FIC: Masks and Mirrors, Chapter 2
Title: Masks and Mirrors, Ch. 2 - Family Reunion
Author: MrsTater
Rating: R
Summary: As Remus and Tonks rebuild their relationship, a dangerous Order mission only she can undertake dredges up the same old problems -- as well as an entirely new set when the family she was born into clashes with the family she has made for herself within the Order of the Phoenix.
Author's Note: Special thanks to Gilpin25 and Godricgal for helping me come up with a solution to the problem: what does Ted Tonks call his daughter?
1. Homecoming |
2. Family Reunion
Wands instantly drawn, Remus and Tonks sprinted from the bedroom before Molly's scream -- which resonated through the small flat along with the crack of Apparition -- died. Darting through the open plan lounge, Tonks caught her foot on the leg of a side table she always tripped over. She turned her sprawl into a leap, landing between Molly, who was stood like a statue, wide-eyed and open-mouthed in terror, and the people who had just appeared in the flat, backs to her:
Her parents.
"Wonderful," muttered Andromeda -- or what looked like her, from behind. Tall and, Tonks imagined, glowering, Andromeda freed an arm from the hefty, blond-haired Ted's grasp and began to smooth her rumpled plum-coloured robes. "You've Apparated us into the wrong flat. I told you--"
"Show your hands," Tonks ordered, wand trained on the couple, as was Remus' at her shoulder, "and slowly turn."
They obeyed the part about turning, but rather than raising their hands, they blinked at her in bewilderment.
"See?" Pulling himself together, Ted nudged his wife in the ribs with his elbow. "I knew where I was Apparating us."
Andromeda's lips twitched, as though her brain had commanded her muscles to smile, but emotion had played no role in the facial expression. "Nymphadora--"
"Show. Your. Hands."
"Come on, Viola," Ted drawled. "You know it's your old dad." But, almost indulgently, he raised his hands, palms spread outward.
Of course, using that old nickname, he was most probably really her dad. And there wasn't a chance even a member of the Wizarding Shakespeare Company could impersonate her mother's characteristic look of mortification: flinty gleam in her grey eyes, above shots of red on her cheeks as she held her graceful hands barely above waist level.
But Tonks knew better than anyone about wearing faces that weren't your own, and no one, not even Aurors, could afford to take the slightest chance now. Merlin knew she and Remus had enough people out to get them these days. Molly, as well; she was sidling back from the table to stand behind Remus--
--who, Tonks noted with a sickly twisting stomach and a rising bitter taste, Ted and Andromeda were regarding steadily, but with no warmth, as only her parents could.
Not to mention, she thought, forcing herself to look at the situation objectively, that even at the best of times, you just didn't go around Apparating into other people's flats.
Tonks drew Andromeda's gaze away from Remus with her own hard stare. "What did I owl you about after my Sorting?"
Without hesitation, Andromeda replied, "You wrote that the Sorting Hat put you into Hufflepuff because you were a perfectionist, and that it must be foreseeing you'd be a Prefect."
Behind Tonks, Remus let out a short, soft laugh, though she saw in her periphery that his wand arm didn't relax.
"Oh!" Molly squeaked. "Out of the mouths of babes!"
Glancing quickly over her shoulder, Tonks saw that a nostalgic, maternal glow had brought colour back to the older witch's round face. Relieved that Molly seemed, apart from one plump hand splayed over her heart as she clutched at Remus' sleeve with the other, to be rapidly recovering from her fright, Tonks reverted her attention to her parents.
Unlike Molly, there was nothing maternal, or particularly nostalgic, about her Mother's demeanour. Restrained, almost cold, Andromeda made it plain to Tonks that she was deeply offended her own daughter questioning her identity.
Repeating to herself Mad-Eye's not-so-mad mantra of constant vigilance even though it seemed a bit pointless now, Tonks turned to her dad. If she didn't do security checks on both of them, it would just be adding insult to Andromeda's injuries -- which, in the past, Tonks might actually have made a game of; but tonight, mother-daughter strife was the last thing she wanted to add to the list of odds stacked against her impending engagement announcement.
"Why do you call me Viola?" she asked Ted.
The angry knot constricting her heart throbbed with a different, pleasant, ache as she watched his eyes soften with tenderness, but mother rolled hers slightly at him, as she always did at his rare sentimental moments.
"Nymphadora was too big a name for such a tiny little thing," he said. "You were always turning your hair purple or blue or yellow... And with those bright black eyes sparkling out of your little white, heart-shaped face...You always made me think of the baby pansies -- the violas -- your mum grew in the front flower beds."
Darting a glance at her mother, Tonks saw a look on Andromeda's face that looked just a bit touched. Though something about it said that was likely due to sentiment than surprise that Ted knew what sort of flowers she grew.
"Oh!" Molly cried, sniffing a little. "That's simply lovely! Dear Tonks must have been the sweetest child."
"That she was," Ted agreed and, unlike Andromeda, appeared to have forgiven said offspring for suspecting his means of arrival, wrapped a thick arm around Tonks' shoulders and gave her a tight side-hug. "I wanted to name her Viola from the start, you know, because of how she can disguise herself whenever she wants."
In a welcome moment of humour, Remus and Molly stared politely, yet blankly.
Noticing, Ted went on, "Oh, sorry -- there's this Muggle play, you see, about a girl who goes undercover as a man so she can start a new life for herself after she's shipwrecked, and then there's all sorts of fun as she falls in love with this bloke, Orsino, and this girl, Olivia falls in love with her--"
"You're convinced, then," Andromeda interrupted, "that we're really you're parents?"
One perfectly sculpted eyebrow -- which Tonks wasn't even sure she could reproduce by morphing, much less the plucking charm she'd seen her mother use -- arched in the expression that had never failed to make Tonks feel utterly mortified for annoying her mother.
"I'm sorry," she began -- but then, hearing the note of desperation in her own voice, she realised her shoulders had slumped and her chin drooped toward her chest.
Snapping upright, she shrugged off her dad's arm and said, "But what do you expect me to do when you just Apparate in here? That's not like you, Mum."
For a moment -- not even a moment, a split-second -- Andromeda's mask of rigid propriety dropped, and her sharp eyes softened with an almost pleading expression. "We--"
As abruptly as she had faltered, Andromeda pulled herself together. Her lips pursed in a tight smile which Tonks recognised well: this was neither the time nor the place.
Tonks' heart quickened. Something was wrong. Something serious enough for her dad to break one of the most basic rules of Wizarding manners even he ordinarily wouldn't have, and yet not quite serious enough for Andromeda to be comfortable breeching travel etiquette.
How serious would something have to be for her to abandon propriety? Tonks wondered, as she had a million times over the course of her life.
Continuing the staring match with her mother, Tonks saw out the corner of her eye that Remus had lowered his wand; she heard the rustle of fabric as he pocketed it. Then he was stepping round her, hand extended to Andromeda.
"It's a pleasure to see you again," he said. "I do hope you've been well?"
Tonks didn't hear the actual words of her parents' replies, because the looks on their faces -- the way they didn't quite meet Remus' eye, and shook his hand with the most ginger of touches -- spoke plainly enough. Not that she'd had great expectations, given that they'd kept him at arm's length last year when she was in hospital. But really -- as far as they knew, she'd been happily together with Remus for two years. Couldn't they make a little more effort to warm to him, instead of handing off their cloaks to him as if he were the hired help?
"Do you know Molly Weasley?" he asked them over his shoulder as he hung their things on the rack by the door.
His voice and smile were pleasant, but Tonks hadn't missed the flicker of disappointment before his gaze shifted away; she'd recognised the trace of tightness in his softly rasping tone.
Her one consolation -- if you could call it that without feeling the least bit consoled -- was that there was no more friendliness in how they shook hands with Molly.
"My, but it's been years since I saw you, Andromeda," said the short red-head, who went a bit pink in the face as her eyes scanned Tonks' mother. Her hands twisted her apron in them. "They've been a good deal kinder to you than they've been to me."
Andromeda smiled politely and smoothed her glossy brown hair. "In school you were Molly...Prewett, was it?"
"You might remember my older brothers, Gideon and Fabian."
"Who could forget them?" Ted chimed. "Nothing got past the Gryffindor Beaters while they were in school."
Molly's warm brown eyes glowed with pride. "No, nothing. They're where my twins, Fred and George, got it from. Fine athletes, all my boys, except for..."
Though wincing for Molly, Tonks, bracing for a potentially very awkward moment, looked to Remus for help. But Molly sidestepped the subject of Percy herself by putting on a bright smile and saying, "My eldest, Bill, married a few weeks ago."
"Oh," said Andromeda, and turned to Tonks. "You went to school with Bill, didn't you, Nymphadora?"
"He was older. Not in my House. None of them were. All Gryffindors."
The look Andromeda gave clearly told her not to put words in her mouth, and Tonks felt the air thicken as the walls of the flat seemed to close in on her. Why had she been so worried about other people making awkwardness, when she could write the textbook on social blunders? Especially when her mother was involved.
She looked to Molly for help, and the woman she'd come to regard as a mother looked at her sympathetically. "Remus was a Gryffindor, as well," she told Ted and Andromeda, "and perfectly suited to Tonks -- though before I'd got to know them well, I did think she might be the sort of girl Bill or Charlie might take a fancy to."
Maybe not so helpful, after all.
Face burning, Tonks stared at her feet which, she realised for the first time were bare. She hadn't put on her shoes before she'd rushed to investigate Molly's scream. She had done her toenails purple, to coordinate with her outfit, and between them and her leggings, her feet and ankles looked ghastly pale. Though she tried not to think about the critical eye her mother must have cast over the ensemble, Tonks couldn't help but ask herself why in Merlin's name she'd let Remus talk her into wearing purple tonight, of all nights. She could only imagine what her face looked like against violet hair...
"Right, then," said Molly, and Tonks glanced up through the fringe she was debating changing the colour of, to find the Weasley matriarch looking about the kitchen, appraising her work. "Now my poor heart's recovered, I'll stop imposing. Tonks, dear, all you've got to do is take the lasagne out of the oven after you've had salad -- which I tossed for you, by the way. I chilled the wine, as well, and..."
Seeming to see the heat flooding Tonks' face as Andromeda looked on with that bloody raised eyebrow, Molly patted her shoulder and smiled reassuringly -- or tried to, but it definitely came out more sceptical -- at her. And, maybe for the first time ever, at Remus.
With a flimsy smile, moving toward the fireplace, she said, "I'm sure between the pair of you it's in good hands."
