Transfigured Hearts #6: Crying Over Spilt Tea

[mrstater]

Title: Crying Over Spilt Tea
Author:

mrstater
Rating: PG
Word Count:  5996 words
Summary: Sixth in the Transfigured Hearts series:  Snape witnesses the attraction between Remus and Tonks, and when she is the object of the Potions master's scorn, the old hostilities between the Marauders and Snivellus rear their ugly heads. The feisty Auror is hardly the average damsel in distress, and more than capable of standing up for herself, but Remus can't sit back and say nothing. Will he intervene for her like a level-headed Order member, or will he join Sirius in reverting to the roles of Moony and Padfoot?
Author's Notes: Another revision which is just about unrecognizable from the original, which can be found here. Not only have I beefed up the content, but I've also pulled it forward in the series because I've always been shaky about the order of the three following Open Door and felt they weren't ready yet for another quarrel. Also, I drew in a plot-line from a Sirius-POV piece I wrote for the January, 2007 ficathon at
rt_challenge,  The Devil On Your Shoulder.  As always, many thanks to
godricgal, AKA Tater's Best Beta Reader.

This story follows Open Door in the Transfigured Hearts series, as well as a Tonks-POV outtake, Kernels, and is set in the autumn of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.

6. Crying Over Spilt Tea

"Can I get anyone anything?"

As Tonks turned to ask the question, her lovely dark eyes locked on Remus: warm, velvet, lovely, so fathomless that they surely encompassed the entire universe, glittering with what must be starlight, making him feel as if nothing or no one, especially not this room or these people, existed to her but him. Which Remus knew was preposterous -- and not just because she'd used a general pronoun. But he wasn't going to dwell on realism like that. Not when he had the option of dwelling, instead, in this astral plane Tonks carried him to with her gaze, where time stood still and his heart stopped beating and his lungs stopped breathing and where...

"If I decide I want to see yet another piece of the Black china smashed, Nymphadora, I shall be sure to ask you."

...where Severus Snape's slithering tones coiled around Remus' feet and jerked him out of the clouds and back onto the ground.

Or, more precisely, back to the very hard seat of one of the chairs at the Grimmauld Place kitchen table.

The spell of Tonks' eyes broke as her gaze drifted over Remus' head. He turned and did his best not to visibly glower at Severus, who was already glowering enough for the lot of them from where he skulked by Kreacher's cupboard, disgruntled at having arrived too early at Headquarters for tonight's Order meeting. Anyway, not glowering wasn't too difficult for Remus, because the corner of his mouth was twitching with a smile in anticipation of the cheeky reply Tonks would come back at Severus with. He shifted his gaze back to her, because really, why would he look at that sallow-skinned, hook-nosed git when he could be looking at pink-haired, elfin Tonks with her heart-shaped face and laughing eyes?

Only when he did, Tonks looked back at him and her lips, smirking as her jaw worked at a piece of Drooble's Best Blowing Gum, curved into a gentler smile. Didn't she mean to have a go at Severus? Remus wasn't sure he'd ever seen her hesitate to say what she liked. It wasn't that she hadn't felt the insult; she was deeply self-conscious about her clumsy streak and feared how it made the elder members of the Order perceive her. Remus knew the pink tingeing her high, porcelain cheekbones wasn't just the reflection of her hair.

So why wasn't she saying anything?

And why was she looking at Remus as she didn't say it?

Not that he minded, of course, staring into her lovely, sparkling eyes. That had to be a twinkle of mischief, hadn't it? Perhaps she was merely holding back to appear the more mature of the group. That was his approach -- although it was hardly mature, he reckoned, to want to see the mickey taken out of Severus...

Across the table, heavy boots resting on the ancient wooden surface as he nursed a Firewhisky, Sirius drawled, "I'll see to it she smashes it over your head, you greasy bastard."

Out the corner of his eye (though unsure how he had any part of his eye available when Tonks' were holding his like that) Remus saw Sirius' grey ones narrow.

