You don’t know me but…” She waited for him to say something to get her out of this awkward situation without having to get her feet all the way up to her mouth. Odds were that this was not going to end well. He stayed silent, though. “But you seem familiar to me.”
“Oz! We’ve got to get on the road or Devon’s going to get himself lost and we’re never going to find him again.”
“Your name is Oz,” Tonks said delightfully.
“And you must be a detective.”
The drawl made her want to clap her hands together. “And you’re an American.”
“Oz!”
“I’ve got to go.”
Now that she’d found him, she wasn’t going to let him go. “Where?”
He shrugged as he walked backwards toward the second van. “We left the tour information at the bar. Grab a flyer.”
Before she could think of a response that was adequately flirty, he was in the van and it was zooming out of the alley. Another man fleeing from her like a bat out of hell. This one, however, hadn’t told her that he didn’t love her and never would. This one still had some potential. This one was on tour and would be around for a while. This one was cute, to boot. Cuter than certain other old, dried up old werewolves…
And then she remembered what it was that made him seem so familiar. He had nightmares in his eyes and he smelled like pungent sweat and wet dog. The full moon was in two days. If her hypothesis was correct, he might need some help.
“Tonks! Come back in here and move these people back where they came from,” Randolph yelled from around the corner. The man had the lungs of a yeti. “They’re threatening to riot. Couldn’t you just have shoved your way through like everyone else? And what’s the deal with the red hair? Man, that mop is vibrant. Try to tone it down, would you?”
“I can’t,” she yelled back, twirling around in tiny circles as she got closer to him. “I’m in lust.”
“No love this time?”
Tonks grinned, winking at her friend. “Not yet. I’ve got a couple more concerts to go to before it moves into love. This time, I’m going to be sure of my wolf’s heart before I capture him.”
Main Characters: Oz (from Buffyverse), Tonks
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 2641
Author's Note: Written for a challenge at crossover_hp.
Oz sniffed at the air outside the club, shifting his case to his other hand out of nervousness. For days, he’d been able to detect just the slightest whiff of wolf and it was making him uneasy. Being in England, the land where fairy tales and fantasy were still alive and kicking, made him uneasy about what… or whom, he might encounter on this part of the tour.
“Get a move on, Ozzie boy! We’ve got to get set up and practicing. This is a big crowd they’re expecting tonight. If you don’t get that riff right tonight, Aric will have your hide.” There was the obligatory laughter at the pun but Oz didn’t even crack a smile. His hide was something of a worry with the full moon coming dangerously close to this leg of the trip and this unease taking part of his concentration off his constant desire to stay neutral. If he had to be a wolf, the least he could be a calm and centered wolf.
He let the solid door swing shut behind him, hoping to block out the feelings that had him looking over his shoulder and up at the sky. If he could get through tonight, he’d be home free.
-----
“You’re going,” Tanna murmured, having long given up trying to be assertive or pleading. She was just stating fact now, not letting the depressed girl on the other side of the room get out of another evening of fun.
“I don’t have anything to wear.”
“This red top will go striking with that brown hair you’ve decided to go back to. Have I told you how much like my mum you look right now in that housecoat and your hair all in disarray? Yes, it’s like being at home. Thanks for reminding me why I don’t move close enough to them to have to visit more often.”
Tonks watched her friend set out an outfit on the unmade bed. Since she hadn’t eaten in three days, her body didn’t seem to want to make the effort to move but it didn’t seem she was needed to move just yet. She could sit in the rocking chair for a little while longer and just try to forget. Easy enough to do when her brain had shut off yesterday due to lack of nutrition and stimulus.
“Do you really think the red is the best choice?” Randolph asked as he came into the room. “Put some color on that girl! Are you going to let me do her makeup?”
At that scary thought, Tonks sat up. “I don’t need your help with this one, Randy. Last time you tried to help, I looked like a drag queen. That may be fine for some of your friends but…”
The man smiled smugly, his chiseled cheekbones always appreciating the gesture so they were set off to the best advantage in the low light of the room. “Considering where we’re taking you tonight, you may want to look a little funky. I hear the opening band it to die for and the drinks are half price until ten. Imagine the damage the three of us can do! Just like old times.”
Tanna patted her recently expanded belly. “None for me tonight. I promised V that I’d take you somewhere normal tonight so no telling him we’re going to a club. No matter how much he pushes, Tonks. Promise me!”
“I promise. Cross my heart and all that,” Tonks promised, using her hand to make the swift X across her chest. “I’m not going to let you stay out late, though. That would definitely get me a stern look and a tongue-lashing. Bad enough he’s my superior officer and married to one of my best friends.”
