Be the Light in My Lantern, chapter 9
BE THE LIGHT IN MY LANTERN
Summary: In which Remus and Tonks fight battles, arrest criminals, befriend werewolves, overcome inner demons and, despite it all, find themselves a happy ending. A love story, and a story of the Order years. (At long last, my Remus/Tonks epic, which has been years in the making!)
Chapter 9: Who You Believe Yourself to Be
This life is a thump-ripe melon
So sweet and such a mess
- Greg Brown, Rexroth's Daughter
Sirius padded down the basement stairs on Christmas morning, still blinking back sleep, to find Remus wide awake and pacing the length of the kitchen. Sirius watched him from the doorway. "Knarl in your bonnet?" he asked cheerfully.
Remus started, then dropped into a chair and tried to look nonchalant, but Sirius was having none of that. He perched on the edge of the table and fixed his overly earnest friend with a quizzical stare.
"I think I may have made a mistake," Remus said at last.
"Oh?"
Remus didn't seem to care to elaborate, but Sirius was nothing if not an expert at staring people down. Remus squirmed. Sirius waited.
"Dora kissed me last night," Remus admitted.
Sirius pumped both his fists in the air and whooped so loudly, Remus nearly fell off his chair.
"Sirius! Everyone's still sleeping!"
"I had a bet on with myself," Sirius explained, "that it would happen by Christmas."
"You cannot possibly have made a bet on that," Remus protested.
"I most certainly did. And I've had my Galleon on Tonks from the very beginning. She's persistent, that one." He considered Remus. "I know you're always weird about these things and all, Moony, but shouldn't you be, I don't know, pleased?"
"That's where the mistake possibly comes in."
"Aha."
"When Dora kissed me…"
"That's a promising start to any sentence."
"…I may have suggested that perhaps she should not have done so."
"Oh, honestly, Remus. What does that even mean? What did you say to her?"
"I told her that wasn't something she wanted to do. Which is true, Sirius! If she stopped and thought about it, Dora would absolutely see that she'd be better off not even entertaining the idea of getting involved with me. The very thought is absurd."
"She doesn't think it's absurd, clearly. And incidentally, when did you get permission to call her 'Dora'? I've been meaning to ask."
Remus groaned and leaned his head into his hands. "Really not the focus of the conversation here."
"Fine, fine, so my 'call me Tonks, never never never call me by first name or I will hex you' cousin just happened to decide that you and you alone are allowed to call her a cute nickname. No, sure, I can't see any way that would be relevant. And then, last night, she kissed you. See why I'm not exactly spotting a problem in this yet?"
"The problem is that I can't in good conscience do this! I can't do this to her."
"Remus, you're not doing anything to her. Well, that is, unless…"
Remus flapped a hand at him and Sirius relented on the innuendo.
"Look - you like Tonks," he said. "She likes you. You two have been making eyes at each other practically since you met. Seriously, you're the world's biggest idiot about these things. Just take her on a date or something. It doesn't have to be the end of the world."
"A date," Remus said, like it was foreign cultural practice he'd once read about, but never experienced in person.
"Yeah, you know, you go out to dinner or something, talk, make googly eyes at each other. Same stuff you do all the time anyway. Maybe kiss her again at the end, if it goes well."
"I can't take her on a date," Remus said, still stuck on that one word like a broken Muggle record.
Sirius gave a martyred sigh and flopped into the chair next to Remus, flicking his hair out of his eyes. "Okay, let me spell this out for you. You're a nice guy, everybody likes you, how could they not, but you always do this! You waste every opportunity by refusing to believe any woman could fall in love with you, or that you could allow yourself to try."
"Dora is most certainly not in love with me."
"That's neither here nor there for the moment - she kissed you, didn't she?"
"There was mistletoe involved -"
"And I'm sure you both ended up under it entirely by accident -"
"Besides, how do you know what I 'always' do? For all you know, I've had any number of successful relationships in the last 14 years."
"Because I know you and you haven't changed all that much, even if you did go and get all earnest and professor-y - okay, let's face it, actually you were always earnest and professor-y. But my point being… What was my point?"
"Your point, I believe, was that I always mess things up."