But not on Severus.

Sirius eyes were narrowed on Remus as he said, "Why are you down here anyway, Snivellus? Your sort keep to the front hall, behind drapes, attached to the wall with a hell of a Permanent Sticking Charm."

Frankly, Remus had been thinking the same thing. Well -- not that Severus ought to be a permanent fixture in Grimmauld Place. Just that when Severus had swept into the kitchen in a swirl of black robes and found none of the Order present but Remus and Sirius, he couldn't have looked more disgusted than if he were, well, a Death Eater walking into a roomful of Order members. Remus supposed that Tonks, blundering down the stairs a moment later, barrelling into Severus, and catapulting him into the room without a shred of the dignity he liked to think he had, had given him reason to stay: bullying. Thankfully, though, not as whole-heartedly as Remus had known Severus to bully. Not that Tonks couldn't handle him. Remus would just rather she didn't have to. And he would rather he not have to step in to play peacemaker, and risk Tonks looking at him like Sirius did when Remus intervened.

"Azkaban was extraordinarily kind to you."

Though Snape's tone, like Sirius', was bored, Remus felt the room crackle with the mutual hatred that had existed between the two wizards since the moment they first clapped eyes on each other on the Hogwarts Express.

Well -- not bullying Tonks -- but whole-heartedly bullying Sirius.

"Twelve years locked up as a murderer," Severus went on, "and you are still as puerile as the day you entered Hogwarts. Of course, you did spend most of that time with a dog's brain--"

"Sounds like Animagus envy to me." Sirius took a long drink, eyes still not wavering from Remus' as he asked Snape, "What's your excuse, then? Too much time spent with all those slimy pubescent Slytherin toss-pots?"

"Remus?"

Tonks' chirpy voice sounded jarringly of place, but Remus was glad for a break in the tension. He'd hunched his shoulders during the bout between Sirius and Snape, but now relaxed as Tonks smiled and held up the kettle.

"Tea?" she offered.

"Yes, please." He returned her grin, realising he probably looked dopey, due to a rather inane thought that he was content to sit and drink her in. Remus was glad he wasn't prone to running his mouth about whatever popped into his head, or he, too, would face Severus' scorn - and Sirius' mockery, as well.

It was a toss-up which of them would be the more unbearable.

Watching Tonks potter about the kitchen in search of teabags and mugs, however, was anything but. He watched, smiling, as her red lips pursed and her cheeks puffed as she blew huge bluebell-coloured bubbles with her gum. Her dark eyes widened, aglow with excitement, as she watched the bubble swell to a good nine inches in diameter, until its pop underscored her "OUCH!"

She'd rammed her hip on the corner of a cupboard. Remus winced for her, though he was not especially alarmed. She seemed much less injured than intent on swearing at the offending cupboard and the cursed house that was out to get her for being a shape-shifting half-blood freak.

During her tirade, he was vaguely aware of Sirius' eyes trained critically on him again, and of the slightly slurred voice contributing a few words from of his cache of very creative self-coined vocabulary. But Remus was lost in his own thought that as long as he was involved with Tonks, he would never fall victim to writing soppy poems about being entranced by the graceful sashaying of hips.

He did, however, become intent on another, unique, sort of grace when she stretched to retrieve a teacup from a high shelf. Or rather, when her arm literally stretched a good six inches beyond the wide sleeve of her robe. It really was remarkable -- from a purely impersonal, magical standpoint, of course -- what she could do without a wand or a charm or a potion. She was made of magic. Not cursed magic, as he was, just pure, unadulterated...magic.

In the blink of an eye, her sleeve covered the length of her arm again. Which was flailing wildly, now, for balance, as she'd just caught her toe on the turned-up edge of a mouldy rag rug.

"None of you saw that, right?" Tonks asked breathlessly when she had steadied herself.

Though she didn't turn to make eye contact with any of the three wizards, Remus sat at the precise angle to see that her face had gone a shade pinker than her hair.

