Transfigured Hearts #3: Taking Umbrage (1/3)
Title: Taking Umbrage (1/3)
Author: MrsTater
Rating: PG
Word Count: 4700ish
Summary: Time is a precious commodity for members of the Order of the Phoenix, especially where romance is concerned. Why, then, would Remus want to waste one of those rare opportunities to be with Tonks talking about the Ministry's unjust new Educational Decree that places an antagonist in his old Defence Against the Dark Arts position? But Tonks doesn't see it that way, and a second date seems far more likely to become a first fight.
Author's Note: I really appreciate the support y'all have shown for my revision of the Transfigured Hearts series. As in the original version of this instalment, this new Taking Umbrage will be posted in three chapters.
Sequel to Think Too Much and second in the Transfigured Hearts series, this story is set in August of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. As always, man thanks to godricgal for her fantastic beta work.
Part One
"Where's my favourite place to be kissed?"
Tonks bellowed the security question almost before Remus finished knocking. When both sounds had dissipated, leaving him in the silent corridor outside her flat, he continued to stand with his arm raised, knuckles poised against the door, cheeks aching with a huge grin he was pretty sure exceeded the level of dopiness he was comfortable displaying to the world -- or more specifically, than he was comfortable displaying to Tonks, should she give up waiting for his answer and open the door. He was, however, helpless to suppress it.
Frantic schedules had kept Remus apart from Tonks for the entire week since he'd taken her out; before he'd received an owl late last night, inviting him to hers for breakfast, he had begun to doubt whether their days off would ever coincide and allow a second date much less a tenth or twentieth. Not only that, but while absence was definitely making his heart grow fonder, he couldn't imagine that a picnic in the park with a grey-haired bloke who'd worn a bloody necktie could yet hold the number one position in Tonks' mind an entire seven days after the fact. There were Dark Wizards to chase by day, Department of Mystery doors to guard by night.
Granted, those shifts were tedious, and the more times he was sat outside that door, the more unconstantly vigilant he found himself carrying out the duty. Maybe he wasn't alone in that experience. Maybe Tonks, too, wiled away the hours under the stuffy Invisibility Cloak by reliving their first kiss at her door...and the ones that had followed, in her lounge...Fantastic as that seemed, it wasn't beyond the realm of possibility, was it? She'd asked without any hesitation at all where her favourite place was to be kissed. Almost as if her security question had been planned, and she'd been waiting for his knock...
In that case, he'd best not disappoint her. Dopey grin stretching (He decided he hoped the whole world saw it, because who could be ashamed of the fact that a beautiful witch asked him to analyse the way he'd kissed her, and how she'd responded?), he got down to the business of puzzling out what was Nymphadora Tonks' favourite place to be kissed.
Surprisingly, after a moment's thought, he decided that if this question had been on one of his OWL examinations, he'd have got a Troll.
He'd filled nearly every idle moment since their date kissing her over and over again in his mind (to the great frustration of Sirius, who kept pressing him for descriptions), recalling in detail as vivid as that shade of pink she wore sometimes -- and which he secretly wished she would wear more often -- the supple press of her lips against his, the heat of her breath on his mouth when his tongue coaxed her lips apart...It seemed like apples to oranges to compare the low, sighing hum she'd made then, to the way she'd inhaled sharply and caught her lower lip between her teeth as he'd trailed light kisses over her cheekbone, or to her girlish laughter and the way she arched into him even as his nips at her neck made her shiver and squirm.
"Hello?" came Tonks' muffled voice, now just on the other side of the door. "Is Remus out there, thinking too much, or was it an Avon witch calling, and she ran off thinking I'd propositioned her?"
Choking back a chortle, Remus answered, "On your doorstep, after a date, under a starlit sky?"
He took a startled step backward as the door swung open, and Tonks' laughter tripped out -- as did she, over the dangling belt of her fluffy pink dressing gown when it got tangled around her yellow slipper-clad feet. Remus reached out to steady her, but Tonks had already shot out an arm to catch the doorjamb.
"Wotcher, Remus!"
His heart beat double-time to hear her customary greeting he hadn't realised he'd got so fond of; triple to hear it followed by his name, pronounced in such eager tones by a young woman with pale blue hair (which, he suspected had just been towel-dried, because it more closely resembled a tuft of candy floss than her usual spiked coif) and dark eyes that shone with enthusiasm. The wild rhythm in his chest stole his breath, made him light-headed. He barely remembered that it was customary to return a greeting -- especially that sort, bid you by a witch you fancied and hadn't seen in a week -- and was a little dismayed to hear his own good morning come out rather more quietly than her salutation, though he was every bit as pleased to see her as she apparently was to see him. Hardly starting on the right foot, especially since he'd copped out of answering her question about kissing. It would be so easy for her to misconstrue, especially if she was nervous, as he'd been, that their feelings were not the same as they had been at the end of their date. She'd tripped; she was so terribly self-conscious of her clumsiness, she might think it had somehow diminished her in his eyes, when in reality he found it impossibly cute, even if it did make his heart lurch from time to time...Yes -- she was blushing. Merlin's beard, he'd made quick work of mucking this up...
But then it struck him that the colour on her cheeks was more a glow than a flush, and her eyes crinkled into lovely dark half-moons as they peered up at him, dancing and laughing, making him want to dance and laugh. (If he'd thought a dopey grin was something he didn'g want her to see, dancing was a far more alarming prospect. Still, if she were to ask him to...)
"Sorry I left you standing out here so long," she said -- looking anything but apologetic.
"You learnt constant vigilance from Alastor Moody. You had to wait till I proved my identity."
"Actually..." Tonks ducked her head in a manner Remus knew well to be shy; but he also he had a close, life-long acquaintance with the particular gleam that was in her eye, and knew it conquered shyness every time. "It was a less vigilance than trying to make up my mind which of my bits seemed like the most Remusy answer--"
"--so was I--"
"--but I should've known the most Remusy answer would be a lot more creative than that."