"Oh, yeah," Sirius agreed. "Well, this time, don't do that."
"Thanks for the vote of confidence," Remus replied dryly.
"My point," Sirius said, finding himself angry about the endless stupidity that was Remus and his love life, "is that if you could drop the whole 'I'm not worthy, no one should ever love me' thing for two seconds, you'd see that there's this great woman right in front of you who really likes you, and that maybe it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world to go ahead and let her like you."
Instead of accepting this for the good sense it was, Remus tensed visibly, staring hard at the grain of the wooden table beneath his hands. "There are so many reasons," he said, his voice quiet but clear, "why Dora should never even have looked twice at me. I'm far too old for her, I'm far too poor for her, I'm far too serious for her, frankly - she ought to be with someone young and funny, someone as lively as she is. With me, she would become that Auror with the questionable ties and the werewolf baggage. I'm a destitute Dark creature, Sirius, and that's not something I can ever change about myself."
"What you are," Sirius said, "is an idiot."
"Yes. Perhaps. But I'm also a destitute Dark creature with whom she can never truly be safe. I can't allow myself to do that to her. And yet I can't seem to walk away." He finally looked up, his eyes anguished. "Tell me I'm wrong somehow."
"You're wrong."
"I'm not, though!" Remus burst out.
"Oh, for Godric's sake!" Sirius slammed his fist on the tabletop and Remus jumped, startled. "Sure, all right, all those things are true, as far as that goes. You're a werewolf, big fucking deal. No - don't say anything," he added, as Remus was clearly about to protest. "I know how awful that is, Moony, seriously, don't you realise I know that better than anyone? But at some point you have to stop using it as an excuse, and let yourself try."
Remus took a steadying breath and seemed to force himself to speak calmly. "I could only ever be of harm to her," he said. "And I can't do that to someone I care about."
"Remus," Sirius growled. "You know what you can't do to someone you care about? You can't rudely reject them when they finally get up the courage to show you how they feel, after months of all this unspoken pining and frankly very annoying obtuseness on both your sides. What you can't do is brush her off like she doesn't even matter to you, when she's dared to show you that you matter to her. So take her on a goddamned date, okay?"
Remus looked at Sirius for a long time, seeming surprised at his earnestness. Then, something shifting in his expression, he murmured, "I must be mad even to be thinking about this."
"Then be mad for once!"
"Right, I should remember who I'm talking to. Sirius Black, the man who never takes the logical course of action if offered the choice."
"Just give it a chance, would you?"
Remus was giving him an uncomfortably searching look, so Sirius slapped a jovial smile across his face and leaned forwards.
"The truth of it, Remus, is that I get very little entertainment round here most of the time. If you manage to bollocks up one of the only interesting things to happen in this house for several centuries, I may have to hex you."
"Oh, well, then. If it's necessary for your amusement, of course I'll rearrange my life to suit," Remus said, sounding terribly arch. Sirius noticed, though, that he still hadn't agreed to do what Sirius was telling him to do. And, being Remus, he couldn't help adding, "But do you really think…she could truly have feelings for me in that way?"
"Good gargoyles, Remus. Yes, I think she has 'feelings' for you. Have you not seen the way she's been looking at you for months?"
"Apparently I haven't."
"Well, if you had, you would know what I know."
"Which is…?"
"Are you ready for this secret?"
Remus gave a put-upon sigh at the ceiling. "Yes, all right."
Sirius shuffled his chair closer, so he could lean in close to Remus' ear, clearing his throat importantly at a volume that made Remus shift away from him. "The secret is…my cousin is sweet on you!"
"Oh, honestly, Sirius."
"She fancies you. What are the kids saying these days? She wants to snog you. No, wait, she wants to pull you. In fact, I'd go so far as to say she wants to -"
"Sirius, shush!"
Now Sirius, too, heard footsteps coming down the stairs, but he kept going just to needle Remus. "Don't break my flow, I was just getting going. Where was I? Oh, yeah, she wants to -"
Remus elbowed Sirius less than gracefully as Fred Weasley's head appeared round the doorway from the stairs.
