HP: Masks and Mirrors, Chapter Three

[mrstater]

Title: Masks and Mirrors
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.

1. Homecoming | 2. Family Reunion |

3. You Can't Go Home Again

"These are wicked!"

Having grown up in a Wizarding family, Tonks was far more amazed by the few mirrors she'd seen that didn't talk than by ones that did. Even so, she could hardly believe that she now held in her own hand a palm-sized magical mirror which, instead of reflecting her own wind-blown face against the smoky backdrop of the inside of a cloud, showed Remus grinning back at her from the deep blue-black evening sky beyond.

"Where'd Harry get them?" she asked.

"Sirius." Remus tilted his head to one side as he veered his broom out the way of a gull that nipped at his shoulder as it flapped over. Tonks bit back her own instinct to turn and swear at the bird to look where it was bloody flying, but Remus, of course, hadn't so much as a single ruffled feather as he went on: "He and James made them in third or fourth year, so they could communicate during separate detentions. Harry thought they might be of use to the Order."

"Absolutely they could. Bit more subtle than Patronuses. Not as cuddly, though."

Her heart skipped a beat, and she told herself it was from her sudden downward swoop, and not worry about how Remus would react to her talking lightly about her werewolf spirit guardian.

His eyes did flick downward in that self-conscious look that ordinarily would have included his hair falling across his forehead, if the wind hadn't been blowing it backward, but only briefly before he'd looked up at his mirror.

"But far prettier," he said, flashing his charming smile. "At least for me."

Tonks felt her face warm, in contrast with the chilly night wind nipping at her skin, raising gooseflesh. A smile tugged at her mouth, which was welcome in light of how few she'd had tonight. But the practical, mission-minded mood she was in stopped it from fully forming.

"Doesn't Harry needs these more?" she asked.

"Ideally, I'll figure out how they work and make more for the Order--"

"Sirius never told you how to do it?" Tonks interrupted, surprised; then she cursed herself for an idiot when Remus blinked, once, and gave that slight, agreeable smile.

"I had far fewer detentions," he replied.

His mildness only stirred up her annoyance at Sirius. Which was ridiculous, because it wasn't right to be annoyed at dead people, especially not for things they'd done when they were stupid teenagers. But she was annoyed anyway, because she'd always got miffed at Sirius whenever she heard stories of their school days that seemed to exclude Remus.

She couldn't help but ask, with an edge in her voice, "Didn't you want to talk to them?"

"Most of the time when they got detentions without me, I wasn’t speaking to them."

No trace of resentment etched his features, and there was only fondness in his eyes. Had she only imagined that Remus had revealed some harboured feelings of exclusion? The times it had come up in the past that to Sirius, all other mates played second fiddle to James -- especially given the history of distrust of Remus -- had always made her think Remus must, deep down, have felt at least a bit cut. Maybe that was a girl's way of thinking? Maybe blokes accepted hierarchies of friendships without getting their feelings hurt? Maybe Remus was blokier than she sometimes gave him credit for?

"What a lot of girls," she snorted.

Remus' grin stretched, and though his narrow shoulders were out of the mirror's frame, she saw the quiver of his Adam's apple and knew he was shaking with a quiet chuckle. "Once I figure it out -- and if third years can do it, it shouldn't be any trouble for me -- then I'll restore Harry's to him so the Order can keep in contact with him."

"So you can keep in contact with him," Tonks said.

A slightly flustered expression crossed his features, and he looked for a moment like he might protest, as he always did when she, or anyone else, hinted at his being Dumbledore's successor as Order leader.

"Right," she said crisply, before he could do. "I think we're all set, then. Questions about the plan? Anything else I should know about the mirrors?"

Remus shook his head.

"Good. Let's join up again." She shoved the mirror in her pocket and swerved her broom sharply to her right.

Bursting through the clouds, Tonks' eyes immediately lit on Remus. Hunched forward over his broomstick, the tails of his charcoal grey overcoat swept out behind, flapping like proud banners. She felt the fingers of the wind weave into her hair, pushing it back from her face, and saw the look mirrored on him, the silver strands of his hair highlighted by the beams of the waxing moon.

Coming closer upon him, she also noticed the dark crescents ringing his eyes, and she felt a stab of sorrow that his relentless Order schedule was unlikely to allow him rest before his transformation -- and Tonks wondered, time for them. That sent a second stabbing feeling through her, this time of guilt, that she'd pushed him to come out like this tonight, instead of taking advantage of the rare night off. They could have been alone together. They could have put her parents up at a safe place for the night. The Hog's Head was safest for the Order, though her mother would've spat tacks at the very idea. Not that there was much Andromeda Tonks didn't spit tacks at...

But Remus' brilliant grin made it impossible for Tonks to keep going on that train of thought.

In fact, she couldn't stop a smile breaking across her own face as he veered his broom alongside hers in a deft, smooth arc that more than a few amateur Quidditch players would have envied. Impending transformation, disapproving prospective in-laws, and all, there was an energy buoying him from within, just as the magic held up their brooms.

As Tonks wondered what could be the cause, she realised that her head felt clearer in the cool night air. She'd argued, back at the flat, that it would do, even though she hadn't really believed it. But it had. The sky felt endless compared to the cramped, stuffy confines of their flat, and it was good to be dodging birds and wisps of cloud instead of pointed questions and backhanded remarks. She tried to keep in mind that it was a relatively serious errand that had led them to fly, but she couldn't help enjoying herself.

"We really ought to do this more often," Tonks said.

"Nice, isn't it? Only I’m sure you'd enjoy it more if you weren't having to practically hover so my poor antique broom can keep up."

The broom Remus was riding was not his at all, but an old one of Regulus Black's they and Sirius had scrounged up in the Grimmauld attic two years earlier, when the Advance Guard mission had compelled Remus to have one. How long ago that seemed, when meeting The Boy Who Lived had been such a grand adventure, and the encroaching war had sometimes troubled Tonks far less than whether Remus returned her more-than-platonic feelings. She'd certainly been more concerned about the latter that night, when Sirius had told stories about Hogwarts days, and Remus had been in top form, smoothly weaving in his own dry observations, correcting Sirius' embellishments, making her laugh harder than she had in ages, and want to kiss him more than she'd wanted to kiss any other bloke in her life.

Not that she'd been so fixated on Remus' charm that she hadn't paid attention to Sirius. Actually, at the moment, it was Sirius who stood out the clearest in her memory.