He felt the grin threaten to split wider at her compliment, but the creativity she praised compelled him to force the muscles of his face to form a frown, instead. When he managed a hmm that sounded convincingly dubious, he silently congratulated himself on his Marauder theatrical skills; and he nearly broke into applause when he passed the test of not grinning at the adorably perplexed dimple that formed between Tonks' eyebrows when her smile fell.
"What?" she asked.
"Would it have been more creative in a Remusy way if I'd said, 'Why don't you let me show you your favourite place to be kissed'?"
The wrinkle between her eyebrows vanished as they shot up, disappearing into her messy blue fringe. For just a second, her surprise made Remus doubt whether that level of flirtation was really allowed at this hour of the morning, when you'd only taken a girl out once. Wrong-footed, he leant a hand against the door jamb. He'd forgotten that her hand was still there, though, and his fingers inadvertently brushed hers. He heard her breathe in, saw her bite that lower lip again. Then she turned those lovely dark eyes coyly up to him, and Gryffindor Courage -- or Marauder Resolve -- regained command of his senses.
"Or would that have been too creative," he went on, allowing his fingers to curl over hers as he stepped closer, so that they stood toe-to-toe in the open doorway, "and made you take me for a Death Eater?"
"I'm not sure I'd have cared if you were."
The hem of Tonks' dressing gown brushed his legs as she leant into him. He could smell that orange blossom scent he'd noticed on their date, and guessed since she'd just got out of the shower, that it was her soap. It was a heady thing, knowing what soap she used. His fingers trailed down to stroke the curve of her wrist.
"All these years," he murmured, "I've been operating under the delusion that Aurors were Dark Wizard chasers, when in reality you're Dark Wizard kissers."
Remus had known a kiss was coming, but he hadn't realised until the last word was muffled against her soft, flushed cheek, that he'd actually leant in to do it. He heard her breath hitch, as he'd remembered it doing a week ago, so he pulled back just slightly, to see if she'd caught her lip between her teeth, as well. She had done; and the sight of it filled him with the irresistible urge to capture it between his own. Again she made the satisfied hum into his mouth, but Remus couldn't decide, as her fingers brushed his fringe, and trailed down his face, whether he'd come any closer to discovering her favourite place to be kissed, or if he'd only got more confused about which was his favourite place to kiss her.
He released her lips and kissed downward from her chin, to see if her neck cleared anything up for her, when the plush sleeve of her dressing gown as his hand slid up her arm reminded him how early it was in the day -- or in the relationship, for that matter -- for that sort of kissing, especially when he hadn't seen her in seven days.
Brushing one last kiss across her cheek, he straightened, lacing their fingers together as he grinned down at the girlish face that fairly glowed up at him. She made him feel ten years younger -- fifteen, even -- no, took him back to his school days when the attention of a pretty girl made him giddy and nervous enough to blurt out things like, "Pyjama day in the Auror office?"
Tonks' dark eyes darted downward, and for an instant Remus' heart lurched with the fear that he'd embarrassed her. (she was wearing fluffy yellow Pygmy Puff slippers, after all, and might think he was making fun).
But she said, "Undercover assignment in the South Pacific. Lead on Sirius. Bedtime there, you know." She rolled her eyes, and then looked herself over disapprovingly, fingers working self-consciously through her hair. "Sorry, I meant to be dressed ages ago, but then a work memo came, and clothes when right out of my head."
"Is everything all right at the Ministry?"
"Fine." Tonks turned and strode back into her flat, motioning for Remus to follow "Better than it has been, actually, since certain people resembling toads won't be about. But unfortunately Hogwarts will be..." She looked as though she were casting about for a word. "What's the opposite of graced?"
"Cursed?" Remus offered, feeling slightly dizzied by the shift in her mood and their conversation as he followed her winding route through piles of paper and clothing and dirty dish clutter. Tonks' flat hadn't been precisely tidy when he'd been here last week, but it seemed impossible that so much could have accumulated in the time between, considering how little she was home. Of course, how little she was home accounted for her lack of time to clean...
"That's the word!" Tonks said. "Hogwarts will be cursed with her toady presence."
Remus, reaching into his coat pocket for the reduced jars of marmalade, nearly dropped them as he stopped short a few steps from the dining table, from which Tonks was clearing away a number of papers.
"What, in the name of Merlin, has Dolores Umbridge got to do with Hogwarts?"
"Look at this." Tonks thrust a sheet of parchment at him, creased and rumpled as if it had been wadded into a ball, then flattened out again. "Announcement from Fudge. I'm sure the Prophet'll have a similar story in a day or two, once all the official business is sorted."
"Are you sure it's all right for me to read this?" Remus asked, even though she'd handed over far more classified Ministry documents.
"You've got to have something to do while I'm pottering about getting breakfast."
Tonks took the miniature orange and lime marmalades from him and took them to the kitchen of her tiny open plan flat. As she enlarged them, then placed them on the table, she asked, "How do you like your eggs? Not that it matters much, since no matter what sort I try, they always wind up scrambled."
"Scrambled's fine," Remus said, chuckling at her, and at the brightly coloured embellishments that drew his eye away from the memo's text, to the bottom corner of the paper.
It was a photograph, but motionless, like a Muggle one. Tonks must have charmed it. The subject, who wore a pink cardigan over Ministry of Magic official's robe, obviously had been Dolores Umbridge. Had been was the operative phrase, because in ink, Tonks had elongated the nose and chin, added a liberal smattering of warts, and coloured the skin green. Atop the witch's coif was perched a wide-brimmed black hat.
"Professor Burbage still shows The Wizard of Oz to the Muggle Studies classes, does she?" Remus asked, looking up at Tonks to avoid reading the memo, which he was sure would spoil his mood.
But the sight of her, jaw set and eyes hard as she cracked eggs almost savagely into a skillet, was just as effective.
Without any real humorous inflection, he joked, "I can't believe I never saw the resemblance between Umbridge and the Wicked Witch of the West 'til now."