As soon as the last wisp of her fiery hair disappeared into the Floo, Ted said, "I could do with a drop of wine."
"So could I," said Andromeda, "after all that."
Guilt chased Tonks into the kitchen, but receded for a moment when the cold tile on the soles of her feet reminded her again about her shoes. Summoning the purple flats from the bedroom, she again pushed aside thoughts of her mother's scrutiny, which she felt as she shimmied into them, then flung open a cupboard door and rose up on her toes for the wine glasses.
She shouldn't have put her parents through that, her conscience said, whilst Remus' gentle voice whispered in her mind that she'd only done what security compelled everyone to these days. But security didn't call for embarrassing people unnecessarily. Aurors oughtn't be bullies.
Reaching back to hand Remus a glass, simultaneously stretching her other arm upward for another, Tonks lost her balance. Scrabbling wildly at the high cupboard, she used a word that surely raised her mother's eyebrows a little higher as a gleaming blur indicated a goblet was plummeting to the floor.
She cursed again when it shattered.
Remus, however, reacted with his typical unruffled ease. One hand on the small of her back to steady her, he took out his wand and cast a Reparo on the glass. Another neat flick of his wand levitated it and the one she'd handed him to the table, whilst summoning two more from cupboard. Fingers stroking her back, he leant in to press a kiss to her temple.
"Relax," he whispered, breath tickling her ear. "It's only dinner, and you're doing fine."
Fine wasn't good enough, Tonks thought, but she smiled at him and whispered back, "I'd rather fight Dementors."
The comfort of Remus' touch and words and soft laughter fled when he seated her across from her mother. Andromeda's grey eyes clearly had not missed a detail of their interaction in the kitchen, and now watched Remus' hands linger on Tonks' shoulders, lightly stroking the skin at the edges of her t-shirt sleeves before he moved to pour the wine.
For a fleeting moment, she hoped wildly that maybe her mother was impressed by Remus' knack for householdy spells. Then she noticed the crease between her dark eyebrows. Beneath his receding hairline, her dad's wide, shiny forehead wrinkled in a matching expression of confusion. They weren't impressed by his ease with her, in her home; they were surprised by it.
Because they'd had no idea, prior to coming over, how serious her relationship with Remus was.
Palm suddenly damp, wine glass slipping, Tonks clutched it more tightly between her trembling fingers as she set it down. She grimaced at the dark red droplets that sloshed on the tablecloth, but thankfully she hadn't dropped the entire glass.
Or did her parents know exactly why they'd been invited here tonight, after a year of minimal communication, with no mention whatsoever of her love life? They were clever people, both of them: a Ravenclaw and a Slytherin. Andromeda's keen eyes hardly ever missed a thing, and couldn't have missed the ring on Tonks' left hand -- which she immediately withdrew to her lap as though her goblet had a burning hex on it.
They knew she was engaged. They had to know. And they weren't happy about it. It was the only explanation for their coldness.
"The salad!" Tonks cried, jumping up from her chair--
--at the same moment as Remus was taking his seat beside her, wine bottle still in hand--
--dousing the front of his new white shirt.
"Bugger," she hissed through clenched teeth, and started to reach for her napkin which had fallen from her lap to the floor.
But Remus caught her arm gently, stopping her and silencing her apologies. "Only a little wine," he said, smiling. "Nothing a charm won't fix."
"You'll want to do a stain charm immediately," Andromeda suggested, looking genuinely concerned about something other than herself for the first time since she'd arrived. "Let it set overnight, before you do a laundry charm."
Remus glanced at Andromeda to thank her, but his gaze was only for Tonks as he slid his hand up to her shoulder, fingers squeezing lightly, and said quietly, " I'll just go and change. Why don't you serve the salad?"
Excusing himself, he went to the bedroom.
The door had barely shut before Andromeda pinned Tonks with her gaze and stated, "Remus is living with you now."
If her own clumsiness had not been such an established facet of her personality, Tonks would have been tempted to accuse her mother of jinxing her to make Remus spill wine on himself so she could ask about their living arrangement.
She turned on her heel to fetch the salad from the kitchen. "We moved in together last summer."
The fact that it hadn't lasted a week before he'd broken up with her to go underground was not important.
"Seems convenient..." Ted began, then paused to sip his wine. When Andromeda elbowed him less discreetly than Tonks suspected she would have liked, he muttered that he wasn't slurping. Tonks got the feeling, though, that he wasn't scowling at his wife as he continued, "Convenient for someone in his..." Another nudge of Andromeda's elbow deepened his cross expression. He went on, more loudly, "Well the Ministry don't provide much for his situation, do they? Must be damned hard to get by."
One or two times in her life, Tonks had been so furious that she'd thrown something. There had been another one or two times that she'd upturned food on the head of the person who'd made her furious. Now she wanted to do both, but refrained from either -- though she was just a bit surprised she didn't crush the salad bowl between her fingers as she carried it to the table.
"It's more than convenient for both of us." She set the bowl in the centre of the table -- hard, so that the glasses and silverware rattled. "He helps me get by more than I--"
Her words died, mouth hanging open, as the bedroom door creaked open. Remus stepped out, wearing a light blue shirt a tight smile that didn't quite reach his eyes -- which didn't quite meet Tonks' as he went to get the lasagne out of the oven. And which, in turn, made her stomach constrict, cold, leaden dread settling in the pit.
Damn. They hadn't even said the word engaged, and already her parents had made Remus doubt himself.
A jolt in her heart said she was the one who was doubting, and that she was being silly. He'd promised her, at the start of their reconciliation, when they'd first dared to talk again of marriage, that he would learn to accept that her parents might not accept. It wasn't their decision. It was hers -- and his. Together. Remus had said so.
But what if that was easier said than done?
Pushing the niggling doubt to the back of her mind, Tonks sat, shooting her dad a look she hoped matched the flash of steel in her mother's eyes as she glared at him, too. There wasn't much comfort in Andromeda siding with her against Ted, however; she wasn't upset that he'd slighted Remus, but that he'd slighted anyone at all within earshot, in his own home. Whether the home was really his or not. And the look didn't accomplish anything, anyway, except to make Ted mumble into his wine about fathers' rights.
"This lasagne smells like it ought to, I think," said Remus lightly, levitating it to the workspace, then summoning the dinner plates from the table, to serve it.
Andromeda thanked him as her plate returned to her, and arched an eyebrow at Tonks. "I didn't know you were acquainted enough with the Weasleys that Molly would cook for you. In fact, I'm surprised you know them at all."
"Arthur works on my level at the Ministry," Tonks replied. "He always said hello, and you know how one thing leads to another. We've become quite good friends with them, haven't we, Remus?"
He'd just sat beside her, and she squeezed his thigh under the table.
"Molly didn't cook so much as save me." Remus skimmed his fingertips over the back of her hand as he spread his napkin over his lap. "I baked a lasagne this afternoon, but I put the cheese on with a wand--"
Andromeda, fork halfway to her mouth, hissed faintly through her teeth. The look on her face, which resembled the one Molly had worn earlier, as if a person would have to fall off the back of a broom not to know that, made Tonks suspect that she and Molly, if only Andromeda would give her a chance, could bond over several hours' rant on young people today and their lack of householdy skills.
"Indeed," said Remus, flashing his easy, winning grin. "As you can imagine, I'm quite the typical male and cannot count knowledge of how to prepare lasagnes as part of my meagre culinary repertoire."
His eyes darted sideways at Tonks, the golden lashes moving together in the quickest of winks that made reassurance surge within her. He'd given his word. Whatever happened tonight with her parents, he wouldn't let it come between them. She needed to stop being so bloody insecure and trust this man. The admiration she felt for him swelled up so intensely in her chest that she wondered if there was a visible change in her appearance. He had so much dignity. Couldn't they see?
"I'd got the recipe from Molly," he went on, "and, anticipating I might go wrong, she baked a spare. But I'm sure mine would have turned out precisely like this if I'd resorted to manual labour."
Tonks' own chuckle at his joke only served to make her more aware of how polite her mother's quiet laughter was, and how much more interested Ted seemed in his wine than in the conversation.
"Look, Mum," she snapped, dropping her fork into her salad. Ignoring her mother's wince at her table manners, Tonks picked it out with her fingers and wiped the handle almost savagely on her napkin. "I said I was sorry about the Auror act, but you hardly gave me a choice, Apparating in here like that."
"It was him!" cried Andromeda, going suddenly red in the face, at the same time as Ted blurted, "Because of her! 'Dromeda thinks our Floo's being watched."
"Don't call me 'Dromeda, Ted!"
Remus made an undignified snorting sound into his wine as he darted wicked eyes sidelong at her. She rolled her eyes briefly before turning to her parents.
"You think someone's spying on your Floo?" she asked incredulously.
"She thinks so." Hunched over his plate, Ted jerked his thumb toward his wife.
Andromeda's lips quirked into her polite smile. "We'll discuss it after dinner."
Tonks started to argue with her mother that if she was really concerned, polite dinner conversation wouldn't take precedence over safety, but the warmth of Remus' hand moving to rest on her thigh, fingers gently squeezing, stopped her.
Feeling his gaze on her face, she looked up to find his sandy eyebrows raised slightly, almost in question, over calm blue eyes. His fingers gave her thigh another reassuring press. Tonks' heart stood still. She sensed his silent communication:
It's time.
"Actually..." Her voice fell softly on her ears, as though coming from a long way off. Her parents, though just a few feet across the table, seemed miles away as they continued eating. Had they heard her at all? She started to reach for her wine, but her hand trembled so, she didn't dare. Fingering the rim of the goblet, she cleared her throat and went on louder, but hoarsely, "There was something we -- Remus and I -- wanted to discuss over dinner."
Ted's dark eyes, and Andromeda's grey ones, snapped up to her. Both stopped chewing, Ted, with his mouth slightly agape. Andromeda dabbed at the corner of her mouth.
There was a faint burning sensation in Tonks' lungs, and she registered vaguely that she really ought to stop holding her breath, though of course she didn't realise it. Chest tightening, she withdrew her hand from her glass and clapped it over Remus' hand on her leg. Beneath her fingertips, she felt his knuckles arch, tendons tightening. Another squeeze of his fingers, and his unwavering gaze on her face, urged her to continue.
"Something happy..." Her voice caught, and though it occurred to her that she probably ought to be looking at her parents, she couldn't pull her eyes away from Remus' as she added, barely above a whisper, "...at least we think..."