Before that night, she hadn't been sure she liked her second-cousin, even if he wasn't guilty of all the crimes she'd always believed he was. It was just that she thought that if she'd been locked up in Azkaban all those years, and then on the run, living as a dog and eating rats for the greater part of another, she wouldn't care what house she had to go into hiding, so long as there was proper food and regular company. The dark look so often on his face, and his noisy temper tantrums, gave Tonks the feeling he meant it when he said he hadn't minded living in caves, mostly as a dog, living primarily off rats, as he had the previous year. At times she wondered whether everyone was pulling her leg, that he and Remus couldn't possibly have been best mates. She'd felt sorry for Remus, having to put up with Sirius for a housemate.

But that night before the Advance Guard mission, she saw Sirius in a few lights she really hadn't imagined. Normally so consumed with himself, all his attention had been shifted to Remus; usually so brusque and heedless of other people's feelings, he'd fairly tiptoed around Remus' pride at having to borrow. The years Azkaban had etched onto his face melted away, as he and Remus reminisced about school days, and his barking laugh had rung out, no bitterness in it, and made Tonks feel sure it had banished the ghosts from the corners of the attic. She'd realised then how deeply he loved Harry, and how strongly he believed in the Order of the Phoenix. He hated having his hands tied. And it was a shame that they were, because the Order needed him.

If only she'd realised then what it would do to Sirius to be trapped in that house. Surely it hadn't been destined to end as it had. There had to have been something they could have said differently, anything they could have done differently, that would have taken the edge off his desperation. The Order might have had him still. How might last year have been different, if Sirius had been there for Remus? Or tonight -- he'd have talked her mother around.

Well, maybe not. But he'd have given it a damn good shot. And had the last word.

She wished he were here. The last night of his life, he'd talked about a wedding in Grimmauld Place. His joy for his mate would have been great; Remus' doubts would have been eased, to have someone close as a brother standing by him, supporting where prospective in-laws did not...

"Now, Dora," Remus' playfully mild tone broke into her musing, "my broomstick may be slow, but I don't think yours is so much superior that you've got to wait five minutes to reply."

"Are you joking?" Tonks shook herself out of her pensive mood, and made her tone match his. "This old Comet's a heap. I'll swap you on the way home if you like."

"I wouldn't object to that," said Remus.

She hoped her Remembrall had kicked in, to remind her as Remus' birthday got close that a new broom would be a great present. Only she'd have to be careful of the expense, and that ever-present problem of stepping gracefully around Remus' pride. Which she did about as successfully as stepping around the troll foot umbrella stand at Headquarters. Maybe if she traded in her Comet, she could get a deal on a pair of last year's model Cleansweeps....

"For some reason," Remus continued, "the Cushioning Charm works better on yours than on mine."

"I don't think that's got anything to do with my broom," Tonks said, turning to look over her shoulder at him. "I think it's got to do with my broom's rider being better at Cushioning Charms."

"Of that, I've no doubt, seeing as they're quite useful little spells for the equilibrium challenged."

Tonks' mouth fell open as she pulled her broom to a hover. Remus followed her lead, watching her like a smug git. When she recovered, she only managed to sputter, "Why, you--" before he grinned cheekily at her, winked one twinkling blue eye, and leant low over his broom to zip past her.

"I'll give you equilibrium challenges, Lupin!" She wheeled around and darted after him in the trail of his laughter.

Her Comet caught up to Remus' 1967 original model Nimbus 1000, but her whoop of triumph turned into a curse as flashing red lights alerted her to the looming radio tower he'd just swerved to his left to dodge. Tonks' instinctive move to get out the way was to lean back and pull her broomstick upward; her ascent over the tower put her behind again. Cresting it, she found Remus spinning back, coattails flying, to peer up at her.

"I do believe you're correct," he said, the self-satisfied grin restored to his face. "It has everything to do with the flyer of the broom."

"Lucky for me, I'm still a quick draw when I'm flying!" Plunging toward him, Tonks brandished her wand. "Inverto!"

For just a split-second, Remus' eyes rounded in surprise as the spell flipped his broom upside-down; but as he clung tighter, hooking his legs around, his features rearranged themselves into that seemingly unshatterable placid smile.

"This is one of those rare moments in which I am very glad I haven't got a scrap of gold in my pockets," he said, eyes rolling upward to glance at his coat, turned inside out and hanging over his head. But then he followed Tonks' gaze downward, to the dark jumper he'd changed into before they left the flat, which was hiking up to reveal his navel and a fair expanse of the pale skin above. He let go of his broom with one hand to tug it back down -- or up -- over his hips.

"Good job you didn't wear robes tonight," Tonks said, sniggering, "or you'd have a problem keeping from exposing yourself."

"Are you going to right me? Or am I going to have to exhibit my quick draw whilst flying upside down?"

"You're not flying. You're hovering."

"So are you," Remus said as she came face level with him.

"Your mouth looks funny upside-down."

"Oh, so we're going to change tactics? Trade petty insults, now? I might say that from my perspective, your mouth looks funny upside-down."

"You're so immature, Remus. How'd you ever think you'd get anywhere arguing that you're too old for me?"

The corner of his mouth hitched -- adorably, Tonks thought, even if it was upside-down. "The folly of youth."

As it had made a habit of doing at least once a day, when Remus wasn't away, and had done several times today, Tonks' heart stood still, then palpitated wildly. What she felt at those times, oddly, carried her back to her birthday-before-last, when he'd led her on a mysterious mission that had wound up at the Shrieking Shack, where apparently Dumbledore wanted them to investigate strange sounds. Instead of a boggart, dinner and a serenade came out from the cupboard. She'd been completely surprised, not so much by the blast of music as by the notion that she had a boyfriend who'd put that much effort into her birthday, and delighted right down to the tips of her toes that no matter how hectic their lives were with work, no matter how bleak the outlook of the war, there was that moment, and others like it, to live in, and look back on, and hope for.

How long, she wondered again, as she did each time she felt this way, would it take her to get used to having that Remus back in the here and now, and to look forward to for respite, so she could stop wasting time being surprised and over-thinking? Not that it was a bad thing to fixate on just how much he meant to her, and how glad she was that he was himself again, and how grateful that he was in her life. She wasn't taking him for granted, at least -- which she had done, to quite a large extent, before they'd separated.