"How could anyone miss such an overt display of inelegance?" said Severus.

"You'd know all about inelegance, wouldn't you, Snivellus?" Sirius said with a biting laugh. "Or don't you remember showing all of Hogwarts your filthy underpants?"

Severus' black eyebrows pointed sharply toward his nose as he glowered murderously. Noting the long fingers curling into fists at Severus' sides, Remus had a fleeting impulse to intervene, but a movement in his peripheral -- Tonks whipping out her wand -- distracted him.

She wasn't going to hex Severus, was she?

Not that Remus particularly feared for her safety, should Severus revert to adolescent duelling; she was, after all, an Auror, more than capable of fending off even the nastier of the hexes Severus typical accessed when he came to blows with people. Admittedly, even though he knew it was very wrong and immature and bloody hypocritical, part of Remus couldn't help hoping she would. He desperately wanted to see the spectacular Bat Bogey Hex she'd bragged about, and all the more because he wouldn't be her victim. And Severus would. There was, undeniably, an appeal to that. Even though it was so very, very wrong.

Instead, Tonks tapped the teakettle with neat little flick of her wrist that was the epitome of finesse. Thankfully Remus had mastered the art of self-control, or it would have been difficult to resist the urge to look at Severus and gloat about his girlfriend's display of what could only be described as elegance.

Well -- not terribly difficult.

There was, after all, no question of looking at Severus when Tonks was bending over like that in search of the teaspoons Sirius was always putting in the wrong dresser drawer (an old habit to annoy Kreacher, which apparently died very hard), with her robes clinging to the curve of her bottom.

When Tonks straightened up and turned around, teacup in hand, her gaze locked once again with Remus'.

He had read descriptions of magical energy passing between two people, but had never shared a glance with a witch that produced an internal jolt. Tonks seemed to experience it, too; her chest heaved as she inhaled sharply.

It barely registered in Remus' mind that the teacup slipped from Tonks' hand and shattered on the floor, because they kept staring at one another, though Snape had made some kind of disgusted snorting sound, and...

"Well well, Moony..."

Sirius' sarky tones shattered the moment as surely as the floor had shattered the teacup.

Remus couldn't remember ever feeling quite as cross at Sirius and his damnable timing -- with the exception of the sixth-year full moon prank on Severus. Which, technically, had been more rage than crossness, but Remus was sure Tonks wouldn't begrudge him for rating that higher on the Most Pissed Off At Padfoot scale. Of course, that might soon change if Sirius kept sitting there looking at Remus in that haughty way of a Sex God looking down on a Virgin Peon.

"Well what, Padfoot?" Remus folded his arms over his chest. Out the corner of his eye, he saw a blue bubble swell.

"Seems you've mastered the art of the smouldering gaze," Sirius replied, as though this were the most obvious thing in the world. And the least impressive, as well. Snorting into his Firewhisky, he muttered, "Pity you haven't mastered the art of chivalry, as well."

"Please," Severus sneered, "even if Lupin--"

"What?" Pop!

Remus jerked in his chair, twisting to see Tonks picking blue sticky strands of gum from around the edges of her white lips and stuffing them into her mouth. And looking in a proper strop, as Severus glowered at her as if he'd caught her chewing gum in one of his Potions classes. Which, Remus realised, probably had happened before. Perhaps that was why Tonks didn't look the least bit perturbed at the prospect of the scathing remark he would undoubtedly make at her interruption?

Only she seemed to have forgotten Severus was on the same planet, much less in the same room. Her ire was all directed at the gaunt man sat across from Remus, who somehow managed to look smug and scornful and sullen all at once.

Heedless of the spilt tea, Tonks tromped across the kitchen toward Sirius, heavy red Doc Martens crunching the shards of mug into the mouldy grout.

"What the bloody hell do you mean, Remus hasn't mastered the art of chivalry?"

Tilting his chair back on two legs, Sirius spread his hands wide; he'd drunk too much of the Firewhisky for any of it to slosh out of the bottle.