And then suddenly his hand caught hers, long fingers lacing together with her slighter, slimmer ones with ridiculous glittery purple nails. He was pushing his chair back from the table...now standing...now tugging her up with him. His hand released hers to wrap around her waist, and despite the way her heart fluttered wildly as his right hand reached for her left, holding it so that the ring nestled there drew her parents' gaze, she breathed again.
The world could go to hell all around them, yet there was nothing more secure than fitting against him like this, feeling his voice rumble in his chest as he spoke, quietly but steadily.
"Ted, Andromeda..."
He looked at each of them, meeting their eyes. His hand settled unabashedly on her hip, and Tonks' memory took her back nearly two years to the day of that first long ago date, when they'd met Poppy Pomfrey, and Remus had been so afraid of what she'd thought of them, together. If he had similar doubts now, they were well masked beneath his bold touch and the open demeanour that had first made her notice him in the Order. Her heart quickened in anticipation, without an ounce of the nervous dread that had made her pulse beat at irregular, fluctuating tempos all day.
"I've asked Nymphadora to marry me, and she has done me the very great honour of saying yes."
He was Remus again.
The whole Remus he'd thought broken beyond repair; the Remus he thought he'd lost, but now had found again.
This was the man who made dry, deprecating jokes about werewolves not making popular dinner guests, without truly indulging feelings of unworthiness. He was a man in love, who said what all men -- not just men with lycanthropy -- said: that they were honoured to have their love requited.
She almost didn't care about her parents' response, because she had him back.
If almost didn't care meant cared so much it hurt.
Her dad's thick index finger tracing the edge of his goblet drew her gaze across the table. That soft, nostalgic look he'd worn earlier, whilst relating the story behind her nickname, had returned, though his eyes met neither hers nor Remus' as he said, "And made you feel like the luckiest man in the world, no doubt."
All dads thought their daughters' fiancés were lucky to have them, Tonks tried to tell herself. But in light of what he'd said about convenient living arrangements, she couldn't deny the sting of his words, and she didn't think she was imagining a tinge of disdain in his tone. Did Remus feel and hear them, too?
Nodding, his chin brushed her hair, and he tightened his arm around her waist as his thumb scuffed her knuckles. "And the happiest, as well."
"I wish you both will be very happy for a long time," Andromeda said, her smile belied once again by that subtly arched eyebrow.
How did Remus do it? Tonks asked herself as he thanked her mother. How did he sound so sincere toward people he knew were anything but? She knew that if she were to ask him, he would tell her he was used to it. Always she ached inside whenever she thought about the times he'd been cut and humiliated for a reason utterly beyond his control; she wasn't sure how she managed to mutter her thanks now, knowing that her own parents had made him feel that way. And her, as well.
As Ted proposed a toast, and he and Andromeda stood and offered hollow congratulations from lips curved in masks of smiles, Tonks remembered what Remus had said the first time he'd met them, about polite being the best he could hope for from people. Knowing him as she did, she'd been sceptical that this man, who so valued other people's approval in spite of being accustomed to life on the fringe, could really be content with that. Now, mortification gnawing acutely as her parents went through the motions of celebrating her engagement, when what she really wanted was to feel their joy for her, she understood that this was one of the dangers he'd tried to protect her from. She still disagreed that he had done, of course; but if their roles had been reversed, she would have thought he deserved so much more than this heartache, and done what she could to keep him from it.
Would it hurt less if her parents dropped the charade and said what they really thought? At least then she could have the satisfaction of standing up for Remus, for herself, and of ordering them out of their home.
But then she thought of Bill Weasley, and how he'd carried on as usual with Fleur in the face of his mother's much less subtle hostility. Tonks also remembered how impressed she'd been with Fleur's longsuffering -- albeit rather haughty longsuffering -- and how, after her own love life was on the mend and she'd thought back on the scene in the hospital wing, she'd been glad that Fleur had her moment of vindication after everything Molly, much as Tonks loved her, had undeniably put her through. Her one consolation now, which she wished she could convey to Remus as they resumed their seats and he leant in for a quick kiss, was the hope that one day he would be able to defend his dignity and her parents would show a measure of shame for how they'd treated him.
The thought didn't comfort her for long. As they tucked into their lasagne (which, to make matters a lot worse, needed a re-warming charm) Andromeda asked the dreaded question of wedding dates.
"Unfortunately," answered Remus with a calm Tonks couldn't begin to fathom how he possessed at the moment, "our work has kept us frequently apart since we became engaged."
At the phrase our work, Ted's eyebrows rose higher on his forehead; his Adam's apple bobbed almost guiltily below his double chin as he swallowed his wine. Tonks watched her mother chew, that polite smile on her lips again, and thought how, if Andromeda were a stranger, she might actually have believed her to be apologetic.
"Wartime always means wedding time," said Andromeda, dabbing her mouth with her napkin. "Unfortunately, it's very seldom the right time."
The words themselves hit Tonks like a couple of Stunners to the chest; but it was the sound of Remus' utensils scraping against the china, the first obvious sign of his inner state, that struck like a crueller curse.
No. Honesty did not hurt less.
But it did make it a hell of a lot easier to vent your anger. Tonks opened her mouth to release the hot retort that leapt to her tongue--
--but just as she started to speak, her mother spoke again.
"Now you've brought this up, Nymphadora..." she said in the same tone she would have used had Tonks brought up drapes or some other insipid subject, and cutting her lasagne into lady-like bites. "I think your father and I won't wait till after dinner to say what we've come to talk about."
"You came to...?" Tonks sputtered. "But we invited--"
"We've decided to go into hiding," said Andromeda over her.
A glance at her dad, shovelling lasagne into his mouth between gulps of wine, made Tonks feel pretty sure that, as it had been all her life, the we behind that decision was really Andromeda in all her third person pronoun forms.
In any case, Tonks barely had time to digest that statement before her mother continued, "And we feel it would be best if you come with us."
It seemed impossible to process. Maybe if she wasn't sitting here looking at them, thinking that someone must have used a Time Turner to take her back to her teenaged days when she'd been convinced there wasn't a thicker pair on the planet than her parents. She scooted her chair back and cleared away her plate, as well as Remus'. The lasagne on both was mostly uneaten, but Tonks had lost her appetite completely, and the utensils laid across his plate indicated he had, as well.
On her way to the kitchen, she vanished the food from the plates. Filling the sink with soapy water, and carelessly dropping the plates into it, causing them to clink loudly against the porcelain basin. When she hoped she'd chipped them and offended her mother, she at last had an inkling of how Sirius must have felt about all the Black family heirlooms. A thought which sent a rather large jolt through her. If she was comparing her parents to Sirius', then she was letting the emotions get the better of her and had jolly well better pull herself together. They weren't evil.
Even if they were behaving like the closed-minded bigots her mother's family were.
Hypocrites! Didn't they remember what it had been like for them? Couldn't they be to their daughter what Andromeda's parents had failed to be for her?
Maybe they weren't so far off from evil.
Leaning over the sink, Tonks ran a hand over her face. God, she was tired. Five days without Remus, and now this. She just wanted her parents to leave, so she could curl up in bed with him and pretend there was no one in the world but them.
But even if her parents made her want to pull it out, she needed to keep her hair on. They were frightened civilians in a time of war. She was an Auror, for Merlin's sake, and had focused on doing Auror work in the midst of worse personal problems than this all last year. She could focus now. It was just a silly engagement announcement.
"Right, then," she said in her brusque Auror voice, as if she were dealing with strangers rather than her own flesh and blood, who were currently making her blood boil. "Ignoring that last bit about me...Why do you think you should go into hiding?"
"We did last time," said Andromeda, "and it's far more dangerous for us than it was then, with your career and..." She hesitated for a moment, then continued, an edge creeping into her voice. "...whatever you're involved in. We know you were affiliated with Albus Dumbledore--"
Tonks spun on her heel. "Are, Mum."
"That attack in Sevenoaks last night," Remus' calmly interrupted. "Were you threatened? Ted mentioned your Floo's being watched?"
Andromeda's jaw tightened as she flicked her eyes sidelong at her husband. "Not watched, exactly," she said, slowly. "More like a constant sense of danger."
"Sense of danger?" Tonks repeated, not bothering to keep the scepticism out of her voice.
"A feeling that someone's listening."
"To what?" Tonks snorted, folding her arms over her chest. "You two don't talk."
Andromeda's nostril's flared as she drew in her breath sharply, a look Tonks recognised instantly to mean she'd pushed too far. But, ever poised and proper, another breath and a sip of wine allowed Andromeda to continue as if there had been no smart-arsed interruption. "I also sense strangers looking at me whenever I arrive somewhere by Floo, as if they expected me."
"Paranoia," said Tonks.
"I know what signs to watch out for."
Tonks shook her head as she stalked a few paces, stopping behind the chair she'd sat in, next to Remus. "You look for signs."
"Tonks," Remus quietly rebuked, one hand catching her elbow.
Reflexively, she jerked her arm away and glared down at him. Didn't he know that the very last thing she needed now was him going into protector mode? They were only parents.
And yet somehow she'd overlooked that their being parents meant that they still had the ability to make her feel like a child.
Especially her mother, who sat tall and queen-like in the battered second-hand dining chair, and who broke through the firm Auror resolve by uttering that cringe-worthy name:
"Nymphadora."
"Don't--"
"I did not bring up your affiliations simply to point out why we are in danger. You are in even greater danger. I would like for you to think very seriously about going into hiding with us."
"Mum, I'm an Auror. If I hide with you, who's going to fight Voldemort so we can come out again?"
Tonks had got so used to having dinner with people who didn't gasp when He-Who-Must-Not-Be was named that she faltered a bit when both her parents gasped and turned pale. If she'd realised, she'd have said it before now and shut her mother up a lot bloody sooner.
And yet the shrill note of her voice, still ringing in the thick air of the small flat, worked like a pinprick to a balloon to shatter the swell of frustration that had buoyed her throughout the conversation.
Sighing heavily, she sank into her chair as Remus drew it out for her.
"Look," she said, "if you go into hiding, you'll need a secret keeper and someone to look after you. Wouldn't that have to be me?"
Her mother had dominated the conversation till this point, so Tonks was a little surprised when it was Ted who spoke. "We couldn't ask that of you, Dora."
His words were full of regret, but his eyes, on Andromeda, told another.
"But it's Plan B, isn't it?" Tonks asked. When her father reddened, and her mother blanched and looked offended, she went on, "Don't try and pretend it's not. You had to know there was a fairly large chance I wouldn't be willing to give up my job, or my affiliations with Dumbledore, or Remus."