A year ago she'd have told someone they were talking hogswallop if they'd suggested she didn't fully appreciate all Remus did to make her feel the way he did. Now, though, after a year of heartbreak and a million attempts to piece herself, him, them, back together, she understood that though creativity was as much a natural part of Remus as magic, he could never access that part of himself without being keenly aware that he had no other choice. It was much, much more than him simply getting used to the idea that it wasn't money that would buy her happiness. She'd taken his pride for granted, as well as how he made her feel.

And right now it was him -- not the flying, not the open air, not being away from her parents -- that lightened her load, lifted her spirits, carried her high, high above the world and all its cares.

"You know how good you are for me, don't you?" she said, because she wasn't about to repeat the mistake of taking him for granted, and thus let those still too-near insecurities and issues creep back in and wedge themselves in the cracks that had not had time to fully heal.

"I'm beginning to see," came Remus' quiet reply as, upside-down and funny-looking be damned, the tenderness in his eyes and smile, and the reassuring brush of his hand on her face, thumb scuffing her cheek to wipe away the tear that had slipped out, despite her efforts not to cry, caused another of those birthday-esque moments of surprise and delight to go off inside her like a box of Wildfire Whiz-bangs.

"Know what I'm beginning to see?" Tonks asked, a little hoarsely, due to the lump in her throat, though it was a sudden flirtatious thought that had prompted her to speak.

"That my face is getting red from all the blood rushing into it?"

Laughter loosened the knot in her throat, and Tonks let go of her broom with one hand to slide it behind his neck and pull him toward her. "Even at this angle, your mouth still looks kissable."

Smoothly as she said it, their positions made it awkward to fit her lips with his -- especially in light of how, when they were both right-side up, their mouths moulded together as though they were each an extension of the other. Noses bumped, and they giggled, and Tonks thought of first kisses. Somehow, that was an exciting thought, and the very moment it occurred, she captured his upper lip, kissing him properly. First kisses were wonderfully exhilarating -- at least, her first kiss with Remus had been. It seemed right that, after what he'd just said, expressing his new outlook, the physical expression of their love would find a new form, just as their reconciliation had brought them together completely for the first time.

And Merlin... Remus' lips were so moving so intently, so insistently over hers, just as they always did when they were exploring previously uncharted physical territory. He'd been over her mouth hundreds of times, but kissed her now as if this different path were an entirely new experience. Which, the sound of the wind whipping his coattails together above, and the ends of her cloak below, assured her it was. It made her realise that it was odd to be kissing him but not to have his arms around her, or even to feel the sheltering warmth or support of his body -- all of which she'd lain alone in their bed the past five nights, aching for.

Yet even more oddly, the ache she felt now was the same pleasant drive of anticipation as when they actually were that physically close. His hand mirrored the position of hers, fingers cupping her neck, pulling her mouth as tightly to his as he possibly could. He pulled at her lower lip, raked his teeth across...She couldn't remember ever being so aware of wet heat of his breath as she traced every curve of his mouth with her tongue.

If this was how it would be between them every step of their journey toward restoration, then she could stop being so bloody hard on herself for being so bloody conscious of every tiny bloody thing he said and did, and jolly well enjoy the ride.

Twisting her fingers into his hair, she tilted her head to deepen the kiss...

...but instead of a warm, yielding mouth, there was only brisk, autumn night air, and resistance against her hand as Remus broke away from her.

"I hate to stop you from seeing as much of my irresistible upside-down mouth as you'd like..." he began, raggedly.

Tonks glanced up beyond his face to see that his stomach, again bared by his creeping jumper he'd let go of to touch her face, was heaving in and out. She did regret the distance this position put between them, because his stomach looked so ticklable.

"...but all the blood's rushed to my head," Remus continued, "and as I’m quite accustomed to it rushing other places when we're kissing like this, I must confess that I'm rather at a loss to know how to cope."

With a shriek of laughter that startled a passing gull, Tonks whipped out her wand. "You're more coherent when the blood's in your head. Reverto! Which proves that blokes really do think with their--"

"As you well know," Remus interrupted pointedly, smoothing his dishevelled hair back into place, "I'm almost always coherent enough to pronounce your name -- and that's hardly the simplest of feats under normal circumstances."

Kicking her broom into motion again, Tonks looked over her shoulder and pointed her wand at Remus. "If you want to fly the rest of the way to Sevenoaks with your blood evenly distributed, you won't say that name now."

Usually Remus humoured her by responding to her mock threads with the appropriate measure of mock fear, but as he flew up alongside her, his head fell back with laughter.

"You think I'm joking?" she said, raising an eyebrow.

"No," said Remus, still sniggering. "I think you're a great deal like your mum. When she said, 'Don't call me 'Dromeda...'"

He couldn't speak anymore, for chuckling, which was so uncharacteristically un-poised of Remus that Tonks almost couldn't keep from laughing to maintain her annoyed front.

Almost.

Fortunately he'd said the magical words to provoke an annoyed reaction.

"A great deal like my mum? You're bloody asking for it, Remus."

"I know," he said, laughter trailing away into a sigh, though he still smiled -- compassionately. "And I realise I'm probably not helping myself, but I've got to say it: I think you butt heads with her the way you do precisely because you are so similar."

Every relaxed, peaceful feeling the flight till now had brought her, fled. Teeth clenching, shoulders squared and shaking, Tonks gritted out, "No. I butt heads with my mum because she's cold to my friends, and to my fiancé, she doesn't believe in what I believe in, and nothing I ever do is good enough for her."

She leant forward to dart ahead of him, but his steady voice carried after her.

"You're both perfectionists."

As though lassoed by the truth of the words, Tonks slowed, and he caught up to her. She didn't want to look at him, didn't want to give in, but his eyes drew hers. Blue, and bright with teasing. One sandy brow quirked irresistibly above.

"Or should I say prefectionsits?" He tilted on his broom to nudge her shoulder affectionately with his. "You never shared that little anecdote."

Ridiculously, Tonks flushed. "Merlin, I don't know why that popped into my head."

"Why didn't you mention it before? It's a cute story."

He reached for her hand, but she moved it away, readjusting her grip on her broom. Out the corner of her eye, she saw him blink, as though in confusion; the lines around his eyes and mouth deepened, and Tonks felt a corresponding ache inside.

With a sigh, she apologised. "It's not a cute story, really. Least not to me."

"I'm sorry," Remus said. "You don't have to tell me--"

"No. It's fine."

It wasn't, really. There were feelings at work in that story which she'd never opened up to anyone about. But she wanted to be close to Remus, she trusted him, and if she wanted him to reveal his deepest feelings to her -- and there were just a few she wanted to know about right now -- she had to give as much as she hoped to get.