"Umbridge proposed a new Educational Decree," Tonks said, flinging a shell into the bin. "Today Fudge will sign it into law. Read what it is."
Clearing his throat, begging Merlin to let it be something trivial, given the creative manner in which Tonks had chosen to express her frustration, Remus read aloud from the memo: "In the event that the headmaster of Hogwarts is unable to provide a candidate for a teaching post, the Ministry should select an appropriate person."
His heart stood still.
"Dear God."
It wasn't trivial at all.
"Dumbledore's not filled the Defence Against the Dark Arts post," he said. "Don't tell me they've...they'll--"
He couldn't bring himself to finish the sentence.
"They'll appoint Umbridge to it, yeah," Tonks did for him.
Damn.
Feeling his fingers start to crumple the parchment into his fist, he willed himself to lay it on the nearby dining table, which was strewn with the assortment of coloured quills Tonks had used to embellished the image. His own personal ill feelings toward Umbridge aside, Remus could not think of a worse thing for Dumbledore -- for Harry -- than for the Ministry to appoint a Voldemort denier to what was now the single most important part of the Hogwarts curriculum.
"Enitor eggs." Tonks flicked her wand over the skillet to cast the Scrambling Charm. "Have you ever heard anything more ridiculous?"
"I shared a dormitory with Sirius for seven years," Remus joked lamely. "What do you think?"
"What's she going to teach the kids, that's what I want to know. How to pass sodding discriminatory legisla--Bugger!" Tonks interrupted herself, glaring at the skillet. "My Enitors always make the eggs go dry. I'm sorry, Remus. I've got a couple more, if you'd like to have a go."
"Mine always make them runny," said Remus, looking round the kitchen and spotting the breadbox. "If you don't mind me invading your breadbox, I'll be happy to do the toast."
She arched an eyebrow at him. "Afraid I'll burn it?" But a smile played at her mouth.
Remus took out the bread, and hoped there would be no more talk of Umbridge. Despite the subject of their conversation, he and Tonks were still moving comfortably about the kitchen together. They ought to be flirting, exchanging half-bashful glances and laughing softly as they brushed against one another in the close quarters. He didn't want breakfast with Tonks to be yet another thing he missed out on because of Dolores Umbridge's damn decrees.
But Tonks let a cupboard door slam shut as she took out two plates to spoon the eggs onto. With a groan of frustration between clenched teeth, she said, "It's insulting to Hogwarts, insulting to Dumbledore, and most of all insulting to you--"
"To me?" Remus nearly toasted his hand along with the bread as he turned sharply toward her.
"After that fiasco with Barty Crouch, Jr., they should have begged you to come back."
Despite the fact that a lovely girl was wound up on his behalf, Remus wished Tonks wouldn't be. He'd tried very hard, since the subject had come up, not to think about the fact that Umbridge would be filling his post -- the post he had loved and, if he did say so himself, carried out more than proficiently.
"On the contrary." His voice was low and gravely, and almost blended with the scrape of butter across the toast. "After having a werewolf and a Death Eater in the post, I am hardly surprised the Ministry would step in to appoint a teacher."
Tonks summoned the teakettle and tapped her wand to it. Her voice accompanied the shrill whistle blast. "But Umbridge?"
Remus wished he had not given in to several whinging sessions with Sirius over Umbridge's anti-werewolf laws. Complaining never accomplished anything -- especially when you did it in front of other people -- except get you and them fraught over things you had no control of. Things always seemed worse when other people were worked up over them.
"I agree," he said, not meeting Tonks' eyes as he picked up their plates of toast and eggs. "She isn't the best choice."
Carrying their food to the table, he felt her eyes boring into his back.
"Do you know what she said to me last time I saw her?"
Tonks swept the writing paraphernalia from the table as she plonked down their mugs of tea. She shoved one across the surface (emblazoned with the image of two bearded gnomes sporting red pointy hats, and the slogan, Chillin' with my Gnomies), to Remus, indicating for him to take a seat.
He did, and took a bite of his toast.
"My hair was pink hair that day," Tonks began, and..."
Remus choked as, without warning, her pretty, heart-shaped face widened and flattened into the toad-like one of Dolores Umbridge.
"Hem hem," she coughed. "Miss Tonks, though I myself am quite partial to pink…."
With another hem, hem, she transfigured her dressing gown into Umbridge's cardigan. Remus tried to focus on her pyjamas, a pattern of winged horses soaring across a flannel sky full of fluffy clouds.
"…But you had best not get too attached to your…hair."
The last word was laced with such disdain that Remus felt self-conscious about his own too-long, greying hair.
"I believe, hem, hem, that the Ministry of Magic employee dress code stipulates that hair must be…hem, hem…of a natural colour."
Mercifully wearing her own face and dressing gown again, Tonks said, "So I asked, what if pink were my natural colour?"
Again, Remus reacted physically - this time by dropping too many lumps of sugar into his tea - when Tonks took on Umbridge's form.
"Yes, well," she said in syrupy tones, "I know pink hair is not a Black family trait. Or a Tonks trait, either, even if some Muggles are so eccentric as to…hem, hem…dye their hair."
Quickly metamorphosing back to herself, Tonks placed her hands on the table and leant toward Remus, with an intense expression. "When I argued that pink might be natural for Metamorphmagi, Umbridge said…"
She adopted Umbridge's sneering form for the third time. "Hem, hem, I am fairly certain that pink is not a natural hair colour -- not even among magical folk who merely appear to be human."
Remus swallowed his tea so abruptly that it went down his windpipe. Tonks looked rather alarmed as he coughed, and she rose slightly, looking for a moment as if she might spring across the table and pound his back. Soon enough, he stopped and caught his breath.
"M-merely ap-apear," he sputtered. "Merely appear to be -- Please, do put your own face back, Tonks." When she had put herself to rights, Remus tried again, in controlled tones. "Metamorphmagi merely appear to be human? Umbridge said that?"