"You act as though your father and I don't value what you do. Of course we do. But we value you more."
It was the quiet voice which had never failed to make Tonks feel guilty for arguing with her mother. But there was a first time for everything, and today was the first time for it to have absolutely no effect whatsoever. If they truly valued her, she wanted to say, they'd trust her choice of husband, and not use safety as a guise to try and persuade her to leave him.
What she actually said was, "Hiding isn't just something you do on a whim. You can't come out till it's over. Not for anything, or anyone. And it's ugly, Mum. We watched it kill Sirius."
Hearing herself say that, Tonks actually felt as startled as her parents looked. For just a moment, when her mother's frosty features softened into a look of curiosity, she panicked that she would have to explain about her part in hiding Sirius for a year.
Or would that be a good thing? Would it help them understand Remus better, to know what they'd been involved in together? At the very least, it would get them off the ridiculous subject of her going into hiding.
But Andromeda's curiosity apparently didn't run very deep. "I know just how ugly hiding is," she said, "and you ought to thank me that you never realised until you hid Sirius. It was an adventure to you, when you were a child."
Tonks wavered as she had a flash of being a little girl -- seven, maybe eight -- and trying to escape beyond the tiny, drab back yard of the bungalow they were living in, under Fidelius, to play with the laughing children next-door. They'd had a swing, and looked so happy, sailing over the fence, not seeing her. Every day, for weeks, she'd tried to reach them, and every day, for weeks, she'd made her mother furious. Her dad always said that Mummy got angry because she was afraid; but Tonks had never seen anything like fear in her mother's eyes. The memories were too vague, mere impressions now, so Tonks couldn't look back now, a grown woman, and reassess the conclusions drawn as a child. Part of her wanted to be impressed with her mother's acting skills, but then again, this was the same woman who hadn't wanted to discuss concerns about her Floo over dinner.
And she knew what her mother was doing, bringing Tonks' childhood into the argument.
Jaw tightening, she said, "It might have slipped your notice, Mum, but children aren't appointed as Aurors, and they don't have their parents over for dinner to announce their engagements."
She hadn't realised her hands were balled into fists in her lap, twisting the edge of the tablecloth, until Remus' hand caught one and made her drop it as he laced his fingers through hers.
"Tonks is right about hiding being a last resort," he said. "There are security measures we can take to protect you and your home."
Fighting back irritation at him for intervening -- for implying she wasn't up to handling her own parents -- Tonks focused on the actual content of his words, rather than his motive for speaking them.
"We'll set the wards tonight," she said decisively. "Remus and I. Would that make you feel better?"
To her relief, she noticed fine lines at the corners of her mother's eyes as she mulled over the counter-plan. But then she looked up and asked, "Will wards help if someone's already controlling the Floo?"
"Someone is!" Tonks cried, frustration rising up hotly again, and boiling over. "It's called the Bloody Floo Network!"
"S'what I keep telling her," said Ted with a snort and an elbow in his wife's ribs that somehow seemed to earn both him and Tonks a glower.
"Dessert?" said Remus, getting up. "Tonks, could you please help me?"
He didn't give her a choice; in a swift motion, he waved his wand to sweep the dinner dishes to the sink, and pulled her to her feet with his hand on her arm. Though glad to get away from her parents, Tonks felt her resentment extend toward him, as well, as he pulled her to the furthest corner of the tiny kitchen, in the space between the shelves of food and the cooker. The kitchen was open to the dining room, but he gave his wand another flick that Tonks could only guess must be a wordless Muffliato.
"Look, Dora," he said just above a whisper, nonetheless, hands sliding up to rest on her shoulders. "I know your parents' reaction to our engagement hurts you deeply, but--"
Tonks tried to squirm away from him, but bumped her shoulder on the lowest shelf corner. The throbbing put a stop to her struggling, but the pent-up energy channelled itself into her flinging words at him full-force. "Why did you reprimand me in front of them?"
"I didn't."
"You did."
His forehead lined in the moment of silence, and slowly, by increments, his hands slid from her shoulders and fell to his sides. A little more space formed between them as he stood straighter, and pushed his hair out of his face. Her temper cooled slightly as the distance, however small, relieved the air of condescension.
But she bristled again when he said, heavily, "I think you're in the wrong. They're frightened, Dora. As much for you as for themselves."
"You don't believe someone's watching their Floo! The Ministry regulate it, and Mum's convinced it's her family--"
"We both know how ineffective Ministry regulation can be. Someone could have infiltrated the Floo Network. It's happened before."
She inhaled sharply, then slumped back against the wall as the truth of his words settled over her, pressing as heavily on her heart as his hands had on her shoulders. A tin of beans clunked as she leant her shoulder against the shelving and upset the balance of a stack. Automatically, she looked around Remus' shoulder to see if her parents had seen. But of course the Muffliato prevented them hearing; though her mother was staring in their direction, features lined with a troubled look, Remus' shoulder blocked Tonks and the shelf from view.
For a moment she watched them, both sat sullenly, her father pouring himself more wine, occasionally speaking to Andromeda. Tonks didn't have to hear their words to know they were sniping at each other.
"God, Remus," she said, bowing her head, raking her fingers into her fringe and tugging at it, "if I've got to be their secret keeper..."
"You won't have to go it alone." His fingers brushed her hair as his other hand cupped her cheek and tilted her face up to his. "You've got me. I'll help you deal with them."
Smiling, Tonks untangled her hands from her hair and rested them against Remus' chest as he bent to press his lips to her temple. She leant into him, smelling the tang of his aftershave, but comfort was only a brief ebb before the waves of reality crashed over her again.
"Where would we hide them, anyway?" she asked.
During the first war, they'd packed up and moved, but her mother was right; Tonks line of work put them in greater jeopardy than they'd been in then, as well as limited where they could hide, since she couldn't very well be travelling all the time to bring them food and everything else they needed. Hands falling to her sides, she started to slump back into the wall again, but Remus' arms were around her waist, holding her upright.
"Grimmauld?" he suggested. "We'd have to run it past the Order, of course."
It seemed to Tonks that the Order leader ought to be able to decide who was hidden at headquarters without holding a meeting, but her jumbled mind didn't think of it until after she'd said, "Does Aberforth even know how to write the address so we can bring new people in?"
"I'm sure Dumbledore took that into consideration before making him Secret Keeper," replied Remus, grinning wryly.
Merlin, how many times last year had she wanted to see that twinkle in his eyes, and feared she never would again? A lump actually lodged in her throat when the twinkle became a light, shining from the darker, tender blue of eyes that were just for her before his arms tightened around her and he bent to embrace her, smooth cheek pressed against hers.
"You won't have to go it alone," he repeated, a gentle rasp in her ear.
"I know." Her voice was muffled against his shoulder. "And..." She looked up at him. "I'm sorry."
His lips curved into a gentle smile before they met hers in a kiss which, Tonks was pretty sure from the look in his eyes just before he did, was meant to be deeper and more lingering than it was, but which she turned into a peck when she glimpsed her parents over his shoulder, watching, then looking quickly away when she caught their gaze.
"Anyway," Tonks said, pulling away, and stepping around him to do the washing up, "hopefully it won't come to hiding. If we check their house tonight and find everything in order--"
Uncovering the trifle, Remus paused and gave her a quizzical look. "Tonight?"
She was a little surprised by how befuddled he sounded, but put it down to him being a bloke and still having his mind on kissing.
"Yeah," she said as she soaked a dishcloth in the warm, soapy water. "Don't you remember? You said we'd do security charms."
"I didn't mean tonight."
Turning sharply, Tonks slung water across the kitchen, all over the floor, and spattered Remus' trousers. "If we don't do it tonight, they won't go home."
Remus took out his wand and cast a drying charm over his clothes and the floor and cupboards. "I hate to rush in without running it past--"
"Without running it past who?" Tonks sloshed more water as she flung the rag back into the sink. "Mad-Eye? Who'll tell you to do special security checks if you've got a leaky tap? We're not talking about a major Order mission. We're just talking about doing a simple scan of the premises, and setting a few more wards just to be careful."
Remus looked down at his wand in his hands, brows knit in thought. It felt like a long time, and with every second of delayed response, the thought that she'd overstepped the bounds of their relationship and respective Order ranks, niggled a little more. Also, even though she knew in her head that her parents hadn't heard a word of their conversation, she couldn't shake the feeling that her private life -- both romantically and professionally -- had been put on public display tonight.
But when Remus said, "All right," every doubt and guilty thought fled, and Tonks didn't hesitate to turn on her heel and said, "Right. Let's fly, then."
Remus caught her hand just as she'd taken out her wand to undo the Muffliato, and pulled her back to face him. His sandy brows were raised. "Fly. Thirty miles to Sevenoaks."
"We've got to. Apparition could alert an intruder -- not that there is one -- we've come, and if there is something off about the Floo, we bloody well can't go that way."
"True. But you want to fly now? Right this moment?"
"Yeah." Eyes on her mother, she added, "Before dessert. Dreadful breech of etiquette, I know--"
"Tonks--"
"It'll give us time to plan our investigation -- save us time, for that matter. And put your eyebrows down."
Remus didn't. His hand tightened around hers. "Might I remind you what you just said to your mother about whims?"
Sharp words leapt to her tongue, but luckily she bit them back before she proved his point by reacting emotionally.
"I can't think with them here," she said, allowing a pleading note to creep into her voice. "A fly -- it'll clear my head, Remus."
He looked at her intently for another long moment, then pressed her hand comfortingly. "Fine."
She started to turn again, but he kept hold of her.
"Tonks, you've got to promise to keep your head about this. You're angry at them, quite understandably so, and--"
She jerked her hand away, and balled it into a fist at her side. "I think I know how to put away my feelings and do my job, Remus."
Before she turned, she glimpsed the stricken look that crossed his face: every line deepened, his five days' away from home etched over last year's mission, and the lifetime of care that had come before that. She'd had never dealt him a blow like that, not even at the height of her frustration during their separation, and she hated herself for it.
She apologised, again, and he forgave her, again. But she didn't feel any better about it.
She wouldn't, she knew. Not until she got her parents out of her house, so she could get back to life as usual with Remus.
A/N: My apologies for letting a month go by between updates. I promise to be more regular with my posts now that a three-month wave of ficathons are over at MetamorFic_Moon and RT_Challenge.
This time, everyone who reviews gets their choice of Remus to help you deal with the pesky people in your life: Practical Remus will offer his assistance with their personal troubles; Charming Remus will smile a lot and tell amusing stories to win them over; or Marauder Remus will demonstrate a few useful little spells to keep them away...