"I thought I'd be a Ravenclaw," she said, "because Dad was so funny and clever, I wanted to be just like him. Right down to being in his house. But then when I got sorted into Hufflepuff, instead--"

The ear-splitting scream of a jet engine cut her off and alerted them that they were coming in over Gatwick Airport. They darted their broomsticks in the opposite direction to the red runway lights now visible through the wispy low clouds, and Remus gave his wand two swift flicks, the second of which resulted in something thick and soft suddenly pressing over her ears, muting the sound of the aeroplane as it roared over their heads. She glanced at him, and found him sporting a pair of grey earmuffs; she touched one hand to hers, felt a fuzzy puff, and didn't need to see his boyish grin over his shoulder to guess that the ones he'd conjured for her were far less sensibly styled and coloured.

Not that she was complaining.

So far from it, in fact, that her cheeks throbbed from the sudden, wide grin.

One of the things that had attracted her to him in the first place was how he'd seemed not just to not mind her personal style, or not to be amused by it, but to genuinely like her tatty jeans, bright t-shirts with band names or silly slogans, and her daft hairdos. It was just what she needed to be reminded of just now, that no detail of her went unnoticed by him, and that he could do the smallest thing at the perfect moment to make her feel so secure.

When they'd flown far enough out from the airport that they didn't need to cover their ears, Tonks whipped off her earmuffs to have a look at them.

"Leopard print!" she cried.

"You're the fashionista, not me," said Remus, "but I do believe animal patterns are rather in vogue at the moment?"

"Reading my Witch Weekly in the loo again?" she asked, laughing -- harder when Remus ducked his head in a guilty-as-charged look, his own shoulders quaking with amused tremors.

"I wish these weren't conjured," said Tonks, just as they vanished. "I'd love to wear a pair of leopard print earmuffs this winter."

"I'll bear that in mind. Now if you don't mind, fly close, please, so I can do a memory charm and see you light up with surprise when I give you a pair of leopard print earmuffs for your birthday."

Tonks did fly close, but the affected memory, if there was one, was his, when she leant in to kiss him.

Hers, however, picked up her story right where she'd left off.

"At first I thought I didn't get sorted into Ravenclaw because I wasn't clever enough," she said as she drew back. "I got right depressed. You'd have thought I'd been exiled or something. I didn't morph for a week."

She was as surprised to hear the words come out of her mouth as he looked.

"Didn't...?" Remus' Adam's apple bobbed. "Or couldn't?"

Tonks shook her head, not so much in regard to his question as with disbelief that in all the months she'd not had control of her powers, she'd never thought about those first days at Hogwarts when she hadn't.

"I don't know. I didn't feel like trying. Probably I could've," she said, though inwardly she wondered whether her morphing had always been connected with especially negative emotions and deep-seated insecurities. It was not a prospect she relished. She shook her head again, and repeated, quietly, "I really don't know."

The wind carried away her voice, and for what felt like a long time, the only reply was its whistle through her hoop earrings, and the flapping of her cloak and his coat. They were lonely sounds, she thought, and suddenly the breeze no longer seemed refreshing, but too cool.

She steered her broomstick as close alongside Remus' as she safely could. As she did, he turned his head and offered her a smile that was meant to be reassuring, though those weary lines she'd noticed earlier were more deeply etched now, and made her think he might, perhaps, be more intent on puzzling out her emotional issues than she.

"What changed?" he asked.

"A week of classes with perfect marks. And a load of House points from Professor Sprout for exemplifying a hard-working Hufflepuff."

The crinkles at the corners of Remus' eyes deepened, now because he was smiling more fully.

Returning it, Tonks said, "I'd always thought Hufflepuffs worked hard because they had to."

"But then you realised they were simply naturally hard-working people, and you were one of them?"

"In every area but the ability to behave myself," she said wryly, and he chuckled. She felt a laugh well up in her own chest in response, but oddly, a sigh hefted itself out instead. "I did work bloody hard at the behaving myself bit, though, that's the thing. My spirit was willing, but my flesh--Remus?"

They were no longer flying side-by-side. Tonks twisted to see that he'd dropped a full broom-length back, and was hovering with a look of something like realisation on his face.

"It bothers you, doesn't it?" he said.

Tonks spun her broom so that she could face him fully without craning her neck. "What bothers me?"

He inched his broom toward hers. "You wanted very badly to be prefect -- as badly as you wanted to be an Auror -- yet did not qualify." He raised a hand to brush the backs of his fingers across her cheek as he went on in his tender, slightly rasping tones, "And you're so thoroughly Hufflepuff that to this day it niggles."

"That's silly." Tonks forced a laugh as she caught his hand and pulled it away from her face. "Of course it doesn't niggle. I joke about it all the bleeding time--"

"You joke because it niggles," Remus said over her, though his voice still contained that gentle quality. He'd kept hold of her hand, and now let go of his broom with his other so that he held her hand in both of his, thumbs chafing her skin. "And it's not silly. You expect a great deal from yourself."

"You've noticed," said Tonks with a short, mirthless laugh.

She darted her gaze away from the steady blue eyes that seemed to be searching her deepest parts and reading the secrets she'd written and buried there. She felt him probing her soul, but his touch was so feather-light that she found she didn't mind, really. It was just new.

She'd always thought their relationship had been so open, because they connected so deeply. Remus was so perceptive and intuitive, but it was only at their point of reconciliation that she realised she'd taken for granted that he could read her mind. Lycanthropy and its accompanying insecurities aside, Remus was a man, and she was a woman. They thought and felt differently, and communicated differently, no matter how empathically they were attuned to each other.

But then she realised she no longer felt his eyes looking at her. Shifting her eyes back to his face, she found his gaze fixed downward, turned inward. His eyes, his face, his hair, all looked very grey.

"You thought it was your fault," he said hoarsely, voice catching on the last word.

Tonks' heart thudded, and then filled her throat and hung suspended there as she waited for him to continue. But as time passed -- she had no idea how much, it might only have been a second, though it felt like everyone on the earth below them could have lived their lives and grown old -- she began to think he couldn't go on. And she needed him to look at her again.

Or at the very least, touch her.

She shifted her broom just to the side of his, so she could slide alongside him, hovering so close that their thighs brushed. With his head bent, his hair hid his face. Carefully, she reached out and brushed it back.

"I thought what was my fault?" she asked.

His eyes flicked upward and met hers, but were glossy with...with what, Tonks wasn't sure.