"That she did." Tonks stabbed her knife into the orange marmalade, breaking the smooth, unused layer, and sloppily spread it over her toast. "She couldn't have stunned me any more if she'd hexed me."
"It's just as well you were speechless." Remus took a slow, careful sip of tea. "Umbridge always gets the last word."
"Now do you see why I coloured her green?"
Noting a tremble her voice, and a pained expression behind her laughter, he reached across the table and pressed her hand. "I'm sorry, Tonks."
"I don't care what she thinks of me," she said with a sigh, "but it really pisses me off that people can be such sodding bigots."
Withdrawing her hand, she plopped into her chair and stabbed her eggs with her fork. She took a bite, grimaced and muttered about the eggs being too dry, and washed them down with a gulp of tea.
"Let's have those runny eggs of yours next time, okay?" she said.
Remus grinned that she wanted to do this again, with him, even though the conversation hadn't been ideal.
"Hope I don't run into her today." She took a big bite of toast and, covering her full mouth, added, "Prob'ly get myself sacked."
Remus could just imagine Tonks going out of her way to annoy Umbridge. "She's not worth it."
"Sometimes I think my job's not worth it."
"Of course it is," Remus said, "and you don't mean that. You worked very hard to qualify for the Auror programme."
She snorted. "Maybe I wouldn't have done if I'd known I'd work for the likes of Dolores Umbridge."
"You don't work for Umbridge."
"But I work for Fudge, and he seems to work for his Undersecretary, doesn't he?" Cramming the rest of her toast into her mouth, she chewed for a moment, then said, "Should've followed my other dream, of becoming a Weird Sisters roadie. Only can't you see me tripping over Merton Graves' cello and putting a foot through it?"
Remus couldn't sop himself sniggering at the image.
Tonks sipped her tea sulkily. "Make me feel completely useless, won't you?"
Chuckling, Remus said, "Well I, for one, am very glad you followed the Auror dream, and not the Weird Sisters roadie one, because it's not likely you'd have crossed paths with the Order, is it?"
"With the Order?" Tonks asked, quirking a brow over her sparkling eyes. "Or with you?"
Remus felt his grin spreading as warmth prickled upward from his collar. He leant over the table, and started to reach for her hand again, but suddenly her gaze swerved from his, over his shoulder and upward.
He turned and followed her gaze to the mantel clock, which surprised him by showing a quarter to eight. That much time couldn't have passed, could it? She'd only just brought him inside.
Of course...Merlin knew how long they'd spent outside.
"I've got to go!" Tonks leapt up, kneeing the table and upsetting her tea. "Ouch, sodding--" She reached for her wand to clean up the mess, but Remus sent her off to dress while he took care of the washing up.
Clearing away the breakfast things, Remus' thoughts wandered over what this new development would mean to the Order, how Umbridge's presence would effect communications with Dumbledore at Hogwarts -- and Sirius with Harry. He trusted that the Headmaster would, as always, find a way around the obstacle, but Remus was at a loss to discover how this could be anything but problematic at every turn.
And he hoped that when the rest of the Order found out, there wouldn't be more talk like what he'd just had with Tonks, about him and the Defence post.
He tried not to think of it as he did the washing up charms, and luckily, as soon as he'd started to guess which dishes went in which cupboards, Tonks blundered noisily from her bedroom, swearing under her breath as she rammed into a sofa side table.
Remus turned to ask if she was all right, but a grin broke across his face when her hair was vivid pink.
"Will you come over every day and do my washing up?" she asked as she pulled on her Auror's robes over a rumpled shirt and trousers.
"Unfortunately," said Remus, "one of the side effects of lycanthropy is that we can only take care of the washing up one morning a month."
"They didn't teach us that in Defence Against the Dark Arts." Tonks grabbed her satchel off the rack by the front door, and slung it over her shoulder.
"That's unfortunate," said Remus, helping her gather the papers she'd cleared from the table, which she stuffed into her bag. "That month's worth of dishes breeds all manner of dangerous dark things."
"Oh, well black mould was covered in Herbology."
Their laughter abruptly stopped as Remus handed over the last of the papers, fingers brushing hers, and their eyes locked. For a moment they just looked, Tonks fumbling with the clasp of her bag, and then suddenly her lips pressed briefly, firmly, to his cheek.
"Thanks for coming over and bringing the marmalade," she said. "I'll stop by Grimmauld after work."
Remus' heart leapt that she wanted to see him again, today, until he remembered that he had the second guard shift.
"Right," said Tonks as they stepped outside and she cast the wards over the door. "We can at least talk over tea, though?"
"Indeed."
"Good," she said. "Cos I really want to finish this conversation."
Remus' heart fell, with a thud. Finish the conversation? He'd thought it was over, that her bit of pink-haired defiance was her way of getting over it. But apparently he'd thought wrong. What more could possibly be said on the matter, though? The flicker in Tonks' eyes made him dread finding out.
But before he could read her expression and discern the unsettling point, Tonks kissed his cheek again. This time she lingered, her lips soft and sweet, and his mind flitted back to her flirtation about her favourite body part to have kissed. Perhaps it was that conversation she wanted to finish.
He turned his head to return the affectionate gesture, planning to work his way from cheek to mouth, then maybe down to her neck after all, if she responded like he hoped she would--
--but just as his lips brushed her cheek, her smooth, fair complexion changed.
Green.
Warty.
To his horror, he caught a glimpse of Wicked Witch of the Ministry winking at him before she Disapparated.
As he walked back to number twelve, Grimmauld Place, Remus did his best not to think about the fact that he had, in a way, just kissed Dolores Umbridge. He hoped he wouldn't have nightmares about his lips pressing against the green, bumpy cheek…Cringing, he made a mental note that when he saw Tonks tonight, he would make her swear an Unbreakable Vow never to metamorphose into that person ever again.
Or else they would never be able to finish that conversation.
A/N: Thanks for reading this instalment of Transfigured Hearts. As incentive to tell me what you think, reviewers will receive a Remus to help them discover their favorite places to be kissed, or a Tonks to do magical derogatory artwork of your arch-nemesis.