Author: MrsTater
Rating: R
Summary: As Remus and Tonks rebuild their relationship, a dangerous Order mission only she can undertake dredges up the same old problems -- as well as an entirely new set when the family she was born into clashes with the family she has made for herself within the Order of the Phoenix.
Author's Note: Special thanks to Gilpin25 and Godricgal for helping me come up with a solution to the problem: what does Ted Tonks call his daughter?
1. Homecoming |
2. Family Reunion
Wands instantly drawn, Remus and Tonks sprinted from the bedroom before Molly's scream -- which resonated through the small flat along with the crack of Apparition -- died. Darting through the open plan lounge, Tonks caught her foot on the leg of a side table she always tripped over. She turned her sprawl into a leap, landing between Molly, who was stood like a statue, wide-eyed and open-mouthed in terror, and the people who had just appeared in the flat, backs to her:
Her parents.
"Wonderful," muttered Andromeda -- or what looked like her, from behind. Tall and, Tonks imagined, glowering, Andromeda freed an arm from the hefty, blond-haired Ted's grasp and began to smooth her rumpled plum-coloured robes. "You've Apparated us into the wrong flat. I told you--"
"Show your hands," Tonks ordered, wand trained on the couple, as was Remus' at her shoulder, "and slowly turn."
They obeyed the part about turning, but rather than raising their hands, they blinked at her in bewilderment.
"See?" Pulling himself together, Ted nudged his wife in the ribs with his elbow. "I knew where I was Apparating us."
Andromeda's lips twitched, as though her brain had commanded her muscles to smile, but emotion had played no role in the facial expression. "Nymphadora--"
"Show. Your. Hands."
"Come on, Viola," Ted drawled. "You know it's your old dad." But, almost indulgently, he raised his hands, palms spread outward.
Of course, using that old nickname, he was most probably really her dad. And there wasn't a chance even a member of the Wizarding Shakespeare Company could impersonate her mother's characteristic look of mortification: flinty gleam in her grey eyes, above shots of red on her cheeks as she held her graceful hands barely above waist level.
But Tonks knew better than anyone about wearing faces that weren't your own, and no one, not even Aurors, could afford to take the slightest chance now. Merlin knew she and Remus had enough people out to get them these days. Molly, as well; she was sidling back from the table to stand behind Remus--
--who, Tonks noted with a sickly twisting stomach and a rising bitter taste, Ted and Andromeda were regarding steadily, but with no warmth, as only her parents could.
Not to mention, she thought, forcing herself to look at the situation objectively, that even at the best of times, you just didn't go around Apparating into other people's flats.
Tonks drew Andromeda's gaze away from Remus with her own hard stare. "What did I owl you about after my Sorting?"
Without hesitation, Andromeda replied, "You wrote that the Sorting Hat put you into Hufflepuff because you were a perfectionist, and that it must be foreseeing you'd be a Prefect."
Behind Tonks, Remus let out a short, soft laugh, though she saw in her periphery that his wand arm didn't relax.
"Oh!" Molly squeaked. "Out of the mouths of babes!"
Glancing quickly over her shoulder, Tonks saw that a nostalgic, maternal glow had brought colour back to the older witch's round face. Relieved that Molly seemed, apart from one plump hand splayed over her heart as she clutched at Remus' sleeve with the other, to be rapidly recovering from her fright, Tonks reverted her attention to her parents.
Unlike Molly, there was nothing maternal, or particularly nostalgic, about her Mother's demeanour. Restrained, almost cold, Andromeda made it plain to Tonks that she was deeply offended her own daughter questioning her identity.
Repeating to herself Mad-Eye's not-so-mad mantra of constant vigilance even though it seemed a bit pointless now, Tonks turned to her dad. If she didn't do security checks on both of them, it would just be adding insult to Andromeda's injuries -- which, in the past, Tonks might actually have made a game of; but tonight, mother-daughter strife was the last thing she wanted to add to the list of odds stacked against her impending engagement announcement.
"Why do you call me Viola?" she asked Ted.
The angry knot constricting her heart throbbed with a different, pleasant, ache as she watched his eyes soften with tenderness, but mother rolled hers slightly at him, as she always did at his rare sentimental moments.
"Nymphadora was too big a name for such a tiny little thing," he said. "You were always turning your hair purple or blue or yellow... And with those bright black eyes sparkling out of your little white, heart-shaped face...You always made me think of the baby pansies -- the violas -- your mum grew in the front flower beds."
Darting a glance at her mother, Tonks saw a look on Andromeda's face that looked just a bit touched. Though something about it said that was likely due to sentiment than surprise that Ted knew what sort of flowers she grew.
"Oh!" Molly cried, sniffing a little. "That's simply lovely! Dear Tonks must have been the sweetest child."
"That she was," Ted agreed and, unlike Andromeda, appeared to have forgiven said offspring for suspecting his means of arrival, wrapped a thick arm around Tonks' shoulders and gave her a tight side-hug. "I wanted to name her Viola from the start, you know, because of how she can disguise herself whenever she wants."
In a welcome moment of humour, Remus and Molly stared politely, yet blankly.
Noticing, Ted went on, "Oh, sorry -- there's this Muggle play, you see, about a girl who goes undercover as a man so she can start a new life for herself after she's shipwrecked, and then there's all sorts of fun as she falls in love with this bloke, Orsino, and this girl, Olivia falls in love with her--"
"You're convinced, then," Andromeda interrupted, "that we're really you're parents?"
One perfectly sculpted eyebrow -- which Tonks wasn't even sure she could reproduce by morphing, much less the plucking charm she'd seen her mother use -- arched in the expression that had never failed to make Tonks feel utterly mortified for annoying her mother.
"I'm sorry," she began -- but then, hearing the note of desperation in her own voice, she realised her shoulders had slumped and her chin drooped toward her chest.
Snapping upright, she shrugged off her dad's arm and said, "But what do you expect me to do when you just Apparate in here? That's not like you, Mum."
For a moment -- not even a moment, a split-second -- Andromeda's mask of rigid propriety dropped, and her sharp eyes softened with an almost pleading expression. "We--"
As abruptly as she had faltered, Andromeda pulled herself together. Her lips pursed in a tight smile which Tonks recognised well: this was neither the time nor the place.
Tonks' heart quickened. Something was wrong. Something serious enough for her dad to break one of the most basic rules of Wizarding manners even he ordinarily wouldn't have, and yet not quite serious enough for Andromeda to be comfortable breeching travel etiquette.
How serious would something have to be for her to abandon propriety? Tonks wondered, as she had a million times over the course of her life.
Continuing the staring match with her mother, Tonks saw out the corner of her eye that Remus had lowered his wand; she heard the rustle of fabric as he pocketed it. Then he was stepping round her, hand extended to Andromeda.
"It's a pleasure to see you again," he said. "I do hope you've been well?"
Tonks didn't hear the actual words of her parents' replies, because the looks on their faces -- the way they didn't quite meet Remus' eye, and shook his hand with the most ginger of touches -- spoke plainly enough. Not that she'd had great expectations, given that they'd kept him at arm's length last year when she was in hospital. But really -- as far as they knew, she'd been happily together with Remus for two years. Couldn't they make a little more effort to warm to him, instead of handing off their cloaks to him as if he were the hired help?
"Do you know Molly Weasley?" he asked them over his shoulder as he hung their things on the rack by the door.
His voice and smile were pleasant, but Tonks hadn't missed the flicker of disappointment before his gaze shifted away; she'd recognised the trace of tightness in his softly rasping tone.
Her one consolation -- if you could call it that without feeling the least bit consoled -- was that there was no more friendliness in how they shook hands with Molly.
"My, but it's been years since I saw you, Andromeda," said the short red-head, who went a bit pink in the face as her eyes scanned Tonks' mother. Her hands twisted her apron in them. "They've been a good deal kinder to you than they've been to me."
Andromeda smiled politely and smoothed her glossy brown hair. "In school you were Molly...Prewett, was it?"
"You might remember my older brothers, Gideon and Fabian."
"Who could forget them?" Ted chimed. "Nothing got past the Gryffindor Beaters while they were in school."
Molly's warm brown eyes glowed with pride. "No, nothing. They're where my twins, Fred and George, got it from. Fine athletes, all my boys, except for..."
Though wincing for Molly, Tonks, bracing for a potentially very awkward moment, looked to Remus for help. But Molly sidestepped the subject of Percy herself by putting on a bright smile and saying, "My eldest, Bill, married a few weeks ago."
"Oh," said Andromeda, and turned to Tonks. "You went to school with Bill, didn't you, Nymphadora?"
"He was older. Not in my House. None of them were. All Gryffindors."
The look Andromeda gave clearly told her not to put words in her mouth, and Tonks felt the air thicken as the walls of the flat seemed to close in on her. Why had she been so worried about other people making awkwardness, when she could write the textbook on social blunders? Especially when her mother was involved.
She looked to Molly for help, and the woman she'd come to regard as a mother looked at her sympathetically. "Remus was a Gryffindor, as well," she told Ted and Andromeda, "and perfectly suited to Tonks -- though before I'd got to know them well, I did think she might be the sort of girl Bill or Charlie might take a fancy to."
Maybe not so helpful, after all.
Face burning, Tonks stared at her feet which, she realised for the first time were bare. She hadn't put on her shoes before she'd rushed to investigate Molly's scream. She had done her toenails purple, to coordinate with her outfit, and between them and her leggings, her feet and ankles looked ghastly pale. Though she tried not to think about the critical eye her mother must have cast over the ensemble, Tonks couldn't help but ask herself why in Merlin's name she'd let Remus talk her into wearing purple tonight, of all nights. She could only imagine what her face looked like against violet hair...
"Right, then," said Molly, and Tonks glanced up through the fringe she was debating changing the colour of, to find the Weasley matriarch looking about the kitchen, appraising her work. "Now my poor heart's recovered, I'll stop imposing. Tonks, dear, all you've got to do is take the lasagne out of the oven after you've had salad -- which I tossed for you, by the way. I chilled the wine, as well, and..."
Seeming to see the heat flooding Tonks' face as Andromeda looked on with that bloody raised eyebrow, Molly patted her shoulder and smiled reassuringly -- or tried to, but it definitely came out more sceptical -- at her. And, maybe for the first time ever, at Remus.
With a flimsy smile, moving toward the fireplace, she said, "I'm sure between the pair of you it's in good hands."
As soon as the last wisp of her fiery hair disappeared into the Floo, Ted said, "I could do with a drop of wine."