"Last summer," he began. He paused to swallow, then went on, "You blamed yourself for me...leaving you."

Tonks winced. He left you had been the Dementors' whisper last year; she was ashamed to admit that it had not changed yet, though Remus didn't know it, and she had no intention of letting him find out about it -- or that the whisper had haunted her dreams all week and kept her awake.

But she did admit, "I thought I hadn't been enough for you. It nearly drove me mad wondering what more I could have done. I never once thought you could be afraid I'd leave."

He started to look down again, but Tonks slid her hand down to cup his jaw and kept him looking at her.

Forcing a smile she didn't really feel, as well as a tone of levity, she said, "And I still wonder what I could've done to develop the certain necessarily quality I lacked to make prefect."

Remus' smile filled his eyes as his palm slid over her hand. His touch was at first reassuring, but then his fingers curled around hers, and he raised her hand to his lips. Gaze never wavering from hers, eyes dark as the sky, he kissed each fingertip...just touching his tongue to them...drawing them ever so slightly into the soft warmth of his mouth...making her feel as though he'd flipped her broomstick -- and all her insides -- upside-down.

"Prefectionist," he murmured, and she started to laugh, but then realised his warm breath on her skin was a sigh as he said, "Your Hufflepuff hard work and perfectionism went into tonight, as well."

His face blurred before her as her eyes filled with sudden, stinging tears. She opened her mouth to say, God, that was awful, but her throat was too constricted for her to produce the sounds. It was probably better that way. If she said that, Remus would say that at least her parents had been polite, and he really couldn't expect more, and she'd try to get him to admit that polite wasn't good enough, that he wanted them to like him, and be happy about their marriage. But Remus hated to talk about injustices done him that were beyond his control, and if there was one thing she'd learnt in all their time together and even their time not-together, it was that it really didn't accomplish anything -- except start them rowing.

Anyway, Tonks felt that somehow, by merely mentioning the disastrous family dinner, Remus had quietly acknowledged that it had been wrong, and hurtful.

So she blinked back her tears, swallowed the lump in her throat, and asked, "How would engagement dinner with your parents have been?"

The smile she'd forced instantly felt less so as she watched a slow one creep across his, smoothing his features, lighting his eyes.

"It wouldn’t have been dinner," he said.

"No?"

"It would have been a party. And believe me, an engagement party thrown by my mum would have been more over the top than whatever Molly will do for our wedding."

Tonks giggled, thoughts turning once again to her Shrieking Shack birthday surprise. "So your talent for celebration comes from your mum's side of the family tree, does it?"

"Mine's not talent, not compared to her," Remus replied, a happy, faraway look in his eyes that made Tonks wish she had a Pensieve full of his family memories to look into. "But if we can manage to pull off birthday parties for our children half as wonderful as mine were, they'll be the happiest children on earth. And not just birthdays -- Hogwarts letters...Prefects' badges..."

"Prefects' badges?" Tonks managed to affect a sceptical tone and raise an eyebrow, which were rather impressive feats considering the words our children seemed to be the incantation for setting off a Jelly Legs Jinx-like feeling in all her internal organs.

"Yes," said Remus. "You know, those shiny badges with your house mascot and an ornate letter P--"

"Only I wonder," Tonks interrupted, no longer having to work quite so hard at controlling her inner quivering sensations, "considering that we just talked about my lack of necessary qualities for prefect, and you said once that you did a bang-up job, yourself, where are our children...?" She paused, as the Jelly Insides she'd prematurely deemed quelled, turned into full-blown Jelly Fingers and Jelly Legs feeling that made her glad she wasn't holding anything, or standing, though she supposed it could negatively affect her hold on her broom. "Well, just who in Merlin's name are our children going to inherit the ability to behave themselves from?"

Remus pressed his lips together, then, laughter bursting out, kissed her hand again. "Whenever she got an owl about detentions, Mum always sent back calm replies that someday the universe would pay me back with exasperating children. Nothing could make my parents happier than me marrying a witch who will help the universe along."

Her laughter winging across the star-spangled night sky of ever-deepening blue, Tonks felt very much a part of the universe's hand in another person's life. There could be no greater joy than being such, or fulfilling a parent's hope for their child. For she knew that underneath Remus' light chatter of parties, he was really saying that all his parents had ever wanted for him was to enjoy a normal life, and that his marriage, the promise of a family and future of his own, were the height of that dream.

It both humbled her, and made her heart beat with purpose. Of course she had a purpose in the Order of the Phoenix, but this was why they had to win. This was why she couldn't fulfil her parents' wish, and go into hiding.

Her parents.

The thought threatened her with a downward spiral back to earth back to the suffocating city streets. Remus had gifted her with his parents' blessing from beyond the grave, but she wasn't able to reciprocate. And it seemed like an essential thing to have.

But she refused to let her parents snatch this night, this joy from her. Remus wasn't letting them. He'd more than kept his word to stand by her. If talking about their children didn't prove that, she didn't know what did.

At least one good thing had come from tonight.

She hated to see Remus tested, but couldn't deny the way it made her feel inside to see him proved.

At the risk of being the cause of her own spiralling plunge from her broomstick, Tonks leant toward him, catching his face between her hands, and kissed him hard. It was a gamble well worth taking: his hands instantly found her sides, palms steadying and firm as the pressure of his mouth against hers.

Heat seared at her lips, and began a slow course up to her cheeks, down her neck. Oddly, she shivered. Logic said it was because the autumn night wind wasn't exactly balmy, but she reckoned it had less to do with the night wind and more to do with every muscle coiling in anticipation, as if magically commanded by his fingers, trailing down over her hips, skimming her thighs, then wandering back up to stroke the sides of her breasts.

She gasped -- and at once their taut lips gave way and melted together. Tension released, and they moved fluidly, though with no less intensity than before. In fact, Tonks felt an even greater need to be near to him. Her fingers tangled into his soft, wind-blown hair, drawing him closer...Her lips faltered with a frown against his mouth as she felt the sides of their legs press together.

Not close enough.

Fingers locking together behind his neck as she kissed his face all over, whilst he dipped his head to nip his teeth along her throat, she shifted to pull herself into his lap, so she could wrap her legs around him and--

She did get closer to him -- when her broom tipped and she had to cling to him to avoid that spiralling plunge she'd forgotten all about.

Remus' hands pushed her back upright instead of pulling her body against his. "All the blood rushing from your head affected your equilibrium, did it?" he asked, smirking.