"Merry Christmas and all that," he said, brow wrinkled in worry. "It's just, Mum's upstairs having a right meltdown, something about Percy sending back his jumper. Maybe one of you could…?" And Fred looked at them with the helpless supplication of a 17-year-old boy faced with complex emotions.
"I'll go talk to her," Remus said. "Don't worry about it."
"Brilliant, thanks!" Fred replied and was gone up the stairs in a flash. Remus followed after, once again being the shoulder everyone could lean on.
- - - - -
Remus felt strangely buoyed as he went looking for Molly, then brought her down to the kitchen for a fortifying cup of tea and some comforting words.
He surprised himself with the certainty in his voice as he assured Molly she would be able to mend fences with her son - he, Remus, who knew little of families and nothing of sons, he who would never have a family of his own. But his heart felt strangely large and empathetic today, after that unexpected, tender moment with Tonks under the mistletoe, and the equally unexpected, fierce support from Sirius.
Was Sirius right? Could Remus ever in good conscience allow Tonks to feel something for him, and himself to feel something for Tonks?
He was still asking himself that question as he joined the Weasleys on a visit to St Mungo's. Once he'd seen Arthur, Remus drifted away to allow the family some time together, and directed his steps towards the man who occupied the room's other bed - a newly turned werewolf, as it happened. Remus remembered, viscerally, the pain and fear of that part of his life, and shuddered on this man's behalf.
He'd seen the man watching as they all gathered round Arthur, so he didn't believe for a second that he was suddenly fast asleep, although he kept his eyes firmly shut as Remus approached.
"Happy Christmas," Remus said quietly when he'd arrived at the side of the bed, already a world away from a tirade about Muggle medicine Molly had launched into, which was causing her children to scatter in terror.
The man opened one eye, but only to glower at Remus. "Go away. I don't want visitors."
"You might be interested in this visitor," Remus suggested, "seeing as I'm a werewolf."
"You're not," the man growled. "So leave me alone. That's a cruel joke, if you're having me on."
"I assure you I'm not having you on. You may even have heard of me. There was rather a flap when I got thrown out of teaching at Hogwarts a couple years ago."
He finally had the man's attention, as well as the reluctant gaze of both his eyes. "You're that Lupin fellow."
"Got it in one."
"But you look…normal."
"I like to think so, yes."
Reluctant to engage but unable to master his curiosity, the man was looking him up and down. "When I heard about that, I thought Dumbledore must be raving," he informed Remus. "Having a creature like that at a school with children."
"And what do you think now?"
The man groaned and slumped back against his pillows. "Exactly the same." He glared up at Remus. "It's all over for me. Who's going to want to hire a werewolf? Nobody, that's who."
He was younger than Remus had first thought, barely into his twenties. Perhaps he'd had great career ambitions, and seen them dashed in the space of one night.
"Why would anybody want to be around me?" the man went on, his voice an asperous whine. "I don't even want to be around me."
Remus resisted an urge to say, Well, no, of course they won't, if all you do is complain that they couldn't possibly want to be, but that thought snagged uncomfortably against something Sirius had said: …if you could drop the whole "I'm not worthy, no one should ever love me" thing…
Is this what I sound like? Remus wondered, gazing down at the man in front of him. Do the concerns that feel so reasonable to me sound this illogical to everyone else?
To the man in the bed, he said softly, "Some people will do, though. I know how hard it is to imagine now, but you'll find people who truly care about you, who won't abandon you because of what you are. You will meet people, in the course of your life, who are able to see the man behind the monster."
And some of them, he thought, will be so persistent in their refusal to see only the monster, that you may begin to wonder whether you might, after all, be the man they believe you to be.
Remus remembered Tonks' lips, gentle and warm against his, and the hopeful question in her eyes.
Could I? he wondered. Could I dare?
- - - - -
Tonks spared a quick glance for her surroundings as she hurried through the crowded bar, on a Muggle side street close to Diagon Alley. Faux-Muggle chic, she decided to term it. The kind of place that's 100% wizard, but trying to be edgy and cool by looking that little bit Muggle. It almost had the look of an American diner, with plastic-y seats and Formica tabletops.