"So could I," said Andromeda, "after all that."
Guilt chased Tonks into the kitchen, but receded for a moment when the cold tile on the soles of her feet reminded her again about her shoes. Summoning the purple flats from the bedroom, she again pushed aside thoughts of her mother's scrutiny, which she felt as she shimmied into them, then flung open a cupboard door and rose up on her toes for the wine glasses.
She shouldn't have put her parents through that, her conscience said, whilst Remus' gentle voice whispered in her mind that she'd only done what security compelled everyone to these days. But security didn't call for embarrassing people unnecessarily. Aurors oughtn't be bullies.
Reaching back to hand Remus a glass, simultaneously stretching her other arm upward for another, Tonks lost her balance. Scrabbling wildly at the high cupboard, she used a word that surely raised her mother's eyebrows a little higher as a gleaming blur indicated a goblet was plummeting to the floor.
She cursed again when it shattered.
Remus, however, reacted with his typical unruffled ease. One hand on the small of her back to steady her, he took out his wand and cast a Reparo on the glass. Another neat flick of his wand levitated it and the one she'd handed him to the table, whilst summoning two more from cupboard. Fingers stroking her back, he leant in to press a kiss to her temple.
"Relax," he whispered, breath tickling her ear. "It's only dinner, and you're doing fine."
Fine wasn't good enough, Tonks thought, but she smiled at him and whispered back, "I'd rather fight Dementors."
The comfort of Remus' touch and words and soft laughter fled when he seated her across from her mother. Andromeda's grey eyes clearly had not missed a detail of their interaction in the kitchen, and now watched Remus' hands linger on Tonks' shoulders, lightly stroking the skin at the edges of her t-shirt sleeves before he moved to pour the wine.
For a fleeting moment, she hoped wildly that maybe her mother was impressed by Remus' knack for householdy spells. Then she noticed the crease between her dark eyebrows. Beneath his receding hairline, her dad's wide, shiny forehead wrinkled in a matching expression of confusion. They weren't impressed by his ease with her, in her home; they were surprised by it.
Because they'd had no idea, prior to coming over, how serious her relationship with Remus was.
Palm suddenly damp, wine glass slipping, Tonks clutched it more tightly between her trembling fingers as she set it down. She grimaced at the dark red droplets that sloshed on the tablecloth, but thankfully she hadn't dropped the entire glass.
Or did her parents know exactly why they'd been invited here tonight, after a year of minimal communication, with no mention whatsoever of her love life? They were clever people, both of them: a Ravenclaw and a Slytherin. Andromeda's keen eyes hardly ever missed a thing, and couldn't have missed the ring on Tonks' left hand -- which she immediately withdrew to her lap as though her goblet had a burning hex on it.
They knew she was engaged. They had to know. And they weren't happy about it. It was the only explanation for their coldness.
"The salad!" Tonks cried, jumping up from her chair--
--at the same moment as Remus was taking his seat beside her, wine bottle still in hand--
--dousing the front of his new white shirt.
"Bugger," she hissed through clenched teeth, and started to reach for her napkin which had fallen from her lap to the floor.
But Remus caught her arm gently, stopping her and silencing her apologies. "Only a little wine," he said, smiling. "Nothing a charm won't fix."
"You'll want to do a stain charm immediately," Andromeda suggested, looking genuinely concerned about something other than herself for the first time since she'd arrived. "Let it set overnight, before you do a laundry charm."
Remus glanced at Andromeda to thank her, but his gaze was only for Tonks as he slid his hand up to her shoulder, fingers squeezing lightly, and said quietly, " I'll just go and change. Why don't you serve the salad?"
Excusing himself, he went to the bedroom.
The door had barely shut before Andromeda pinned Tonks with her gaze and stated, "Remus is living with you now."
If her own clumsiness had not been such an established facet of her personality, Tonks would have been tempted to accuse her mother of jinxing her to make Remus spill wine on himself so she could ask about their living arrangement.
She turned on her heel to fetch the salad from the kitchen. "We moved in together last summer."
The fact that it hadn't lasted a week before he'd broken up with her to go underground was not important.
"Seems convenient..." Ted began, then paused to sip his wine. When Andromeda elbowed him less discreetly than Tonks suspected she would have liked, he muttered that he wasn't slurping. Tonks got the feeling, though, that he wasn't scowling at his wife as he continued, "Convenient for someone in his..." Another nudge of Andromeda's elbow deepened his cross expression. He went on, more loudly, "Well the Ministry don't provide much for his situation, do they? Must be damned hard to get by."
One or two times in her life, Tonks had been so furious that she'd thrown something. There had been another one or two times that she'd upturned food on the head of the person who'd made her furious. Now she wanted to do both, but refrained from either -- though she was just a bit surprised she didn't crush the salad bowl between her fingers as she carried it to the table.
"It's more than convenient for both of us." She set the bowl in the centre of the table -- hard, so that the glasses and silverware rattled. "He helps me get by more than I--"
Her words died, mouth hanging open, as the bedroom door creaked open. Remus stepped out, wearing a light blue shirt a tight smile that didn't quite reach his eyes -- which didn't quite meet Tonks' as he went to get the lasagne out of the oven. And which, in turn, made her stomach constrict, cold, leaden dread settling in the pit.
Damn. They hadn't even said the word engaged, and already her parents had made Remus doubt himself.
A jolt in her heart said she was the one who was doubting, and that she was being silly. He'd promised her, at the start of their reconciliation, when they'd first dared to talk again of marriage, that he would learn to accept that her parents might not accept. It wasn't their decision. It was hers -- and his. Together. Remus had said so.
But what if that was easier said than done?
Pushing the niggling doubt to the back of her mind, Tonks sat, shooting her dad a look she hoped matched the flash of steel in her mother's eyes as she glared at him, too. There wasn't much comfort in Andromeda siding with her against Ted, however; she wasn't upset that he'd slighted Remus, but that he'd slighted anyone at all within earshot, in his own home. Whether the home was really his or not. And the look didn't accomplish anything, anyway, except to make Ted mumble into his wine about fathers' rights.
"This lasagne smells like it ought to, I think," said Remus lightly, levitating it to the workspace, then summoning the dinner plates from the table, to serve it.
Andromeda thanked him as her plate returned to her, and arched an eyebrow at Tonks. "I didn't know you were acquainted enough with the Weasleys that Molly would cook for you. In fact, I'm surprised you know them at all."
"Arthur works on my level at the Ministry," Tonks replied. "He always said hello, and you know how one thing leads to another. We've become quite good friends with them, haven't we, Remus?"
He'd just sat beside her, and she squeezed his thigh under the table.
"Molly didn't cook so much as save me." Remus skimmed his fingertips over the back of her hand as he spread his napkin over his lap. "I baked a lasagne this afternoon, but I put the cheese on with a wand--"
Andromeda, fork halfway to her mouth, hissed faintly through her teeth. The look on her face, which resembled the one Molly had worn earlier, as if a person would have to fall off the back of a broom not to know that, made Tonks suspect that she and Molly, if only Andromeda would give her a chance, could bond over several hours' rant on young people today and their lack of householdy skills.
"Indeed," said Remus, flashing his easy, winning grin. "As you can imagine, I'm quite the typical male and cannot count knowledge of how to prepare lasagnes as part of my meagre culinary repertoire."
His eyes darted sideways at Tonks, the golden lashes moving together in the quickest of winks that made reassurance surge within her. He'd given his word. Whatever happened tonight with her parents, he wouldn't let it come between them. She needed to stop being so bloody insecure and trust this man. The admiration she felt for him swelled up so intensely in her chest that she wondered if there was a visible change in her appearance. He had so much dignity. Couldn't they see?
"I'd got the recipe from Molly," he went on, "and, anticipating I might go wrong, she baked a spare. But I'm sure mine would have turned out precisely like this if I'd resorted to manual labour."
Tonks' own chuckle at his joke only served to make her more aware of how polite her mother's quiet laughter was, and how much more interested Ted seemed in his wine than in the conversation.
"Look, Mum," she snapped, dropping her fork into her salad. Ignoring her mother's wince at her table manners, Tonks picked it out with her fingers and wiped the handle almost savagely on her napkin. "I said I was sorry about the Auror act, but you hardly gave me a choice, Apparating in here like that."
"It was him!" cried Andromeda, going suddenly red in the face, at the same time as Ted blurted, "Because of her! 'Dromeda thinks our Floo's being watched."
"Don't call me 'Dromeda, Ted!"
Remus made an undignified snorting sound into his wine as he darted wicked eyes sidelong at her. She rolled her eyes briefly before turning to her parents.
"You think someone's spying on your Floo?" she asked incredulously.
"She thinks so." Hunched over his plate, Ted jerked his thumb toward his wife.
Andromeda's lips quirked into her polite smile. "We'll discuss it after dinner."
Tonks started to argue with her mother that if she was really concerned, polite dinner conversation wouldn't take precedence over safety, but the warmth of Remus' hand moving to rest on her thigh, fingers gently squeezing, stopped her.
Feeling his gaze on her face, she looked up to find his sandy eyebrows raised slightly, almost in question, over calm blue eyes. His fingers gave her thigh another reassuring press. Tonks' heart stood still. She sensed his silent communication:
It's time.
"Actually..." Her voice fell softly on her ears, as though coming from a long way off. Her parents, though just a few feet across the table, seemed miles away as they continued eating. Had they heard her at all? She started to reach for her wine, but her hand trembled so, she didn't dare. Fingering the rim of the goblet, she cleared her throat and went on louder, but hoarsely, "There was something we -- Remus and I -- wanted to discuss over dinner."
Ted's dark eyes, and Andromeda's grey ones, snapped up to her. Both stopped chewing, Ted, with his mouth slightly agape. Andromeda dabbed at the corner of her mouth.
There was a faint burning sensation in Tonks' lungs, and she registered vaguely that she really ought to stop holding her breath, though of course she didn't realise it. Chest tightening, she withdrew her hand from her glass and clapped it over Remus' hand on her leg. Beneath her fingertips, she felt his knuckles arch, tendons tightening. Another squeeze of his fingers, and his unwavering gaze on her face, urged her to continue.
"Something happy..." Her voice caught, and though it occurred to her that she probably ought to be looking at her parents, she couldn't pull her eyes away from Remus' as she added, barely above a whisper, "...at least we think..."