Smirking! Who bloody smirked after a full-on snog in the middle of the sky? Git.

Tonks' brain told her to grab her wand, but her arms refused to comply. "If my blood were in its proper place," she said, "I'd hex you upside-down again."

"Or maybe even fix me with a convincing glare?"

If she hadn't the presence of mind before to glare, she certainly hadn't now. Remus' long, slender fingers brushed a lock of long purple hair back from her forehead, and tucked it behind her ear. He regarded her with a smile, and tender, slightly hazy eyes, which Tonks found herself so lost in that she didn't notice he'd leant in till his lips touched hers. He hummed low as their lips glided together in a languid kiss that touched and pulled at something deep within her that reached out for more when he drew back again.

Merlin, she wanted -- needed -- him.

"You know," he said, nudging her gently with his knee, indicating for her to turn her broomstick round, "suddenly I share your sense of urgency for getting your parents' house secured and getting them out of our flat."

The last two words had roughly the effect of a Rictusempra on her insides, which resulted in something almost like giddiness to ripple through her. She waggled her eyebrows and said, "Or we could just leave them at ours and spend the night at theirs -- investigating."

Remus' eyes rolled upward as he shook his head slightly, as he'd used to do so frequently with Sirius, and kicked his broom into flight again. "Believe it or not, Tonks, I do hold out hope that your parents may someday come to like me. I'm fairly certain it won't help my cause to tell them I'm going to cast security charms over their house, and instead charm their daughter in their house."

"Oh, so this wasn't about the Floo at all, but a chance to impress them? Charming with Charms. Very clever, for a Defence expert."

Their banter continued for a few minutes, but as they flew the route of the motorway, descending lower over the approaching not-too-distant, lit-up town of Sevenoaks, they quieted. At the outskirts of town, they leant further over their brooms, turning up the collars of their dark outer garments to make themselves less visible. Up till now they'd flown side-by-side, but now Tonks took the lead, keeping to heavily treed lanes for cover, making for a rather winding, though stealthy enough for Mad-Eye to approve of, route to her parents' neighbourhood.

More than a year had passed since she'd seen Harrow Road. In another lifetime, she would've foregone stealth in the Wizarding area to drop back alongside Remus and give him a tour of the street she'd grown up on. She'd have pointed out which houses were the best for hide-and-seek, which lawns had become pitches for pick-up games of Quidditch on toy broomsticks that she'd watched enviously from across the street, because no one ever chose The One With No Balance for sides. Though she'd also tell him how she never failed to attract a crowd at her own curb, and that the pig snout morph originated out the front of the house on the corner.

But Tonks didn't slow, or abandon stealth, or relate anecdotes from her childhood. Not only because returning to her childhood home brought no feelings of nostalgia, but because the dark Shield Shades drawn over the windows reinforced her feelings of professionalism. The Wizarding world was at war, and people in dark clothes, flying on broomsticks under cloak of darkness, weren't welcomed with open arms. If her parents were frightened, their neighbours surely were, as well. She was a soldier, and this was an investigation -- not a pleasure tour.

Especially since she got no pleasure at all from the sight of the house she was pretty sure her mother wouldn't warmly welcome Remus into.

As they alit on the lawn, behind two junipers planted at either side of the path, Tonks couldn't help but glance at Remus to gauge his reaction to seeing her family's home. The two-storey brown brick house with the columned porch certainly had been a comedown to her mother after the grandeur of the Black mansion she'd grown up in, but it couldn't be called modest compared to the tiny flat she shared with Remus, or the rustic Burrow. Of course his features were set in that bloody neutral expression he was so good at.

Gaze never wavering from the house, he gave his wand a flick that Tonks knew to be a nonverbal Muffliato when he said, "Your family's home is lovely. You always lived here?"

"Till I started training and got this crap place near the Ministry with Eileen."

Tonks wished to Merlin for a Time Turner to drop out of the sky, so she could go back and agree with Remus that investigating her parents' Floo wasn't immediately important. Regardless of proving his devotion by talking about their someday-kids, he could only be thinking that he wished he could give her, them, a home like this -- because who wouldn't?

Forcing herself to look at her childhood home through the eyes of an objective Auror, she shrank her Comet and shoved it into her pocket, but stopped Remus with a hand on his arm when he started to do the same. "Why don't you check the upper windows and the roof? I know all the nooks, so I'll take the ground."

Remus nodded his approval of her plan, and remounted his broom again.

"If I see anything," Tonks went on, "I'll set off an owl hoot signal--"

"Two-way Mirror," Remus cut her off, delving into his coat pocket for his.

Having felt in charge of this mission, and also having forgotten all about the devices they'd tested earlier, Tonks bristled. "Chimney's round the back," she said with a jerk of her head. "We'll start there."

"Right." Remus nodded again, then pushed off the ground.

Tonks watched him for a moment, then pulled up her hood and tramped across the lawn in the opposite direction he'd flown, so they could meet up in the middle. The grass badly needed mowing. Her mother couldn't be happy with her dad. Probably that had a lot to do with her mood, as well. If the lawn looked tidier, Andromeda Tonks wouldn't be as paranoid about being watched.

Before Tonks even reached the base of the chimney, however, the facetious comment turned to a sickening lump at the pit of her stomach.

It wasn't paranoia.

Heart in her throat, she whipped out her mirror. Remus' reflected face appeared in the glass, and she didn't have time to open her mouth to utter a word before she saw his actual form speeding round the corner.

"Residual magic," he said, face set in grim lines as he vaulted off his broom before he reached the ground. "Someone's broken the wards on the French doors."

"Mum's room."

The lines of his face rearranged themselves into a look of surprise. "Your mum's room?"

"That's what I said."

"Not your parents' room?"

"No." Heat prickled in Tonks' face. Accustomed as she was to her parents' arrangement, she was normally careful about not disclosing parts of it to other people. She was so focused on their work now, she'd not paid attention... What would that sort of thing make Remus think about her, and the future of their relationship? She wasn't at her best today... "They don't sleep together. Not the point."

"I'm sorry."

The softness of his tone made her feel a little guilty for being so brusque, but she couldn't keep it out of her tone when she told him it was okay.

Frowning, Tonks moved closer to the chimney and looked up toward the second storey. "There's a Floo up there, too. And there's residual magic here, as well. Strong residual magic."

Remus' arm brushed her shoulder as he reached past and touched the chimney. "Strong, yes, but I'm not so sure about residual. It's not Dark, either -- not like what I sensed by the doors."