“So sweet but don’t make her cry,” Randolph exclaimed, pulling out a bright yellow square of material to pat away some of the tears already strolling down the pregnant girl’s face. “She can’t pull together a pretty face in a matter of seconds the way you can.”
“Yes,” sniffed Tanna, taking the proffered kerchief and blowing her nose into it, to the horror of the owner. “You are so lucky to be able to change on a whim.”
A streak of pink ran through the brown locks as Tonks tried to muster up enough umph to do any changing. Depression was bad for her abilities, she now knew, but she still needed to mourn her broken heart a bit longer. Soon, she’d be back to her smiling, happy self again. At least she’d been given some time off so that she didn’t have to proclaim to everyone that she was lovesick. Once was definitely enough.
In a matter of moments, Tanna and Randolph had her up and into the shower. The hot water revived her somewhat and she was able to enjoy the dressing up part of the evening. The red top did look good with the brown hair, although she reddened it slightly to help out. A quick facial rearrangement and she was ready to go.
“I.D.’s?” Randolph asked as they stood in the front room, preparing to Apparate to the club. “Breath mints? Very small bags with incredibly quantities of space inside?” The girls kept nodding their heads, doing a final inventory themselves.
The club was already full of people when they arrived in a cleared patch of carpet with a popping sound. They hurried away from the spot in case some more club hoppers might need to Apparate in, but it didn’t look like the club could fit many more people.
“Find us a place near the stage,” Tonks yelled at Tanna. “I’ll go get us something to drink. Yes, I remember. Nothing alcoholic for you. Don’t worry. I’m depressed, not catatonic. You’ll get something sufficiently bubbling and innocent.”
As usual, the people attending a TWS concert were a varied and interesting mixture of the young and the old; the odd and the merely eccentric. She was well-known here even though she’d been away for most of the last year so was able to cozy up to the bar and place her order rather easily. But that was her problem, she reasoned as she silently waited for the drinks. Things were too easy for her these days. Even loving Remus had been the easy thing to do. He was friends with Sirius, knew more about her than anyone else other than her closest friends, and had been there when she decided she wanted to fall in love. Molly had furiously written to Charlie when she discovered Tonks’ idea but had failed to get her son back to England in time. It was already a done deal when he arrived, burned and irritable on his parent’s back stoop. For the four hours he’d been at the Burrows, Charlie had tried to figure out why his mother seemed as fit as ever, without nary a sign of the battle wounds she had mentioned suffering from in her letter.
But Charlie was her mate. She liked him but had never liked him in that way she figured love grew from. Granted, she hadn’t loved Remus like that either… but he needed her. Or, rather, had needed her. Well, not really. In her dreams, he had needed her. Never in reality.
“Can I get a bottled water?”
Tonks shook herself out of her reverie as she heard the gruff voice behind her. There was something else familiar about the person but she wasn’t able to figure out what it was. As she turned to see him, her hip caught one of the barstools. Not one that was unoccupied and would fall to the ground with a clatter. No, this one had a nice looking woman perched on it. Her strappy heels were hooked on the bottom rung and she had no way of stopping her chair from tipping over and sending her clattering to the floor.
After apologizing profusely and offering the woman everything from another drink (hers had spilled down the front of her rather garish dress) to an assist to St. Mungo’s (which was turned down as the woman’s companion didn’t figure that Tonks could get her there in one piece if she tried), Tonks took the drinks she’d ordered and made her way to the table that Tanna was sitting at. It was in a perfect position by the stage but well away from the dance floor in the very middle of the room.
“Great view,” she yelled, handing Tanna the glass full of golden liquid and sitting down with her own brightly coloured drink. “When does the band-“
But the band members themselves answered her question, coming out onto the stage as the announcer merely mentioned the name of the band. “Did he really say something dingoes eating a baby?” Tanna asked, her mind trying to wrap itself around the lurid idea.
Tonks just shrugged and leaned back. She had time before the best band of all time got up to perform. Over the past ten years, she’d made every The Weird Sisters concert, even when she’d been on a case. It was a running joke with the Aurors that Tonks was easy to track down twelve to fifteen days a year. Find the screaming girl at the front of the stage and you’ve probably found Tonks. Once, when she snuck off to catch a performance at Dover, Kingsley and Savage had come to bring her back and ended up taking back a scared Sixth Year who had snuck out of Hogwarts. The girl vowed never to leave the school grounds again; even for something as important as seeing what new haircut Kirley Duke would sport.