Chapter Index
Author: MrsTater
Rating: PG
Word Count: 4700ish
Summary: Time is a precious commodity for members of the Order of the Phoenix, especially where romance is concerned. Why, then, would Remus want to waste one of those rare opportunities to be with Tonks talking about the Ministry's unjust new Educational Decree that places an antagonist in his old Defence Against the Dark Arts position? But Tonks doesn't see it that way, and a second date seems far more likely to become a first fight.
Author's Note: I really appreciate the support y'all have shown for my revision of the Transfigured Hearts series. As in the original version of this instalment, this new Taking Umbrage will be posted in three chapters.
Sequel to Think Too Much and second in the Transfigured Hearts series, this story is set in August of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. As always, man thanks to godricgal for her fantastic beta work.
Part One
"Where's my favourite place to be kissed?"
Tonks bellowed the security question almost before Remus finished knocking. When both sounds had dissipated, leaving him in the silent corridor outside her flat, he continued to stand with his arm raised, knuckles poised against the door, cheeks aching with a huge grin he was pretty sure exceeded the level of dopiness he was comfortable displaying to the world -- or more specifically, than he was comfortable displaying to Tonks, should she give up waiting for his answer and open the door. He was, however, helpless to suppress it.
Frantic schedules had kept Remus apart from Tonks for the entire week since he'd taken her out; before he'd received an owl late last night, inviting him to hers for breakfast, he had begun to doubt whether their days off would ever coincide and allow a second date much less a tenth or twentieth. Not only that, but while absence was definitely making his heart grow fonder, he couldn't imagine that a picnic in the park with a grey-haired bloke who'd worn a bloody necktie could yet hold the number one position in Tonks' mind an entire seven days after the fact. There were Dark Wizards to chase by day, Department of Mystery doors to guard by night.
Granted, those shifts were tedious, and the more times he was sat outside that door, the more unconstantly vigilant he found himself carrying out the duty. Maybe he wasn't alone in that experience. Maybe Tonks, too, wiled away the hours under the stuffy Invisibility Cloak by reliving their first kiss at her door...and the ones that had followed, in her lounge...Fantastic as that seemed, it wasn't beyond the realm of possibility, was it? She'd asked without any hesitation at all where her favourite place was to be kissed. Almost as if her security question had been planned, and she'd been waiting for his knock...
In that case, he'd best not disappoint her. Dopey grin stretching (He decided he hoped the whole world saw it, because who could be ashamed of the fact that a beautiful witch asked him to analyse the way he'd kissed her, and how she'd responded?), he got down to the business of puzzling out what was Nymphadora Tonks' favourite place to be kissed.
Surprisingly, after a moment's thought, he decided that if this question had been on one of his OWL examinations, he'd have got a Troll.
He'd filled nearly every idle moment since their date kissing her over and over again in his mind (to the great frustration of Sirius, who kept pressing him for descriptions), recalling in detail as vivid as that shade of pink she wore sometimes -- and which he secretly wished she would wear more often -- the supple press of her lips against his, the heat of her breath on his mouth when his tongue coaxed her lips apart...It seemed like apples to oranges to compare the low, sighing hum she'd made then, to the way she'd inhaled sharply and caught her lower lip between her teeth as he'd trailed light kisses over her cheekbone, or to her girlish laughter and the way she arched into him even as his nips at her neck made her shiver and squirm.
"Hello?" came Tonks' muffled voice, now just on the other side of the door. "Is Remus out there, thinking too much, or was it an Avon witch calling, and she ran off thinking I'd propositioned her?"
Choking back a chortle, Remus answered, "On your doorstep, after a date, under a starlit sky?"
He took a startled step backward as the door swung open, and Tonks' laughter tripped out -- as did she, over the dangling belt of her fluffy pink dressing gown when it got tangled around her yellow slipper-clad feet. Remus reached out to steady her, but Tonks had already shot out an arm to catch the doorjamb.
"Wotcher, Remus!"
His heart beat double-time to hear her customary greeting he hadn't realised he'd got so fond of; triple to hear it followed by his name, pronounced in such eager tones by a young woman with pale blue hair (which, he suspected had just been towel-dried, because it more closely resembled a tuft of candy floss than her usual spiked coif) and dark eyes that shone with enthusiasm. The wild rhythm in his chest stole his breath, made him light-headed. He barely remembered that it was customary to return a greeting -- especially that sort, bid you by a witch you fancied and hadn't seen in a week -- and was a little dismayed to hear his own good morning come out rather more quietly than her salutation, though he was every bit as pleased to see her as she apparently was to see him. Hardly starting on the right foot, especially since he'd copped out of answering her question about kissing. It would be so easy for her to misconstrue, especially if she was nervous, as he'd been, that their feelings were not the same as they had been at the end of their date. She'd tripped; she was so terribly self-conscious of her clumsiness, she might think it had somehow diminished her in his eyes, when in reality he found it impossibly cute, even if it did make his heart lurch from time to time...Yes -- she was blushing. Merlin's beard, he'd made quick work of mucking this up...
But then it struck him that the colour on her cheeks was more a glow than a flush, and her eyes crinkled into lovely dark half-moons as they peered up at him, dancing and laughing, making him want to dance and laugh. (If he'd thought a dopey grin was something he didn'g want her to see, dancing was a far more alarming prospect. Still, if she were to ask him to...)
"Sorry I left you standing out here so long," she said -- looking anything but apologetic.
"You learnt constant vigilance from Alastor Moody. You had to wait till I proved my identity."
"Actually..." Tonks ducked her head in a manner Remus knew well to be shy; but he also he had a close, life-long acquaintance with the particular gleam that was in her eye, and knew it conquered shyness every time. "It was a less vigilance than trying to make up my mind which of my bits seemed like the most Remusy answer--"
"--so was I--"
"--but I should've known the most Remusy answer would be a lot more creative than that."