On the far side of the room, Tonks spotted her quarry: a young woman with dark blonde hair, an angular nose and eyes that always seemed to be smiling, bent over a book and nursing a Butterbeer - yup, deceptively demure looking and never without a book in hand, that was Ariadne. Tonks darted through the crowd and slid in opposite her in the narrow booth.
"Merlin, Ar, I'm so sorry. I had to work overtime all week to have even a chance of getting tonight off, and then of course, as always, something came up right at the end of my shift today… I did try to be on time, I swear."
The other woman smiled as she looked up from her book. "Oh, come on, it's only been half an hour, I wasn't even worried yet. And there's a reason, you know, that I always bring a book when I'm meeting you."
Tonks groaned. "Sorry…"
Ariadne waved her hands, shushing her. "Oh stop it, stop it, you're married to your job and I forgive you. In fact, if you ever stop ditching everything else for the sake of your work, that's when I'll be worried. Is it very hard on you, having to take an entire evening off just for the silly little reason that it's New Year's Eve?"
"I think I'll survive." Tonks grinned at her old friend. "Hey, where are Bea and Annagret? Late too?"
"Nah, they're coming later. I thought we might want a chance to catch up a bit first, before they get here."
"You didn't tell me that! I didn't realise you'd be waiting here alone -"
"If you apologise again, I'll hex you," Ariadne warned. Then she smiled again. "I thought maybe you could fill me in on what you've been doing. Didn't know if you'd want to talk about it in front of the others."
Before Tonks could say anything, a waiter appeared out of the crowd at her elbow. "What'll it be, sweetheart?" he asked. "Butterbeer like your lovely friend?" He winked, rending Tonks momentarily speechless.
"Yes, she'll start with a Butterbeer," Ariadne replied. The waiter gave them a dashing grin and melted back into the crowd.
"Ariadne… Did he just wink at me?"
"Yes, he did, but he's gay, Tonks, so don't get that panicky look."
"What panicky look? Panicky doesn't even exist in my range of facial expressions."
"You're doing that forehead crease thing, the thing you do when a guy fancies you but you don't fancy him."
"Oh, please, I am not."
"Oh yeah? Quick, tell me how you felt when Dan Bell asked you to that ball seventh year."
"That was completely -"
"See, you're doing it again!"
"Augh, Ar, stop it!"
All she got in response was an unrepentant grin. Ariadne raised her glass. "Cheers, Tonks."
A Butterbeer had just appeared on the table beside Tonks' elbow, sent over via hover charm by the waiter, who smiled and waved from behind the bar.
Tonks gave her friend a rueful look as she raised her bottle to meet Ariadne's. "I'm an open book to you, apparently." They clinked Butterbeers. "Cheers. To an almost new year."
"So, stranger," Ariadne said. "How's you're life?"
"Um. Busy. I'm not even sure when we talked last. I kind of disappeared, didn't I?"
"Aurors keeping you on the go?"
"Well, that and -" Tonks wasn't sure how much she wanted to say in a public place, even if the bar was loud and the chances of being overheard extremely low. "Also…that group I told you about?"
"How is it?" Ariadne leaned forward avidly. Tonks remembered talking Ariadne's ear off over the summer about how Moody had suggested she join a clandestine group Dumbledore was forming to resist Voldemort. In fact, since Ariadne was the only friend Tonks had dared to tell something so confidential, she'd got rather an earful.
"It's…fantastic," Tonks was surprised to hear herself say. "I mean, it's totally frustrating, our hands our tied, there's not really anything we can do. But I've met all these incredibly dedicated people, and it just feels good to…try to do something at least. You know?"
"Yeah," Ariadne sighed. "I wish there were more I could do. I were as daring as you."
"Daring or maybe just reckless," Tonks said.
"Still. If there's ever any way I can help you lot - if you ever need help of the boring, bookish kind - you've only got to say the word. You know that, right?"
"Actually…" Tonks gazed over her Butterbeer thoughtfully. Ariadne was a bibliowitch at the Magical Archives, preserving old wizarding texts of the type that made Tonks yawn, but apparently were rather important on the larger scale of things. "Sometimes we do need to research various stuff. There's one bloke in particular Dumbledore seems to trust when it comes to looking up old enchantments and spells. Maybe I'll send him your way if he ever needs more material than what we've got at Headquarters."