Tonks whirled to face him, but caught her toe on a root and wobbled. Remus' hands caught her shoulders and kept her on her feet.

"What do you mean, it's not Dark?" she said, shrugging out of his grasp and striding back toward the front of the house. "Of course it's Dark. Let's go inside and inspect the bloody Floo --Merlin, damn it!" She'd tripped again, but that wasn't why she'd cursed. As she'd flailed, her gaze swept the ground below the bay window of the dining room. She dropped to a crouch. "Remus, look!"

His quick footsteps crunched in the grass, then he was bending over her, bluish light emanating from the tip of his wand as he held it over a tramped down place in the ground.

"Footprints," he said.

"I swear to you, these are identical to the ones I took last night at that murder scene." Tonks looked up and hissed through clenched teeth, "Bastard came for my parents!"

Remus' face was unreadable, cast in strange shadows by the dim light of his wand, as he continued to study the footprints.

"Come on," said Tonks, standing. "He's still inside, I'm sure of it--"

"Slow down." Remus caught her arm.

"But we can catch him!" Tonks struggled, but his hand was firm. "Bloody hell, Remus, let go!"

His fingers relaxed, but didn't break contact; his intense stare kept her rooted in place. "What sort of murderer leaves footprints?"

"A crap one."

"He successfully murdered that family last night. And broke your parents' security wards."

"Crap wards, I expect. Mum's a housewitch, and--"

"An arrogant murderer," Remus cut her off, grip tightening again.

"That's a weakness!"

"But we mustn't allow it to be ours," Remus said in his quietly authoritative tones. His eyes held hers for a moment, then he released her.

Tonks couldn't deny his rationale, but she didn't understand why he felt the need to assert it.

"Do you think you and I aren't enough?" she asked. "Do we need to call in backup?"

"No..." Remus drew out the word. "Only...let's not be hasty."

"I think catching an intruder requires a degree of haste." With a snort, Tonks continued toward the front of the house.

Remus fell into step behind her, but the crinkling swish of the too-long grass came at intervals further apart than hers. True, his stride was longer, but that didn't account for this pace. He was walking slowly. A glance over her shoulder revealed to Tonks that he was ambling along, hands in his pockets, inspecting the flowerbeds with a slight smile playing about his lips.

"What are you doing?" She whirled to face him, arms akimbo. "I'd love to go for a moonlight stroll with you, Remus, I really would, but now's not the--"

"Violas," he said, stopping abruptly and dropping to a crouch. His long fingers, white in the moonlight, reached out and traced the outline of one of the fragile purple petals that surrounded the pale centre. "I think you told me once that your dad called you Viola." He looked up at her, smile widening as his eyes shone with happy remembrance. "It was when we went to that production of Romeo and Juliet, do you remember?

Now wasn't the time, but Tonks couldn't stop herself softening, and indulging in a moment of romantic reminiscence. They'd been apart for five days, after all. She dropped to her knees in the grass beside him.

"How could I forget the night you took me to the theatre?" She hugged his arm and rested her head against the soft wool of his jumper, which the folds of his cloak had fallen back from. "I never got round to telling you why he calls me Viola, did I?"

"Good job you didn't, or you'd have lost that as a security question." His quiet chuckle rumbled through her as he leant his head down to bless her hair with a kiss. "It's a lovely story."

"I think it's sweet, yeah."

Turning toward her, Remus' hands came to rest on her upper arms. "Whatever differences there are between you and your parents -- or between them -- you can at least be sure that they love you very much."

The intensity of his eyes beckoned her gaze, and somehow also had the power to make her blurt, "Too much, I think sometimes."

"Of course they're being overprotective in asking you to go into hid--"

"It's not about that," Tonks interrupted, and before she could stop herself, she clarified, "It's that sometimes I've wondered if they'd be married if it weren't for me."

Remus' hands fell to his sides as his eyebrows knit. "What do you mean? Your mother wasn't--"

"She's not happy. Dad's not either. I don't know when they stopped making each other happy, because I was older when I realised they weren't. They kept it from me. But I think if they hadn't had me..."

She looked down at her hands, which she was wringing in her lap. God, she'd never wanted to tell him this. But if they were to be married, he'd find out sooner or later. Better sooner, from her, and hope that she could make him see she didn't think her parents' marriage was normal.

"I think if they hadn't been afraid of what it would do to me, they'd have separated. They might be happy."

"No." Remus' hands caught hers, gently prising her fingers apart. He bent his head to meet her eyes. "Don't you see, Dora? Because of you, they're not completely unhappy." He gave her hands a squeeze, then brought them to his lips before holding them against his chest and smiling wide at her. "You have a gift, you know. Making people happy."

"I'm afraid I'm going to have to kiss you for that," Tonks said, and pressed her mouth to his. The was passionate -- but brief. An instant later she was on her feet, and giving him a hand-up.

"For now, the way to make everyone happy is to get this job done."

At the front door, they found the wards in tact, and there were no signs of residual magic, as of forced entry. They cast all manner of quieting charms to ensure they were able to enter undetected, then Tonks muttered the pass-word her mother had given her.

Silently, the door swung open.

Tonks held her breath, and felt Remus do the same just behind her, waiting for an alarm.

One second.

Two.

Three.

Ten seconds passed, and not a sound came from the house.

Still holding her breath, Tonks stepped across the threshold.

No sound.

Tonks turned back to Remus. "Arrogant? Or not the brightest fairy in the forest?"

"Will you be more careful if I say I'm leaning toward the latter?"

She rolled her eyes and reached around him to pull the door to. "I'm being careful, Remus. This is my job, you know."

"I'm sorry," he said. "It's just..."

"What?"

"Nothing. You're right, we should get to work."

They crept about the ground floor, scanning for residual magic on their way back through the house. Remus checked the Floo, since apparently he was familiar with bugging charms and devices, but he detected nothing.

"That doesn't make sense," said Tonks, pushing in front of him and stepping up onto the hearth to inspect the fireplace for herself.

But her checks for the more common Dark Spells traced during murder investigations turned up nothing.

"I don't bloody understand." She straightened up and dusted herself off. "Outside, I sensed something wrong with the Floo. You felt it, too."

"Yes, but neither residual magic nor Dark magic."

"What, then?" Tonks wanted to pull out her hair in frustration.

And when Remus crossed his arms and looked at her with what she instantly knew must have been his teaching expression, she wanted to clock him one.

"What's left, Tonks? We've ruled out bugging, tapping, Dark Magic. Why else do we the Order avoid Floo travel?"