He felt the grin threaten to split wider at her compliment, but the creativity she praised compelled him to force the muscles of his face to form a frown, instead. When he managed a hmm that sounded convincingly dubious, he silently congratulated himself on his Marauder theatrical skills; and he nearly broke into applause when he passed the test of not grinning at the adorably perplexed dimple that formed between Tonks' eyebrows when her smile fell.
"What?" she asked.
"Would it have been more creative in a Remusy way if I'd said, 'Why don't you let me show you your favourite place to be kissed'?"
The wrinkle between her eyebrows vanished as they shot up, disappearing into her messy blue fringe. For just a second, her surprise made Remus doubt whether that level of flirtation was really allowed at this hour of the morning, when you'd only taken a girl out once. Wrong-footed, he leant a hand against the door jamb. He'd forgotten that her hand was still there, though, and his fingers inadvertently brushed hers. He heard her breathe in, saw her bite that lower lip again. Then she turned those lovely dark eyes coyly up to him, and Gryffindor Courage -- or Marauder Resolve -- regained command of his senses.
"Or would that have been too creative," he went on, allowing his fingers to curl over hers as he stepped closer, so that they stood toe-to-toe in the open doorway, "and made you take me for a Death Eater?"
"I'm not sure I'd have cared if you were."
The hem of Tonks' dressing gown brushed his legs as she leant into him. He could smell that orange blossom scent he'd noticed on their date, and guessed since she'd just got out of the shower, that it was her soap. It was a heady thing, knowing what soap she used. His fingers trailed down to stroke the curve of her wrist.
"All these years," he murmured, "I've been operating under the delusion that Aurors were Dark Wizard chasers, when in reality you're Dark Wizard kissers."
Remus had known a kiss was coming, but he hadn't realised until the last word was muffled against her soft, flushed cheek, that he'd actually leant in to do it. He heard her breath hitch, as he'd remembered it doing a week ago, so he pulled back just slightly, to see if she'd caught her lip between her teeth, as well. She had done; and the sight of it filled him with the irresistible urge to capture it between his own. Again she made the satisfied hum into his mouth, but Remus couldn't decide, as her fingers brushed his fringe, and trailed down his face, whether he'd come any closer to discovering her favourite place to be kissed, or if he'd only got more confused about which was his favourite place to kiss her.
He released her lips and kissed downward from her chin, to see if her neck cleared anything up for her, when the plush sleeve of her dressing gown as his hand slid up her arm reminded him how early it was in the day -- or in the relationship, for that matter -- for that sort of kissing, especially when he hadn't seen her in seven days.
Brushing one last kiss across her cheek, he straightened, lacing their fingers together as he grinned down at the girlish face that fairly glowed up at him. She made him feel ten years younger -- fifteen, even -- no, took him back to his school days when the attention of a pretty girl made him giddy and nervous enough to blurt out things like, "Pyjama day in the Auror office?"
Tonks' dark eyes darted downward, and for an instant Remus' heart lurched with the fear that he'd embarrassed her. (she was wearing fluffy yellow Pygmy Puff slippers, after all, and might think he was making fun).
But she said, "Undercover assignment in the South Pacific. Lead on Sirius. Bedtime there, you know." She rolled her eyes, and then looked herself over disapprovingly, fingers working self-consciously through her hair. "Sorry, I meant to be dressed ages ago, but then a work memo came, and clothes when right out of my head."
"Is everything all right at the Ministry?"
"Fine." Tonks turned and strode back into her flat, motioning for Remus to follow "Better than it has been, actually, since certain people resembling toads won't be about. But unfortunately Hogwarts will be..." She looked as though she were casting about for a word. "What's the opposite of graced?"
"Cursed?" Remus offered, feeling slightly dizzied by the shift in her mood and their conversation as he followed her winding route through piles of paper and clothing and dirty dish clutter. Tonks' flat hadn't been precisely tidy when he'd been here last week, but it seemed impossible that so much could have accumulated in the time between, considering how little she was home. Of course, how little she was home accounted for her lack of time to clean...
"That's the word!" Tonks said. "Hogwarts will be cursed with her toady presence."
Remus, reaching into his coat pocket for the reduced jars of marmalade, nearly dropped them as he stopped short a few steps from the dining table, from which Tonks was clearing away a number of papers.
"What, in the name of Merlin, has Dolores Umbridge got to do with Hogwarts?"
"Look at this." Tonks thrust a sheet of parchment at him, creased and rumpled as if it had been wadded into a ball, then flattened out again. "Announcement from Fudge. I'm sure the Prophet'll have a similar story in a day or two, once all the official business is sorted."
"Are you sure it's all right for me to read this?" Remus asked, even though she'd handed over far more classified Ministry documents.
"You've got to have something to do while I'm pottering about getting breakfast."
Tonks took the miniature orange and lime marmalades from him and took them to the kitchen of her tiny open plan flat. As she enlarged them, then placed them on the table, she asked, "How do you like your eggs? Not that it matters much, since no matter what sort I try, they always wind up scrambled."
"Scrambled's fine," Remus said, chuckling at her, and at the brightly coloured embellishments that drew his eye away from the memo's text, to the bottom corner of the paper.
It was a photograph, but motionless, like a Muggle one. Tonks must have charmed it. The subject, who wore a pink cardigan over Ministry of Magic official's robe, obviously had been Dolores Umbridge. Had been was the operative phrase, because in ink, Tonks had elongated the nose and chin, added a liberal smattering of warts, and coloured the skin green. Atop the witch's coif was perched a wide-brimmed black hat.
"Professor Burbage still shows The Wizard of Oz to the Muggle Studies classes, does she?" Remus asked, looking up at Tonks to avoid reading the memo, which he was sure would spoil his mood.
But the sight of her, jaw set and eyes hard as she cracked eggs almost savagely into a skillet, was just as effective.
Without any real humorous inflection, he joked, "I can't believe I never saw the resemblance between Umbridge and the Wicked Witch of the West 'til now."
"Umbridge proposed a new Educational Decree," Tonks said, flinging a shell into the bin. "Today Fudge will sign it into law. Read what it is."