And then suddenly his hand caught hers, long fingers lacing together with her slighter, slimmer ones with ridiculous glittery purple nails. He was pushing his chair back from the table...now standing...now tugging her up with him. His hand released hers to wrap around her waist, and despite the way her heart fluttered wildly as his right hand reached for her left, holding it so that the ring nestled there drew her parents' gaze, she breathed again.
The world could go to hell all around them, yet there was nothing more secure than fitting against him like this, feeling his voice rumble in his chest as he spoke, quietly but steadily.
"Ted, Andromeda..."
He looked at each of them, meeting their eyes. His hand settled unabashedly on her hip, and Tonks' memory took her back nearly two years to the day of that first long ago date, when they'd met Poppy Pomfrey, and Remus had been so afraid of what she'd thought of them, together. If he had similar doubts now, they were well masked beneath his bold touch and the open demeanour that had first made her notice him in the Order. Her heart quickened in anticipation, without an ounce of the nervous dread that had made her pulse beat at irregular, fluctuating tempos all day.
"I've asked Nymphadora to marry me, and she has done me the very great honour of saying yes."
He was Remus again.
The whole Remus he'd thought broken beyond repair; the Remus he thought he'd lost, but now had found again.
This was the man who made dry, deprecating jokes about werewolves not making popular dinner guests, without truly indulging feelings of unworthiness. He was a man in love, who said what all men -- not just men with lycanthropy -- said: that they were honoured to have their love requited.
She almost didn't care about her parents' response, because she had him back.
If almost didn't care meant cared so much it hurt.
Her dad's thick index finger tracing the edge of his goblet drew her gaze across the table. That soft, nostalgic look he'd worn earlier, whilst relating the story behind her nickname, had returned, though his eyes met neither hers nor Remus' as he said, "And made you feel like the luckiest man in the world, no doubt."
All dads thought their daughters' fiancés were lucky to have them, Tonks tried to tell herself. But in light of what he'd said about convenient living arrangements, she couldn't deny the sting of his words, and she didn't think she was imagining a tinge of disdain in his tone. Did Remus feel and hear them, too?
Nodding, his chin brushed her hair, and he tightened his arm around her waist as his thumb scuffed her knuckles. "And the happiest, as well."
"I wish you both will be very happy for a long time," Andromeda said, her smile belied once again by that subtly arched eyebrow.
How did Remus do it? Tonks asked herself as he thanked her mother. How did he sound so sincere toward people he knew were anything but? She knew that if she were to ask him, he would tell her he was used to it. Always she ached inside whenever she thought about the times he'd been cut and humiliated for a reason utterly beyond his control; she wasn't sure how she managed to mutter her thanks now, knowing that her own parents had made him feel that way. And her, as well.
As Ted proposed a toast, and he and Andromeda stood and offered hollow congratulations from lips curved in masks of smiles, Tonks remembered what Remus had said the first time he'd met them, about polite being the best he could hope for from people. Knowing him as she did, she'd been sceptical that this man, who so valued other people's approval in spite of being accustomed to life on the fringe, could really be content with that. Now, mortification gnawing acutely as her parents went through the motions of celebrating her engagement, when what she really wanted was to feel their joy for her, she understood that this was one of the dangers he'd tried to protect her from. She still disagreed that he had done, of course; but if their roles had been reversed, she would have thought he deserved so much more than this heartache, and done what she could to keep him from it.
Would it hurt less if her parents dropped the charade and said what they really thought? At least then she could have the satisfaction of standing up for Remus, for herself, and of ordering them out of their home.
But then she thought of Bill Weasley, and how he'd carried on as usual with Fleur in the face of his mother's much less subtle hostility. Tonks also remembered how impressed she'd been with Fleur's longsuffering -- albeit rather haughty longsuffering -- and how, after her own love life was on the mend and she'd thought back on the scene in the hospital wing, she'd been glad that Fleur had her moment of vindication after everything Molly, much as Tonks loved her, had undeniably put her through. Her one consolation now, which she wished she could convey to Remus as they resumed their seats and he leant in for a quick kiss, was the hope that one day he would be able to defend his dignity and her parents would show a measure of shame for how they'd treated him.
The thought didn't comfort her for long. As they tucked into their lasagne (which, to make matters a lot worse, needed a re-warming charm) Andromeda asked the dreaded question of wedding dates.
"Unfortunately," answered Remus with a calm Tonks couldn't begin to fathom how he possessed at the moment, "our work has kept us frequently apart since we became engaged."
At the phrase our work, Ted's eyebrows rose higher on his forehead; his Adam's apple bobbed almost guiltily below his double chin as he swallowed his wine. Tonks watched her mother chew, that polite smile on her lips again, and thought how, if Andromeda were a stranger, she might actually have believed her to be apologetic.
"Wartime always means wedding time," said Andromeda, dabbing her mouth with her napkin. "Unfortunately, it's very seldom the right time."
The words themselves hit Tonks like a couple of Stunners to the chest; but it was the sound of Remus' utensils scraping against the china, the first obvious sign of his inner state, that struck like a crueller curse.
No. Honesty did not hurt less.
But it did make it a hell of a lot easier to vent your anger. Tonks opened her mouth to release the hot retort that leapt to her tongue--
--but just as she started to speak, her mother spoke again.
"Now you've brought this up, Nymphadora..." she said in the same tone she would have used had Tonks brought up drapes or some other insipid subject, and cutting her lasagne into lady-like bites. "I think your father and I won't wait till after dinner to say what we've come to talk about."
"You came to...?" Tonks sputtered. "But we invited--"
"We've decided to go into hiding," said Andromeda over her.
A glance at her dad, shovelling lasagne into his mouth between gulps of wine, made Tonks feel pretty sure that, as it had been all her life, the we behind that decision was really Andromeda in all her third person pronoun forms.
In any case, Tonks barely had time to digest that statement before her mother continued, "And we feel it would be best if you come with us."
It seemed impossible to process. Maybe if she wasn't sitting here looking at them, thinking that someone must have used a Time Turner to take her back to her teenaged days when she'd been convinced there wasn't a thicker pair on the planet than her parents. She scooted her chair back and cleared away her plate, as well as Remus'. The lasagne on both was mostly uneaten, but Tonks had lost her appetite completely, and the utensils laid across his plate indicated he had, as well.
On her way to the kitchen, she vanished the food from the plates. Filling the sink with soapy water, and carelessly dropping the plates into it, causing them to clink loudly against the porcelain basin. When she hoped she'd chipped them and offended her mother, she at last had an inkling of how Sirius must have felt about all the Black family heirlooms. A thought which sent a rather large jolt through her. If she was comparing her parents to Sirius', then she was letting the emotions get the better of her and had jolly well better pull herself together. They weren't evil.
Even if they were behaving like the closed-minded bigots her mother's family were.
Hypocrites! Didn't they remember what it had been like for them? Couldn't they be to their daughter what Andromeda's parents had failed to be for her?
Maybe they weren't so far off from evil.
Leaning over the sink, Tonks ran a hand over her face. God, she was tired. Five days without Remus, and now this. She just wanted her parents to leave, so she could curl up in bed with him and pretend there was no one in the world but them.
But even if her parents made her want to pull it out, she needed to keep her hair on. They were frightened civilians in a time of war. She was an Auror, for Merlin's sake, and had focused on doing Auror work in the midst of worse personal problems than this all last year. She could focus now. It was just a silly engagement announcement.
"Right, then," she said in her brusque Auror voice, as if she were dealing with strangers rather than her own flesh and blood, who were currently making her blood boil. "Ignoring that last bit about me...Why do you think you should go into hiding?"
"We did last time," said Andromeda, "and it's far more dangerous for us than it was then, with your career and..." She hesitated for a moment, then continued, an edge creeping into her voice. "...whatever you're involved in. We know you were affiliated with Albus Dumbledore--"
Tonks spun on her heel. "Are, Mum."
"That attack in Sevenoaks last night," Remus' calmly interrupted. "Were you threatened? Ted mentioned your Floo's being watched?"
Andromeda's jaw tightened as she flicked her eyes sidelong at her husband. "Not watched, exactly," she said, slowly. "More like a constant sense of danger."
"Sense of danger?" Tonks repeated, not bothering to keep the scepticism out of her voice.
"A feeling that someone's listening."
"To what?" Tonks snorted, folding her arms over her chest. "You two don't talk."
Andromeda's nostril's flared as she drew in her breath sharply, a look Tonks recognised instantly to mean she'd pushed too far. But, ever poised and proper, another breath and a sip of wine allowed Andromeda to continue as if there had been no smart-arsed interruption. "I also sense strangers looking at me whenever I arrive somewhere by Floo, as if they expected me."
"Paranoia," said Tonks.
"I know what signs to watch out for."
Tonks shook her head as she stalked a few paces, stopping behind the chair she'd sat in, next to Remus. "You look for signs."
"Tonks," Remus quietly rebuked, one hand catching her elbow.
Reflexively, she jerked her arm away and glared down at him. Didn't he know that the very last thing she needed now was him going into protector mode? They were only parents.
And yet somehow she'd overlooked that their being parents meant that they still had the ability to make her feel like a child.
Especially her mother, who sat tall and queen-like in the battered second-hand dining chair, and who broke through the firm Auror resolve by uttering that cringe-worthy name:
"Nymphadora."
"Don't--"
"I did not bring up your affiliations simply to point out why we are in danger. You are in even greater danger. I would like for you to think very seriously about going into hiding with us."
"Mum, I'm an Auror. If I hide with you, who's going to fight Voldemort so we can come out again?"
Tonks had got so used to having dinner with people who didn't gasp when He-Who-Must-Not-Be was named that she faltered a bit when both her parents gasped and turned pale. If she'd realised, she'd have said it before now and shut her mother up a lot bloody sooner.
And yet the shrill note of her voice, still ringing in the thick air of the small flat, worked like a pinprick to a balloon to shatter the swell of frustration that had buoyed her throughout the conversation.
Sighing heavily, she sank into her chair as Remus drew it out for her.
"Look," she said, "if you go into hiding, you'll need a secret keeper and someone to look after you. Wouldn't that have to be me?"
Her mother had dominated the conversation till this point, so Tonks was a little surprised when it was Ted who spoke. "We couldn't ask that of you, Dora."
His words were full of regret, but his eyes, on Andromeda, told another.
"But it's Plan B, isn't it?" Tonks asked. When her father reddened, and her mother blanched and looked offended, she went on, "Don't try and pretend it's not. You had to know there was a fairly large chance I wouldn't be willing to give up my job, or my affiliations with Dumbledore, or Remus."
"You act as though your father and I don't value what you do. Of course we do. But we value you more."