The music was grating on the ears and heavy with bass. Just things that Tonks loved in her music. And there was something… familiar about them. No, just about one of them. As the last song faded and the announcer sent the band on their way with only another mention of their name, Tonks made up her mind to figure out what was bothering her.
“I’m going to go-“ she started to say but Tanna stopped her with a firm grip on her wrist and a narrowed glare.
“You are not going to throw yourself on the stage, again. I swear, Tonks, that Kirley is nearly as upset with me as he is with you. I don’t know why I had to tell you he’s a family friend but-“
“No, I’m not going to do anything stupid to Kirley. He’s still got that restraining order so I’m not even supposed to be here. I want to go talk to the other band, though. We might be able to use them for… um…” but she couldn’t think of anything a group of Aurors would need a band for. “Fundraising,” she called over her shoulder as she hurried away but the pulsing introduction music that was sending the crowd into a frenzy drowned her out.
The thickly muscled man at the backstage entrance eyed her as she tried to explain her plan for asking the opening band to perform as a fundraiser for the Auror’s new training facility (well, V had said that Gawain had been talking about getting a new facility on the budget in the next couple of year so it wasn’t a complete lie).
“You want a bunch of Muggles?” he asked, his eyebrow raised skeptically.
“Muggles?” Tonks asked, blinking as she tried to fit this bit of information into what little she knew of the band… which wasn’t much.
“The whole lot of ‘em. Came over from America on a grand tour. The drummer, the one with the long hair, is related to Kirley and he did this as a favor for ‘em. Nice bloke, that Kirley.”
Tonks rolled her eyes in frustration at being kept out here to talk about things she already knew. What she didn’t know was why the other bank, the Dingo Boys or whatever they were called, was so eerily familiar.
She let him ramble on for another minute before flashing him a smile she hoped was wide enough to dazzle him with her pearly whites. “Um, I’m on a time crunch. The head of my department really needs me to find out if they can help us out. Would it be possible for me to go-“
“Won’t do you any good. They’ve left.”
“Bastard,” she murmured as she spun away, heading toward the front entrance as fast as she could. The crowd was thick, becoming irritated as she tried to push against the flow of movement. Pulling out her wand, she did something she’d always sworn to Kingsley she’d never do… again. With a couple of words, she had all the people moved out of her path and she was on her way to the back of the building.
She was in time to see a van pull away. “Bastard!” This time she yelled the word, irritated that she wasn’t going to be able to figure out what it was about this guy that made her run around, charming people into doing what she wanted them to do when she’d been told never to do that again.
“Can I help you? Is there are particular guy you were talking to?”
The bloke behind her was only a hair taller than she was and had Weasley red hair. He and Charlie looked similar but Charlie’s arms were definitely larger. And those eyes… they held nightmares.
“You don’t know me but…” She waited for him to say something to get her out of this awkward situation without having to get her feet all the way up to her mouth. Odds were that this was not going to end well. He stayed silent, though. “But you seem familiar to me.”
“Oz! We’ve got to get on the road or Devon’s going to get himself lost and we’re never going to find him again.”
“Your name is Oz,” Tonks said delightfully.
“And you must be a detective.”
The drawl made her want to clap her hands together. “And you’re an American.”
“Oz!”
“I’ve got to go.”
Now that she’d found him, she wasn’t going to let him go. “Where?”
He shrugged as he walked backwards toward the second van. “We left the tour information at the bar. Grab a flyer.”
Before she could think of a response that was adequately flirty, he was in the van and it was zooming out of the alley. Another man fleeing from her like a bat out of hell. This one, however, hadn’t told her that he didn’t love her and never would. This one still had some potential. This one was on tour and would be around for a while. This one was cute, to boot. Cuter than certain other old, dried up old werewolves…
And then she remembered what it was that made him seem so familiar. He had nightmares in his eyes and he smelled like pungent sweat and wet dog. The full moon was in two days. If her hypothesis was correct, he might need some help.
“Tonks! Come back in here and move these people back where they came from,” Randolph yelled from around the corner. The man had the lungs of a yeti. “They’re threatening to riot. Couldn’t you just have shoved your way through like everyone else? And what’s the deal with the red hair? Man, that mop is vibrant. Try to tone it down, would you?”
“I can’t,” she yelled back, twirling around in tiny circles as she got closer to him. “I’m in lust.”
“No love this time?”
Tonks grinned, winking at her friend. “Not yet. I’ve got a couple more concerts to go to before it moves into love. This time, I’m going to be sure of my wolf’s heart before I capture him.”