"Please do."
"So there you go, you can contribute to the cause after all."
"Simple as that." Ariadne's smile was a little wistful, but then she brightened. "So I have to ask this now, before Annagret arrives and turns it into an all-out interrogation… Blokes in your life? You're hanging out with all these dashing, save-the-world types…"
Tonks chuckled and wondered precisely how Ariadne imagined the Headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix. Probably not as a musty old house once owned by dark wizards, empty most of the time except for one morose ex-convict. "No, no," she said. "No dashing blokes. Not in that sense."
"But you see all those Weasley boys all the time, Bill maybe…?"
Tonks had not forgotten Ariadne's hopeless crush on Bill Weasley, back when he was the handsome, dashing Head Boy and they were lowly, forgettable fifth years. Ariadne had always insisted that it wasn't a crush, it was - "What did you always say about Bill? It wasn't that you fancied him or anything, of course…"
"It was intellectual admiration!" Ariadne protested. "He was a very good Head Boy."
"And a very good-looking one."
Ariadne stuck out her tongue.
"Don't worry, I'm not going to steal him from you. He's…otherwise involved."
Ariadne's eyes went wide. "What! Who? Anyone we know?"
"Nope, this girl from France he met when they had the Triwizard Tournament at Hogwarts last year. It's all sort of secret, though. He doesn't really seem keen to tell the family just yet."
Ariadne ruminated on this. "Well, can't compete with the French, I suppose."
"What about you? Any charming bookworms over at that dusty library of yours?"
"Nope," Ariadne sighed, "Only socially awkward bookworms, unfortunately." Then she straightened up in her seat. Her eyes narrowed. "Wait a minute."
"What?"
"There was something about the way you said that… Whoa! You've got your eye on a 'charming bookworm,' haven't you?"
"What! No!"
"I'm right, I can see it in your face! Ooh, Tonks, who is he?"
"I don't - no, Ariadne, that's ridiculous -" Tonks crumbled in the face of her friend's truly horrifying powers of observation. "Ugh, how do you do that?"
"Oh, I'm so excited for you! Tell me all about him."
"There's nothing to tell."
"Don't evade, Tonks. It's written all over your face."
"No, really, there's nothing to tell. I guess I kind of fancy this bloke, sometimes it seems like he feels the same way, but he always backs off again."
"Somebody in…the organization you're in?"
"Yeah."
Ariadne practically had stars in her eyes. "Oh, that's so romantic, missions and things together."
"Yeah, except for the part about how he's not actually interested in me."
"Oh, don't worry about that, all guys are interested in you, one way or another."
"I…what?"
"That's how it was at school."
"That's completely not true."
"But it is, it's where you got that panicky defence mechanism thing that you demonstrated so aptly before with the cocktail waiter. The guys always wanted something more, but you just wanted to fly round and play Quidditch with them."
Tonks was gaping at her friend. "Is that… is that really how you see me? I don't know how I feel about that."
"It's nothing bad! You're just…really attractive. To blokes."
Tonks opened her mouth, then shut it again.
"So whatever this guy's problem is," Ariadne continued. "Well, I can't imagine what his problem is. But just find out what's holding him back and then, you know, go for it."
"You say it like it's so easy," Tonks grumbled.
"I know, I know, always easier to say from the outside. But tell me about him, what's he like?"
Tonks had never thought about how to describe Remus. Remus just was. "I guess I'd say, sort of quiet but with this wicked sense of humour somewhere underneath. Really clever, really talented at magic, but modest about it. Kind, and dependable. A lot of people rely on him."
"Not your usual type," Ariadne murmured.
"Sort of a damaged past," Tonks mused. "Friends he lost during the war. I think he's afraid to let anyone too close." She paused. "Oh, wow."
"What is it?"
"I never put it in quite like that before. He's afraid to let anyone in. And he's got a lot in his past that makes him think he wouldn't be a good partner, though I happen to think he's wrong about that."
"Well, there you go." Ariadne beamed at her. "Now that you know his problem, you can tackle it."
"Ariaaaaadne! Tonks!"
Tonks looked up to see Annagret's riotous dark curls and Bea's honey-coloured plaits bobbing through the crowd, as Annagret carved a path through the increasingly busy bar with Bea in her wake.