"You're making tea for the lazy great git, and even though that greasy great bastard's bullying you, Moony won't get off his arse to stand up for you."

"You expected differently from the werewolf?"

They all turned as Severus, with lazy flicks of his wand, cleaned up the spilt tea with a Scourgify, cast a Reparo charm over the teacup, and levitated it back into Tonks' hands, white-knuckled with rage.

"Why, Lupin's entire life has been a study in the sort of shiftless freeloading behaviours for which his kind are notorious--"

"EXPELLIARMUS!" Tonks shouted over the clatter of Sirius' chair as he staggered up from it, grabbing for his wand.

"GIVE ME BACK MY WAND, YOU--"

"Sit. down. Black," Tonks ordered, looking so fierce and powerful with her feet flung wide apart and her shoulders flung back (Remus wasn't sure at what point she'd set the teacup on the table), that Remus almost thought she had morphed a more imposing height and broader shoulders.

"Do it!" she repeated when he only stared stupidly at her. "I'm an Auror--"

"Okay, okay." Sirius kicked the toppled chair, pulled out the one beside it, and flopped onto it. "But you ought to be thanking me. I was going to stick up for your loser boyfriend -- which is a lot bloody more than he did for you."

The last he said as his eyes flicked to Remus, dark and glinting, flint-like.

Remus felt the colour burn upward from his collar, licking hotly at his cheeks. He was, of course, rather mortified by what Severus had insinuated -- not because he felt wounded by any truth, but because of the company in which it had been said. Worse, though, was the hollowness of Padfoot's defence of him which, though vehement to the point of knocking over furniture and drawing wands, had come too late, and was undermined by this taunting.

"I don't need a knight in shining armour, you sexist git," Tonks hissed at Sirius, then, robes whipping round the table leg, spun on her heel to face Severus.

"As for you--" She pointed her wand at his hooked nose. "I don'tneed you to cast Reparo and Scourgify spells for me. I had lots of practice at them your Potions class -- NEWT-level, may I remind you -- and I'm ace with them now, thanks very much, as well as ace at lot of other spells I'm not afraid to use if you say anything like that to or about my boyfriend ever again. Do I make myself clear -- Severus?"

His black eyes were hard and glittering on hers. "Perfectly -- Nymphadora."

Her name, which Remus had always thought so lovely, sneered from Severus' nastily curled lips as he swept out of the kitchen in a swirl of black robes, made Remus bristle as much as anything that had been said by Severus or Sirius; and a thought niggled that Severus had let that go far too easily. But he neither bristled nor brooded for long.

It was impossible to think anything negative when Tonks' dark eyes were holding him -- warm, velvet. Her tight expression softened into a sweet smile as she gave his shoulder a flirty poke with the tip of her wand.

"You, though," she said, "I expect you to give me all the smouldering looks you want, all right?"

"You'd better expect him to give you a lot more than that, love," Sirius said, reaching across the table to snatch his wand from her slackened grip.

"He will."

Tonks smiled over her shoulder at Remus in a way that thrilled him with a far pleasanter warmth than the flush of humiliation that had prickled over him a few moments ago. Sirius hadn't got to him in the sense that Remus thought he'd let Tonks down; but he nonetheless appreciated the way she was looking at him as if he were one of the most dependable people she knew, and someone she liked...and fancied... He especially appreciated that in light of Severus' harsh reminder of what he was.

"The best that can be said for you, Moony," Sirius said, "is that at least you're consistent. You didn't leap to your girlfriend's defence, but you didn't stick up for yourself, either."

"Watch it," said Tonks in a warning tone, waving her wand at Sirius. "What I said to Snape applies to you, too. Anyway, why should Remus waste his breath on that git? Hasn't it occurred to you that since you actually claim to be Remus' friend, you're the one that deserves a good hex for being mean?"

For just an instant, Sirius looked a bit rattled. Or was it just that he was too inebriated to wrap his mind around Tonks' meaning?