She stared at him for a moment, straight in the eye since the hearth put their faces level. "The Floo Network itself being watched? Remus, that's ridiculous. The Ministry haven't cause to spy on my parents."

Remus arched an eyebrow. "You told me once that your mother felt suspect during the first war due to her family connections."

"I know the signs," Andromeda's words came back to Tonks, and settled like cold weight in the pit of her stomach. How had it never occurred to her before now...? She's seen first-hand how Ministry war-time paranoia made personal privacy its doormat. Her parents might not be her favourite people in the world right now, but they damn well weren't evil. She'd ask around at work. If she found out they were keeping tabs on her parents, winding her mother up more than normal...

"All right." She clomped down onto the floor again. "That's everything down here. Time to go upstairs."

Remus followed her toward the staircase in the centre of the house, but when she reached for the banister finial, he caught her hand and pulled her away. "You can't just waltz up the stairs."

"When've I ever waltzed anywhere?"

The muscle in Remus' cheek twitched, and she knew she was pushing him to his limit. But didn't he see he was pushing her?

"There was no alarm on the door," he said, "but there could be a trap on the stairs."

"Fine. You scan while I Apparate."

He shook his head vehemently. "You're not going up there blind and alone."

"Well, you haven't been here before, and I can't very well Side-Along you!" she flung back, wishing that she'd sucked up her fear of her parents and brought him around so he could Apparate up, himself. If she'd eased him into her family sooner, she might have got that joyful engagement dinner tonight...And she might not have got all that heartache last year...

"You lose the advantage of surprise if you Apparate," Remus' pleading voice silenced the unwanted, badly-timed thoughts.

"Then I'll just have to rely on my Dark Wizard chasing skills," Tonks spat, jerking her arm free of his grasp and screwing her eyes shut.

Destination, determination, deliberation, she chanted in her mind, to refocus herself on the job to be done.

"Nympha--!"

CRACK!

Tonks opened her eyes and saw the serene ivory and pale green destination she'd impulsively chosen: her mother's bedroom.

And she wasn't alone.

At the fireplace, a hooded and masked figure worked in a perverse mockery of Father Christmas.

Oddly, he didn't Disapparate, but instead darted toward the open bedroom door -- toward Tonks.

"Impedimenta!" Tonks shouted.

Violet light flared from her wand, but it ricocheted off the Shield Charm the Death Eater threw up. She leapt backward out of the room so she could use the door for cover and not lose time on defensive spells. Before she could return fire or find her footing, however, her wand ripped from her hand.

Oh, shit.

There wasn't a split-second longer to think beyond that before a Flipendo Jinx to her chest knocked the wind out of her as it flung her against the corridor wall.

While she was catching her breath, the Death Eater bolted from the room. Lungs burning, Tonks sprang after him, swiping at his hand for her wand, but he aimed it at her and hit her with a Leg-Locker Curse. She toppled forward, carpet burning her palms as she caught herself. A curse, and Remus' name, were on the tip of her tongue, but she bit back her words. She couldn't call out to him for cover, or it would compromise him. Not that he wasn't more than match enough for this Death Eater, whoever he was...But if only Remus could take him by surprise, this would be over in a mere minutes.

"Petrificus Totalis!"

Seconds, Tonks amended at the sound of the hoarse, but commanding shout she'd wanted to hear--

--only to retract it as the Death Eater sprang off the top stair as if it were a trampoline, leaping over the flash of blue from Remus' wand, avoiding the Full Body Bind and clearing the banister.

Instinct made Tonks snap into action, scrabbling to her feet to go to Remus' aid as the Death Eater fired hexes down at him from the air, and the Leg-Locker Curse, weak because the Death Eater hadn't cast it with his own wand, released its hold on her. Her muscles burned and moved jerkily, but carried her to the stairs.

"Remus, my wand!"

"Tonks! Stop where you are!"

She tried to heed his warning, but her momentum and recovering legs made a dead stop with one foot off the top stair impossible. Only grabbing the banister kept her from pitching head-long down the staircase; but her feet did slip off onto the step below.

Below her, Remus' ashen face was a mask of mingled terror and hard fury as he watched her, whilst swinging his wand hand wildly at the Death Eater and bellowing a second Binding Spell.

It worked -- but Tonks' breath of relief was snatched away by a cracking sound.

For a split-second, she thought somehow the Death Eater had managed to Disapparate, then she realized the crack was really a splintering sound. And that she felt it, as well. Beneath her feet.

The staircase was giving way.

Oh, shit. Shit, shit, shit.

"Wingardium leviosa!" she screamed, but of course hadn't got her wand. Remus was shouting spells so rapidly that they were indistinguishable above the staircase breaking apart and her vain attempts at wandless magic far beyond her skill to stop her plunge.

The hard wood floor silenced her, beating the air from her lungs for the second time in as many minutes. The pain in her chest was nothing compared to the shock of agony that tore through her leg following a sickening crack.

Turning her head, she saw her left calf bent at an unnatural right angle from her knee. Her eyes swam, and nausea rolled over in bitter waves.

"Dora, are you all right?" Remus' voice called, from what seemed like very far away, behind falling rubble. He was shouting a lot of spells that didn't seem to be doing anything, because it kept raining down. What were all those snapping sounds? More bones? Her arm hurt...

"Remus..."

She could hear him, but she couldn't see him. It was so very difficult to see anything. There were black spots, floating across her eyes, fingers of darkness, tugging at her eyelids. Things seemed to be falling...

Her eyes opened wide as a gasp of air filled her lungs and restored her senses. The staircase! It was collapsing. And Remus couldn't come to her because he had to do his duty, and dispatch that sodding Death Eater...

She had to get out of the way. She tried to push herself up on her elbow, to try and drag herself out of the way, but searing pain in her shoulder kept her pinned flat on the floor.

A section of railing broke, and plunged straight toward her face--

--but stopped just inches from her nose.

Exhaling slowly, Tonks closed her eyes. Remus would protect her. She could relax...

"DORA!"

She forced her leaden eyelids to open, just a slit.

She knew the massive support beam of the landing was crashing down on her, because she'd been hasty and stupid.

She knew Remus wouldn't let it hit her.

Then she knew nothing.

A/N: Sorry about the evil cliffie! I'll try to be quicker with the next update and not leave y'all hanging. In the meantime, reviewers can go for a moonlight broom ride with Remus.

Also, at some point, you may see a pre-romance outtake based on a reference to the past in this chapter.