Clearing his throat, begging Merlin to let it be something trivial, given the creative manner in which Tonks had chosen to express her frustration, Remus read aloud from the memo: "In the event that the headmaster of Hogwarts is unable to provide a candidate for a teaching post, the Ministry should select an appropriate person."
His heart stood still.
"Dear God."
It wasn't trivial at all.
"Dumbledore's not filled the Defence Against the Dark Arts post," he said. "Don't tell me they've...they'll--"
He couldn't bring himself to finish the sentence.
"They'll appoint Umbridge to it, yeah," Tonks did for him.
Damn.
Feeling his fingers start to crumple the parchment into his fist, he willed himself to lay it on the nearby dining table, which was strewn with the assortment of coloured quills Tonks had used to embellished the image. His own personal ill feelings toward Umbridge aside, Remus could not think of a worse thing for Dumbledore -- for Harry -- than for the Ministry to appoint a Voldemort denier to what was now the single most important part of the Hogwarts curriculum.
"Enitor eggs." Tonks flicked her wand over the skillet to cast the Scrambling Charm. "Have you ever heard anything more ridiculous?"
"I shared a dormitory with Sirius for seven years," Remus joked lamely. "What do you think?"
"What's she going to teach the kids, that's what I want to know. How to pass sodding discriminatory legisla--Bugger!" Tonks interrupted herself, glaring at the skillet. "My Enitors always make the eggs go dry. I'm sorry, Remus. I've got a couple more, if you'd like to have a go."
"Mine always make them runny," said Remus, looking round the kitchen and spotting the breadbox. "If you don't mind me invading your breadbox, I'll be happy to do the toast."
She arched an eyebrow at him. "Afraid I'll burn it?" But a smile played at her mouth.
Remus took out the bread, and hoped there would be no more talk of Umbridge. Despite the subject of their conversation, he and Tonks were still moving comfortably about the kitchen together. They ought to be flirting, exchanging half-bashful glances and laughing softly as they brushed against one another in the close quarters. He didn't want breakfast with Tonks to be yet another thing he missed out on because of Dolores Umbridge's damn decrees.
But Tonks let a cupboard door slam shut as she took out two plates to spoon the eggs onto. With a groan of frustration between clenched teeth, she said, "It's insulting to Hogwarts, insulting to Dumbledore, and most of all insulting to you--"
"To me?" Remus nearly toasted his hand along with the bread as he turned sharply toward her.
"After that fiasco with Barty Crouch, Jr., they should have begged you to come back."
Despite the fact that a lovely girl was wound up on his behalf, Remus wished Tonks wouldn't be. He'd tried very hard, since the subject had come up, not to think about the fact that Umbridge would be filling his post -- the post he had loved and, if he did say so himself, carried out more than proficiently.
"On the contrary." His voice was low and gravely, and almost blended with the scrape of butter across the toast. "After having a werewolf and a Death Eater in the post, I am hardly surprised the Ministry would step in to appoint a teacher."
Tonks summoned the teakettle and tapped her wand to it. Her voice accompanied the shrill whistle blast. "But Umbridge?"
Remus wished he had not given in to several whinging sessions with Sirius over Umbridge's anti-werewolf laws. Complaining never accomplished anything -- especially when you did it in front of other people -- except get you and them fraught over things you had no control of. Things always seemed worse when other people were worked up over them.
"I agree," he said, not meeting Tonks' eyes as he picked up their plates of toast and eggs. "She isn't the best choice."
Carrying their food to the table, he felt her eyes boring into his back.
"Do you know what she said to me last time I saw her?"
Tonks swept the writing paraphernalia from the table as she plonked down their mugs of tea. She shoved one across the surface (emblazoned with the image of two bearded gnomes sporting red pointy hats, and the slogan, Chillin' with my Gnomies), to Remus, indicating for him to take a seat.
He did, and took a bite of his toast.
"My hair was pink hair that day," Tonks began, and..."
Remus choked as, without warning, her pretty, heart-shaped face widened and flattened into the toad-like one of Dolores Umbridge.
"Hem hem," she coughed. "Miss Tonks, though I myself am quite partial to pink…."
With another hem, hem, she transfigured her dressing gown into Umbridge's cardigan. Remus tried to focus on her pyjamas, a pattern of winged horses soaring across a flannel sky full of fluffy clouds.
"…But you had best not get too attached to your…hair."
The last word was laced with such disdain that Remus felt self-conscious about his own too-long, greying hair.
"I believe, hem, hem, that the Ministry of Magic employee dress code stipulates that hair must be…hem, hem…of a natural colour."
Mercifully wearing her own face and dressing gown again, Tonks said, "So I asked, what if pink were my natural colour?"
Again, Remus reacted physically - this time by dropping too many lumps of sugar into his tea - when Tonks took on Umbridge's form.
"Yes, well," she said in syrupy tones, "I know pink hair is not a Black family trait. Or a Tonks trait, either, even if some Muggles are so eccentric as to…hem, hem…dye their hair."
Quickly metamorphosing back to herself, Tonks placed her hands on the table and leant toward Remus, with an intense expression. "When I argued that pink might be natural for Metamorphmagi, Umbridge said…"
She adopted Umbridge's sneering form for the third time. "Hem, hem, I am fairly certain that pink is not a natural hair colour -- not even among magical folk who merely appear to be human."
Remus swallowed his tea so abruptly that it went down his windpipe. Tonks looked rather alarmed as he coughed, and she rose slightly, looking for a moment as if she might spring across the table and pound his back. Soon enough, he stopped and caught his breath.
"M-merely ap-apear," he sputtered. "Merely appear to be -- Please, do put your own face back, Tonks." When she had put herself to rights, Remus tried again, in controlled tones. "Metamorphmagi merely appear to be human? Umbridge said that?"
"That she did." Tonks stabbed her knife into the orange marmalade, breaking the smooth, unused layer, and sloppily spread it over her toast. "She couldn't have stunned me any more if she'd hexed me."