"Who said anything about breath?" he asked. "I'm talking about hexes. You know you were dying to do Waddiwasi on him, Moony. The gum was right there, in Tonks' mouth, waiting to go up his nose."

"Sorry to disappoint, Padfoot, but it never crossed my mind."

"What's Waddi...thingy?" Tonks asked.

Remus felt his face colour faintly, and he looked down at his hands, folded on the table. He'd always been rather proud of Waddiwassi, but surely an expert like an Auror wouldn't be as impressed as a class full of third years?

"Oh," he said, "just a silly--"

"Highly useful little spell of Remus' own invention," Sirius interrupted, "designed to shoot chewing gum up the exceptionally huge nostril of one Severus Snape."

One of Tonks' pink eyebrows arched. "Is he taking the piss?"

"Truthfully," Remus said slowly, "unfortunately, no. Very poor prefect that I was, I used it, more than once."

"To rescue small damsels from the distress Snivellus was putting them in," Sirius added, cutting his eyes critically at Remus again. "Which is why I can't believe you didn't do it just now, when the bastard was insulting your girlfriend."

Remus gritted his teeth but, looking to Tonks, said hopefully, "I have grown up since then."

"Taller, maybe." Tonks grinned. "I'm glad you didn't do Waddi...That charm, as I wanted my gum and might've had to hex you if you'd taken it from me. Even if it would be a lark to see it up Snape's great beak." She picked up the teacup and turned back to the cupboards. "Still want a cuppa, Remus?"

"More than ever," Remus replied, adding quickly as he moved to get up, "only you don't have to wait on me."

"It's fine," said Tonks, laughing a little. Throwing a saucy look at Sirius, she added, "and it's probably the most chivalrous thing he could do right now, letting me redeem myself for dropping the other cup."

"You see?" Remus was unable to resist looking smugly across the table at a scowling Sirius. "She's not a damsel in distress. She is, however--" He turned back to Tonks. "--rather flirting with disaster, as she's stroked my ego and dared me to give her another smouldering gaze."

Tonks' reply was lost in the kettle's shrill blast, but Remus read her lips: crap.

Putting a tea bag in to steep, she asked, "Do you think you could maybe delay granting that request till--Wotcher, Molly! Where's Arthur?"

"Hello, Tonks dear. Remus..." Molly's appraising brown eyes swept over the unkempt Sirius, who sat clutching his Firewhisky bottle. "Sirius," she greeted, not bothering to hide her distaste. Tiredly, she went on, "Arthur couldn't get away from the office -- he'll come when he can, but may miss the meeting. As you all right?" she asked, looking at Sirius again who, glowering, Vanished his Firewhisky. "Why is Severus skulking about upstairs instead of chatting with you lot?"

"Why don't you ask Remus?" Sirius suggested, chair screeching as he pushed back from the table. His eyes held Remus pointedly for just an instant, then his hard features fell and he slumped over the table, balancing himself on his palms on the surface. "Actually, Moony, I've got to ask you: where the hell's the Sober-Up Tonic?"

Despite how cagey he'd been, drowning himself in Firewhisky, there was desperation, and emptiness in Sirius' eyes, as if the drink had drained from him the last shreds of what Azkaban's Dementors had not. It was impossible for Remus to stay miffed at him, not to take pity on his old friend.

"In your bathroom cupboard, I believe," said Remus gently, getting up. "Shall I fetch it for you? The stairs, I think, might be rather too much for you at the moment, and I hear a clumsy streak runs in your family."

He glanced at Tonks, hoping she didn't mind the joke at her expense; he gave a little start, not that she'd been watching, but that she'd been watching with such depth of tenderness on her young face. It was an expression he'd seen before -- not on Tonks, but on Lily Potter (only at the time she'd still been Lily Evans) in their seventh year, when she witnessed James looking after a first year boy who'd become literally homesick in the Common Room after the Start of Term Feast. Romantically, Remus dubbed that the night Lily decided to put James out of the misery of unrequited love. Only seventeen-odd years later, it didn't seem like the most terribly romantic turn of phrase.