The two of them were an odd pair of opposites, Annagret the poised only child of a pureblood family and Bea the Muggle-born kid who'd had to work twice as hard to figure out things Annagret had known before she'd walked through the front gate of Hogwarts. But they were best friends, always had been.
Tonks wasn't even sure she could truly say she was friends with Annagret and Bea, who tended to form a complete unit on their own anyway. It was more that she didn't dislike them (which was more than she'd been able to say at the time about some of the other girls in her house and year), plus Ariadne was friends with them and Tonks was friends with Ariadne.
So they all still met up now and then, and at some point Tonks had grudgingly admitted to herself that it was kind of nice to have girlfriends to hang out with occasionally, not just tough Aurors several decades her senior.
There were hugs all around, and Annagret and Bea squeezed into the booth with them. "So, Tonks," Annagret launched right in. "Hot guys in your life? I personally think Aurors are absolutely to die for, you know."
"I told you!" Ariadne crowed. "The interrogation!"
"She's already had a few Firewhiskys," Bea shook her head, but couldn't disguise a fond smirk. "And she always seems to get very interested in everyone else's love lives when that happens."
Ariadne cocked her head at Tonks, giving her the opportunity to tell or not tell what she chose, and Tonks realised with a jolt of surprise that there was one major thing she'd forgotten to tell Ariadne about Remus: He's a werewolf. She hadn't been deliberately hiding that fact; it simply hadn't occurred to her. And she found she rather liked that idea - that there were a million and one things that sprang to mind first about Remus, and none of them was "werewolf."
To Annagret, she lied by omission. She'd only asked about Aurors, after all, not all men. "Yeah, Aurors are pretty great, but they're all, like, fifty. And they tend to be badly scarred."
Annagret sighed in disappointment. Then looked hopeful. "Battle wounds, right?"
"You should be quizzing Ariadne, not me," Tonks suggested. "I hear all the best awkward types hang out at the Archives."
Ariadne leaned over the table and whacked Tonks on the arm. "You just wait, one of these days I'm going to meet someone, right there in the Archives! He'll come looking for that spellbook only I know how to find…"
Tonks grinned at her friend. "Actually, I one hundred per cent believe that will happen to you. How could it not?" She was serious and she wanted to Ariadne to see that. "Everybody who meets you loves you."
Ariadne blushed a little. Annagret, who wasn't entirely paying attention to the conversation anyway, declared, "Let's dance!"
Bea grinned and hauled them all back out of the booth again.
"Drinks!" Ariadne said. "Time for something harder than Butterbeer, don't you think, Tonks?"
Tonks found herself laughing out loud, just at being surrounded by such light-heartedness.
"This is good," she told them. "Really, a night off, just to see friends and not worry about work at all? This is amazing."
"In other words," Annagret concluded, "let's go dance."
- - - - -
An hour or so later, Tonks was deep in the dancing crowd, blissfully letting her brain turn off and her body move to the music - thank Merlin for rock music, where you didn't have to be coordinated anyway. For one evening, at least, maybe there could be no work, no Order, no brewing war, just a young woman out with her friends and having a good time. Almost a new year, Tonks thought, amazed that, as always, it had managed to sneak up while she wasn't paying attention. I hope it's a good one. Despite everything.
The song changed to an even faster number, the Weird Sisters' "Put a Potion on the Fire."
"Yeah!" Annagret yelled and Bea threw her hands in the air. Tonks grinned at them and channelled all her energy into dancing.
Then from one moment to the next, something changed. Tonks was aware of a commotion by the door to the street, then there was a mighty bang and she saw the waiter who'd served them before thrown back by the force of whatever it was. "Mudblood-lovers beware!" someone screamed. At that, of course, the bar descended into chaos.
Tonks had had her wand out from the moment of the blast, and now she intently scanned the crowd, trying to pick anyone suspicious out of the mass of panicking partygoers. There was nothing to see, just people pressing away from the doorway.
Then Rufus Scrimgeour, of all people, appeared at her elbow. "Ms Tonks, we need you. Now."
Tonks found Ariadne's face in the agitated crowd and raised her shoulders helplessly.