"It's just as well you were speechless." Remus took a slow, careful sip of tea. "Umbridge always gets the last word."
"Now do you see why I coloured her green?"
Noting a tremble her voice, and a pained expression behind her laughter, he reached across the table and pressed her hand. "I'm sorry, Tonks."
"I don't care what she thinks of me," she said with a sigh, "but it really pisses me off that people can be such sodding bigots."
Withdrawing her hand, she plopped into her chair and stabbed her eggs with her fork. She took a bite, grimaced and muttered about the eggs being too dry, and washed them down with a gulp of tea.
"Let's have those runny eggs of yours next time, okay?" she said.
Remus grinned that she wanted to do this again, with him, even though the conversation hadn't been ideal.
"Hope I don't run into her today." She took a big bite of toast and, covering her full mouth, added, "Prob'ly get myself sacked."
Remus could just imagine Tonks going out of her way to annoy Umbridge. "She's not worth it."
"Sometimes I think my job's not worth it."
"Of course it is," Remus said, "and you don't mean that. You worked very hard to qualify for the Auror programme."
She snorted. "Maybe I wouldn't have done if I'd known I'd work for the likes of Dolores Umbridge."
"You don't work for Umbridge."
"But I work for Fudge, and he seems to work for his Undersecretary, doesn't he?" Cramming the rest of her toast into her mouth, she chewed for a moment, then said, "Should've followed my other dream, of becoming a Weird Sisters roadie. Only can't you see me tripping over Merton Graves' cello and putting a foot through it?"
Remus couldn't sop himself sniggering at the image.
Tonks sipped her tea sulkily. "Make me feel completely useless, won't you?"
Chuckling, Remus said, "Well I, for one, am very glad you followed the Auror dream, and not the Weird Sisters roadie one, because it's not likely you'd have crossed paths with the Order, is it?"
"With the Order?" Tonks asked, quirking a brow over her sparkling eyes. "Or with you?"
Remus felt his grin spreading as warmth prickled upward from his collar. He leant over the table, and started to reach for her hand again, but suddenly her gaze swerved from his, over his shoulder and upward.
He turned and followed her gaze to the mantel clock, which surprised him by showing a quarter to eight. That much time couldn't have passed, could it? She'd only just brought him inside.
Of course...Merlin knew how long they'd spent outside.
"I've got to go!" Tonks leapt up, kneeing the table and upsetting her tea. "Ouch, sodding--" She reached for her wand to clean up the mess, but Remus sent her off to dress while he took care of the washing up.
Clearing away the breakfast things, Remus' thoughts wandered over what this new development would mean to the Order, how Umbridge's presence would effect communications with Dumbledore at Hogwarts -- and Sirius with Harry. He trusted that the Headmaster would, as always, find a way around the obstacle, but Remus was at a loss to discover how this could be anything but problematic at every turn.
And he hoped that when the rest of the Order found out, there wouldn't be more talk like what he'd just had with Tonks, about him and the Defence post.
He tried not to think of it as he did the washing up charms, and luckily, as soon as he'd started to guess which dishes went in which cupboards, Tonks blundered noisily from her bedroom, swearing under her breath as she rammed into a sofa side table.
Remus turned to ask if she was all right, but a grin broke across his face when her hair was vivid pink.
"Will you come over every day and do my washing up?" she asked as she pulled on her Auror's robes over a rumpled shirt and trousers.
"Unfortunately," said Remus, "one of the side effects of lycanthropy is that we can only take care of the washing up one morning a month."
"They didn't teach us that in Defence Against the Dark Arts." Tonks grabbed her satchel off the rack by the front door, and slung it over her shoulder.
"That's unfortunate," said Remus, helping her gather the papers she'd cleared from the table, which she stuffed into her bag. "That month's worth of dishes breeds all manner of dangerous dark things."
"Oh, well black mould was covered in Herbology."
Their laughter abruptly stopped as Remus handed over the last of the papers, fingers brushing hers, and their eyes locked. For a moment they just looked, Tonks fumbling with the clasp of her bag, and then suddenly her lips pressed briefly, firmly, to his cheek.
"Thanks for coming over and bringing the marmalade," she said. "I'll stop by Grimmauld after work."
Remus' heart leapt that she wanted to see him again, today, until he remembered that he had the second guard shift.
"Right," said Tonks as they stepped outside and she cast the wards over the door. "We can at least talk over tea, though?"
"Indeed."
"Good," she said. "Cos I really want to finish this conversation."
Remus' heart fell, with a thud. Finish the conversation? He'd thought it was over, that her bit of pink-haired defiance was her way of getting over it. But apparently he'd thought wrong. What more could possibly be said on the matter, though? The flicker in Tonks' eyes made him dread finding out.
But before he could read her expression and discern the unsettling point, Tonks kissed his cheek again. This time she lingered, her lips soft and sweet, and his mind flitted back to her flirtation about her favourite body part to have kissed. Perhaps it was that conversation she wanted to finish.
He turned his head to return the affectionate gesture, planning to work his way from cheek to mouth, then maybe down to her neck after all, if she responded like he hoped she would--
--but just as his lips brushed her cheek, her smooth, fair complexion changed.
Green.
Warty.
To his horror, he caught a glimpse of Wicked Witch of the Ministry winking at him before she Disapparated.
As he walked back to number twelve, Grimmauld Place, Remus did his best not to think about the fact that he had, in a way, just kissed Dolores Umbridge. He hoped he wouldn't have nightmares about his lips pressing against the green, bumpy cheek…Cringing, he made a mental note that when he saw Tonks tonight, he would make her swear an Unbreakable Vow never to metamorphose into that person ever again.
Or else they would never be able to finish that conversation.
A/N: Thanks for reading this instalment of Transfigured Hearts. As incentive to tell me what you think, reviewers will receive a Remus to help them discover their favorite places to be kissed, or a Tonks to do magical derogatory artwork of your arch-nemesis.
Chapter Index