And he definitely didn't know, he thought as his face became very hot, why he was thinking about falling in love or being fallen in love with now, of all times. It was preposterous. Even if Padfoot had suggested just last week that one formal date, a couple of quiet nights together at her place, and one fairly major quarrel into Remus relationship with Tonks, they could very well be on their way to falling in love with each other.

Tonks' face went very red, and Remus realised he'd been staring. (With a smouldering gaze?) She looked quickly away, catching the handle of the teacup and sending a wave of weakly brewed tea over the workspace. Her cry of Bugger, not again! and Molly Summoning towels and Sirius asking whether he really meant to fetch the Sober-Up Tonic or if it was his idea of a joke, brought Remus out of his momentary haze and sent him sprinting two-at-a-time up the kitchen stairs.

Of course Tonks wasn't in love with him. She just thought he was nice. Molly had been watching him with a not dissimilar look on her plump face. He was such an idiot, with an over-active imagination, just like he always had been. Some things never changed.

Including the way Sirius fixated. Almost a quarter-hour later, having been waylaid by a hunt for the Sober-Up Tonic which was not where Remus had thought at all, but in the master bedroom with Buckbeak, and then a run-in with Mad-Eye, who'd just arrived with Dedalus Diggle, about whether Remus thought Dedalus was being quite vigilant enough about his top hat, which could be an ideal place for Voldemort to hide his snake and sabotage the Order, Remus returned to the kitchen to find Sirius sat backward on his chair, elbows propped on the back, and grinning.

"I know why you didn't hex Snape to oblivion, Moony!"

"Why?"

Remus eyed Sirius closely as he slid into the chair beside him, noting the absence of surliness that had darkened his mood not a quarter of an hour before. Sirius' mood swings were nothing new, but there was something off about this switch. His eyes, though still blood-shot, were focused now. He sounded positively gleeful when he spoke again:

"You were waiting for the meeting."

"Public humiliation's always been rather more your style than mine, hasn't it?"

"First time for everything," said Sirius with a shrug. "Wotcher, Minerva. Have a seat."

Under the table, he stretched a long leg out to kick out the chair across.

"Aren't you the master of chivalry?" Remus muttered to his mate.

Minerva peered over the tops of her wire-rimmed spectacles at the seat, lips pursed, before seating herself primly, back perfectly erect, at the edge. "Good evening, Sirius. Remus."

"Hello," Remus said, feeling fifteen again as he tried to discreetly draw the Sober-Up Tonic from his pocket, sure she knew exactly what he was up to. "How are your first years coming along with Transfiguring matches into needles?"

Her reply was lost when Sirius, seeing the bottle Remus offered him under the table, said, "Oh, don't need it mate." He jerked his chin to indicate the patched and shiny bottom of Dung's trousers, sticking out from Kreacher's cupboard, through which he was rifling through on hands and knees. "Dung never leaves home without it."

"Secret to his success?" Remus asked dryly, wondering if any of the Order didn't know Dung well enough to place bets that his Sober-Up Tonic was laced with an illegal substance not dissimilar to Euphoria Elixir. He could really do with an extra Galleon or two. Not that he would've felt entirely right about taking money for something that was sure to make Sirius crash and burn later tonight and wake up with the mother of all hangovers. So much for getting out the house with Tonks after the meeting -- Bless her!

She was weaving her way through the growing crowd in the kitchen, both hands clutching a teacup that rattled on its saucer. Her lower lip was caught between her teeth, brow furrowed in a look of utter concentration, as if she were sitting an exam. Elphias Doge bumped her shoulder, and she nearly swallowed her gum as she struggled not to drop the cup. Remus rose from his chair and took a few steps toward her, though he tried to be discreet, not looking directly at her as he spoke to Order colleagues, mindful of what she'd said about him being chivalrous to allow her to make him a cup of tea.