It was the quiet voice which had never failed to make Tonks feel guilty for arguing with her mother. But there was a first time for everything, and today was the first time for it to have absolutely no effect whatsoever. If they truly valued her, she wanted to say, they'd trust her choice of husband, and not use safety as a guise to try and persuade her to leave him.
What she actually said was, "Hiding isn't just something you do on a whim. You can't come out till it's over. Not for anything, or anyone. And it's ugly, Mum. We watched it kill Sirius."
Hearing herself say that, Tonks actually felt as startled as her parents looked. For just a moment, when her mother's frosty features softened into a look of curiosity, she panicked that she would have to explain about her part in hiding Sirius for a year.
Or would that be a good thing? Would it help them understand Remus better, to know what they'd been involved in together? At the very least, it would get them off the ridiculous subject of her going into hiding.
But Andromeda's curiosity apparently didn't run very deep. "I know just how ugly hiding is," she said, "and you ought to thank me that you never realised until you hid Sirius. It was an adventure to you, when you were a child."
Tonks wavered as she had a flash of being a little girl -- seven, maybe eight -- and trying to escape beyond the tiny, drab back yard of the bungalow they were living in, under Fidelius, to play with the laughing children next-door. They'd had a swing, and looked so happy, sailing over the fence, not seeing her. Every day, for weeks, she'd tried to reach them, and every day, for weeks, she'd made her mother furious. Her dad always said that Mummy got angry because she was afraid; but Tonks had never seen anything like fear in her mother's eyes. The memories were too vague, mere impressions now, so Tonks couldn't look back now, a grown woman, and reassess the conclusions drawn as a child. Part of her wanted to be impressed with her mother's acting skills, but then again, this was the same woman who hadn't wanted to discuss concerns about her Floo over dinner.
And she knew what her mother was doing, bringing Tonks' childhood into the argument.
Jaw tightening, she said, "It might have slipped your notice, Mum, but children aren't appointed as Aurors, and they don't have their parents over for dinner to announce their engagements."
She hadn't realised her hands were balled into fists in her lap, twisting the edge of the tablecloth, until Remus' hand caught one and made her drop it as he laced his fingers through hers.
"Tonks is right about hiding being a last resort," he said. "There are security measures we can take to protect you and your home."
Fighting back irritation at him for intervening -- for implying she wasn't up to handling her own parents -- Tonks focused on the actual content of his words, rather than his motive for speaking them.
"We'll set the wards tonight," she said decisively. "Remus and I. Would that make you feel better?"
To her relief, she noticed fine lines at the corners of her mother's eyes as she mulled over the counter-plan. But then she looked up and asked, "Will wards help if someone's already controlling the Floo?"
"Someone is!" Tonks cried, frustration rising up hotly again, and boiling over. "It's called the Bloody Floo Network!"
"S'what I keep telling her," said Ted with a snort and an elbow in his wife's ribs that somehow seemed to earn both him and Tonks a glower.
"Dessert?" said Remus, getting up. "Tonks, could you please help me?"
He didn't give her a choice; in a swift motion, he waved his wand to sweep the dinner dishes to the sink, and pulled her to her feet with his hand on her arm. Though glad to get away from her parents, Tonks felt her resentment extend toward him, as well, as he pulled her to the furthest corner of the tiny kitchen, in the space between the shelves of food and the cooker. The kitchen was open to the dining room, but he gave his wand another flick that Tonks could only guess must be a wordless Muffliato.
"Look, Dora," he said just above a whisper, nonetheless, hands sliding up to rest on her shoulders. "I know your parents' reaction to our engagement hurts you deeply, but--"
Tonks tried to squirm away from him, but bumped her shoulder on the lowest shelf corner. The throbbing put a stop to her struggling, but the pent-up energy channelled itself into her flinging words at him full-force. "Why did you reprimand me in front of them?"
"I didn't."
"You did."
His forehead lined in the moment of silence, and slowly, by increments, his hands slid from her shoulders and fell to his sides. A little more space formed between them as he stood straighter, and pushed his hair out of his face. Her temper cooled slightly as the distance, however small, relieved the air of condescension.
But she bristled again when he said, heavily, "I think you're in the wrong. They're frightened, Dora. As much for you as for themselves."
"You don't believe someone's watching their Floo! The Ministry regulate it, and Mum's convinced it's her family--"
"We both know how ineffective Ministry regulation can be. Someone could have infiltrated the Floo Network. It's happened before."
She inhaled sharply, then slumped back against the wall as the truth of his words settled over her, pressing as heavily on her heart as his hands had on her shoulders. A tin of beans clunked as she leant her shoulder against the shelving and upset the balance of a stack. Automatically, she looked around Remus' shoulder to see if her parents had seen. But of course the Muffliato prevented them hearing; though her mother was staring in their direction, features lined with a troubled look, Remus' shoulder blocked Tonks and the shelf from view.
For a moment she watched them, both sat sullenly, her father pouring himself more wine, occasionally speaking to Andromeda. Tonks didn't have to hear their words to know they were sniping at each other.
"God, Remus," she said, bowing her head, raking her fingers into her fringe and tugging at it, "if I've got to be their secret keeper..."
"You won't have to go it alone." His fingers brushed her hair as his other hand cupped her cheek and tilted her face up to his. "You've got me. I'll help you deal with them."
Smiling, Tonks untangled her hands from her hair and rested them against Remus' chest as he bent to press his lips to her temple. She leant into him, smelling the tang of his aftershave, but comfort was only a brief ebb before the waves of reality crashed over her again.
"Where would we hide them, anyway?" she asked.
During the first war, they'd packed up and moved, but her mother was right; Tonks line of work put them in greater jeopardy than they'd been in then, as well as limited where they could hide, since she couldn't very well be travelling all the time to bring them food and everything else they needed. Hands falling to her sides, she started to slump back into the wall again, but Remus' arms were around her waist, holding her upright.
"Grimmauld?" he suggested. "We'd have to run it past the Order, of course."
It seemed to Tonks that the Order leader ought to be able to decide who was hidden at headquarters without holding a meeting, but her jumbled mind didn't think of it until after she'd said, "Does Aberforth even know how to write the address so we can bring new people in?"
"I'm sure Dumbledore took that into consideration before making him Secret Keeper," replied Remus, grinning wryly.
Merlin, how many times last year had she wanted to see that twinkle in his eyes, and feared she never would again? A lump actually lodged in her throat when the twinkle became a light, shining from the darker, tender blue of eyes that were just for her before his arms tightened around her and he bent to embrace her, smooth cheek pressed against hers.
"You won't have to go it alone," he repeated, a gentle rasp in her ear.
"I know." Her voice was muffled against his shoulder. "And..." She looked up at him. "I'm sorry."
His lips curved into a gentle smile before they met hers in a kiss which, Tonks was pretty sure from the look in his eyes just before he did, was meant to be deeper and more lingering than it was, but which she turned into a peck when she glimpsed her parents over his shoulder, watching, then looking quickly away when she caught their gaze.
"Anyway," Tonks said, pulling away, and stepping around him to do the washing up, "hopefully it won't come to hiding. If we check their house tonight and find everything in order--"
Uncovering the trifle, Remus paused and gave her a quizzical look. "Tonight?"
She was a little surprised by how befuddled he sounded, but put it down to him being a bloke and still having his mind on kissing.
"Yeah," she said as she soaked a dishcloth in the warm, soapy water. "Don't you remember? You said we'd do security charms."
"I didn't mean tonight."
Turning sharply, Tonks slung water across the kitchen, all over the floor, and spattered Remus' trousers. "If we don't do it tonight, they won't go home."
Remus took out his wand and cast a drying charm over his clothes and the floor and cupboards. "I hate to rush in without running it past--"
"Without running it past who?" Tonks sloshed more water as she flung the rag back into the sink. "Mad-Eye? Who'll tell you to do special security checks if you've got a leaky tap? We're not talking about a major Order mission. We're just talking about doing a simple scan of the premises, and setting a few more wards just to be careful."
Remus looked down at his wand in his hands, brows knit in thought. It felt like a long time, and with every second of delayed response, the thought that she'd overstepped the bounds of their relationship and respective Order ranks, niggled a little more. Also, even though she knew in her head that her parents hadn't heard a word of their conversation, she couldn't shake the feeling that her private life -- both romantically and professionally -- had been put on public display tonight.
But when Remus said, "All right," every doubt and guilty thought fled, and Tonks didn't hesitate to turn on her heel and said, "Right. Let's fly, then."
Remus caught her hand just as she'd taken out her wand to undo the Muffliato, and pulled her back to face him. His sandy brows were raised. "Fly. Thirty miles to Sevenoaks."
"We've got to. Apparition could alert an intruder -- not that there is one -- we've come, and if there is something off about the Floo, we bloody well can't go that way."
"True. But you want to fly now? Right this moment?"
"Yeah." Eyes on her mother, she added, "Before dessert. Dreadful breech of etiquette, I know--"
"Tonks--"
"It'll give us time to plan our investigation -- save us time, for that matter. And put your eyebrows down."
Remus didn't. His hand tightened around hers. "Might I remind you what you just said to your mother about whims?"
Sharp words leapt to her tongue, but luckily she bit them back before she proved his point by reacting emotionally.
"I can't think with them here," she said, allowing a pleading note to creep into her voice. "A fly -- it'll clear my head, Remus."
He looked at her intently for another long moment, then pressed her hand comfortingly. "Fine."
She started to turn again, but he kept hold of her.
"Tonks, you've got to promise to keep your head about this. You're angry at them, quite understandably so, and--"
She jerked her hand away, and balled it into a fist at her side. "I think I know how to put away my feelings and do my job, Remus."
Before she turned, she glimpsed the stricken look that crossed his face: every line deepened, his five days' away from home etched over last year's mission, and the lifetime of care that had come before that. She'd had never dealt him a blow like that, not even at the height of her frustration during their separation, and she hated herself for it.
She apologised, again, and he forgave her, again. But she didn't feel any better about it.
She wouldn't, she knew. Not until she got her parents out of her house, so she could get back to life as usual with Remus.
A/N: My apologies for letting a month go by between updates. I promise to be more regular with my posts now that a three-month wave of ficathons are over at MetamorFic_Moon and RT_Challenge.
This time, everyone who reviews gets their choice of Remus to help you deal with the pesky people in your life: Practical Remus will offer his assistance with their personal troubles; Charming Remus will smile a lot and tell amusing stories to win them over; or Marauder Remus will demonstrate a few useful little spells to keep them away...