When she placed the saucer and cup in his hands, however, she met his eyes knowingly, and he thought he might have been subtler; but gratitude shone on him, as well, so he was glad he'd done what he did. Ignoring the feeling of Sirius smirking at him from the table, Remus bent to press a soft kiss to Tonks' temple, murmuring his thanks.

"Third time's a charm," said Tonks, eyes dancing with silent laughter. "Only I hope I did the milk and sugar how you like?"

"Actually," he said, taking a sip, "I take my tea black."

Tea sloshed down his front as she swatted him playfully on the arm. "You do not, you git, and you deserved that."

"I did," he said, laughing, "and it's perfect, thank you." Balancing his saucer on one hand, he rested the fingers of his other hand lightly on the small of Tonks' back. "Shall we sit before someone else gets the last two seats together?"

Tonks' face fell. "Sorry, Remus, my report's up first."

Remus felt his own expression mirroring hers as his heart became heavy and sank toward his stomach. He knew it was silly to be disappointed -- it was only an Order meeting, for Merlin's sake, an hour...or two...or three, if Mad-Eye were in charge, and they'd be in the same room together. But he'd just got so used to feeling her shoulder against his arm, her short, spiky hair tickling his cheek if he leant down to whisper to her, the occasional brush of her knee against his leg, and sometimes their fingers lacing together under the table.

"That's okay," he said, addressing her over his shoulder as he turned back to the table. "I'll just shove Sirius onto the floor when you're finished, and you can have his chair. He's a Gryffindor, after all, and wants to teach me about chivalry."

Sirius drummed his long fingers on the top of the chair. "In this case, Moony, you could kill two birds with one stone."

"Which birds and with what stone?"

"Actually, the stone's the bird."

Lifting his eyebrows at Sirius as he resumed his seat, Remus asked, "Dare I ask what you're suggesting, quite publicly, I might add..." He swallowed his tea painfully, and tried not to notice Minerva across the table. "...that I do with Tonks?"

"Let her sit on your lap. It'd be chivalrous--"

"I'm not sure liberated witches would see it like that."

"--just like laying your cloak down over a puddle--"

"Pretty daft when there are charms for that sort of thing, don't you think?"

"--and you'll show your true Gryffindor lion heart by engaging in a public display of affection in front of Minerva there."

The warmth of the mug on Remus' lips flooded through his entire face. How was it Sirius made lap-sitting sound like an illicit activity? He wished the floor would open up and swallow him when Minerva's sharp tones cut through the already thick embarrassment that had cloaked itself around him.

"Tell me, Mr. Black," she said. "Do you miss spending all your evenings writing lines?"

Sirius' raking grin spread, filling in the crags of his gaunt features with the handsomeness Azkaban had eroded from him. "Is that your way of saying, you, me, your office, tartan dressing gowns?"

The look on Minerva's face, flashing in her beady eyes behind her spectacles, made Remus feel almost as disappointed as not getting to sit by Tonks when Minerva's response was precluded by Tonks calling the meeting to order. Ah well -- business before pleasure was a way of life for the Order of the Phoenix, Remus thought, drinking his tea as he turned his attention to Tonks. At least in doing so he got to mix a bit of pleasure with his business...

That was, until her bright, quick tones, which Remus thought so befit an Auror-at-work, were interrupted by a silky drawl:

"It's little wonder the Order of the Phoenix is struggling to pick up the Ministry's slack when we are presented with this stunningly sad picture of Magical Law Enforcement today. Why, I hold the dunderhead first year Hufflepuffs to a higher code of behaviour than this -- which you, Nymphadora, ought to know, given the number of House Points I deducted from you, and the number of detentions you earned during my classes."

Every head turned as Severus stepped out of his shadowy corner of the kitchen and continued:

"Tell me -- what aspect of Drooble's Best Blowing Gum struck you as particularly professional? The way it makes your speech wholly incomprehensible, so that no one would have any idea whether your report contains an iota of accurate or pertinent information? Or is this yet another example of your unfailingly appalling taste, in that you've chosen to emulate a cow chewing its cud?"

Remus, in a state of shock since Severus first interrupted, wondering if he was really saying those words to Tonks, came out of it when the word cow made him sit so bolt upright that in comparison, even Minerva might appear to be slouching.

Also, his mug crashing on the floor, and hot tea seeping through his trousers helped bring him out of his stunned daze.

As did Sirius' stage-whisper: "Do it, Moony!"

Remus already had his wand to hand. His fingers had instinctively closed around it the instant he'd seen the two bright red spots appear on Tonks' high cheekbones, the only colour on her face; even her tight lips had gone dead white. Her vivid pink hair and dark eyes seemed oddly striking in contrast to her pallor. Remus had never seen a person look so absolutely livid.

Hence his hesitation, even as Sirius urged, "Go on, then! This is exactly why you made up that useful little spell!"

It was. And Remus had done it before, in precisely such situations as this. Well -- not precisely. Never for a girlfriend, and certainly not a girlfriend as capable as Tonks of getting her own back.

Which, given the spiteful way she was looking at Severus as she stalked across the kitchen, and pulled the wad of gum from her mouth, she seemed about to do. And which every Order member, apparently holding their breath, seemed to be waiting for her to do.

"If I stuck this in your hair, Severus," she said, "would that get you to wash it? Only it's a stunningly sad picture of Potions masters today."

At last the Order let out a collective breath, in the form of a titter of laughter rippling through the room -- including a cough from Minerva which sounded suspiciously like a single chuckle.

For his part, Remus was too offended on Tonks' behalf to laugh, but he did match her small, grim smile when she darted her eyes sidelong at him.

The second she opened her fingers and shook the sticky wad of gum into the waste bin, he also allowed himself to flick his wand and mutter, "Waddiwasi -- Gemino!"

As the gum shot out the bin, it split into two wads which, before Severus could see them coming, lodged in his nostrils which flared to accommodate Drooble's Best.

And damn if he hadn't managed to pull it off with the Lupin's Best Prank Timing. Apparently, though the scowl that always twisted Severus' ugly features didn't give him way, Tonks' insult had annoyed him to the point of letting out his breath heavily. So heavily, in fact, that the gum immediately filled with air and began to inflate in the big bluebell-coloured bubbles that had given Drooble his fame and fortune.

"LUPIN!" he bellowed, but the bubbles continued to swell, covering his mouth and muffling him..

All eyes now on Remus, he affected his best guilty-as-charged expression. "I am deeply sorry, Severus, but surely you cannot be surprised. After all, you yourself only just lamented the behaviours of my kind. I am a werewolf, and as such, I cannot escape my depraved nature."

Severus snorted and snuffed and huffed and puffed and made it even worse for himself, the bubbles now so huge that his entire face was hidden and his curtains of greasy hair had got stuck in it.

The Order roared with laughter. (Except Minerva, though the deepening lines around her eyes and thin lips confirmed the suspicion Remus had long harboured, that after passing punishment for Marauder pranks, she'd gone to her rooms and laughed herself senseless, and would do again tonight.) Molly leapt from her chair, offering to do a peanut butter charm that used to do the trick when her kids had gum trouble.

There was a pinch in Remus' heart which, over the years, he'd become well-acquainted with: guilt. It was wrong to do this. He shouldn't have given in to impulse. He ought to have been kind, and let fate deal Severus what he deserved. Even if everyone else thought it was hilarious, and that the git got what he had coming to him.

But, as Remus was also accustomed to doing, he silenced the voice of his conscience. What was done was done. There was no use crying over spilt tea.

Not when Sirius' head was thrown back in the heartiest, most real laugh he'd had in fourteen years...

Not when Tonks was looking at him with those lovely warm, velvet eyes as if he were her knight in shining armour.

Gryffindor and Slytherin were simply at it again.

And Remus was perfectly okay with that.

The End

A/N: Those who review will get one of the following from Remus: a smouldering look, or gum up the nose of your worst enemy.