"Go," Ariadne mouthed, eyes wide. "Do what you need to do."
With a quick apology to Annagret and Bea, Tonks followed her boss as he pushed his way towards the door.
She was relieved to see the waiter picking himself up from the floor, shaken but uninjured. By the time Scrimgeour and Tonks reached him, he was giving his statement to Buckle, one of the other most junior members of the Auror division, and the one who'd had the misfortune of being on call on New Year's Eve.
"I came over to close the door, because someone had left it open," the waiter was saying. "There were a couple of guys in dark cloaks standing outside. They shouted at me to get back, then they cast some kind of blasting spell and I was thrown off my feet. That's all I saw. I'm sorry, I wish I could tell you more." He was shaking.
"Did you see their faces?" Scrimgeour wanted to know.
"No, nothing, just hoods."
"Recognise their voices?"
"No, I'm sorry."
"Who shouted 'Mudblood-lovers beware'?"
"I assume it was them, the men in cloaks. I don't know."
"Did you hear whether they Disapparated?"
The man shook his head miserably.
Scrimgeour sighed. "That's fine, son. Why don't you go back inside."
The waiter mumbled his thanks and slipped into the bar, his earlier carefree charm erased.
"This can not keep happening," Scrimgeour murmured to himself. Then, in his usual businesslike tones, "All right, I'll look down this street. Tonks and Buckle, go together and check Diagon Alley and Knockturn Alley. I'll meet you there. I highly doubt there's anyone still around, but keep your wits about you."
Both junior Aurors nodded and set off with their wands at the ready, scanning the streets and casting Revealing charms. There was no one there, of course, except partygoers spilling out of a few other bars. Whoever had caused the explosion was long gone. That's the problem with wizards, Tonks thought sourly. They just disappear. In Muggle crime stories, at least they have to run away or find a getaway car or something.
It was well into the new year by the time they reported back, clutching their cloaks tightly against the cold of Diagon Alley.
"I'll file the report back at the office," Scrimgeour informed them. "You two can go home. Or wherever it is you were planning to go."
Buckle looked uncertain. "I'm supposed to be on call for one more hour…?"
"Don't worry about it," Scrimgeour said. "I'll keep an eye on things. I need to stop by the Ministry anyway."
Buckle nodded his thanks and Disapparated.
Tonks turned to go too, but to her surprise, her boss stopped her with a hand on her arm. "I'm sorry for ruining your night out, Ms Tonks," he said gravely.
"Oh," she replied, nonplussed. "That's all right. It's my job."
Scrimgeour nodded, then Disapparated, presumably to the Ministry to file an entirely uninformative report.
Tonks looked round Diagon Alley, mostly empty, the parties in some of the pubs already winding down. She thought about seeing if Ariadne and the others were still out together somewhere nearby, but didn't really feel like it.
As she gazed down the darkened alley, Tonks couldn't help thinking how far she'd ended up from the girls she'd gone to school with, people who worked normal jobs and then went home from them at night.
Ariadne was certainly right, except Tonks wasn't married to her job so much as to the business of catching Dark wizards. Whether Auror or Order didn't much matter - if there was a battle to be fought, Tonks would be there. She didn't know how she'd ended up like that. Probably inherited it subconsciously from her mother somehow.
Tonks felt a brief pang of regret for her carefree friends, out dancing somewhere in London, but it passed. This is my life now, she thought with some surprise. Remus and Sirius and everybody in the Order, they're the ones I'm closest to, now. Those are the people who understand best.
She laughed out loud at the surprise of it, then clapped a hand over her mouth as the sound echoed weirdly in the empty street. She drew her cloak round her and spun on the spot, thinking of home for now, but already looking forward to the next time she would visit Grimmauld Place.
- - - - -
"You've missed a number of goings on, here," Remus told her when he answered the door the morning they were to escort the kids back to school. Tonks could definitely feel the whole mistletoe debacle hovering unspoken between them, but at least he was smiling at her.
"There've been some goings on out there too," she told him. "I'll tell you together with the others. Are Molly and Sirius downstairs?"
"And Arthur, too."
"He's back from St Mungo's already? Oh, that's fantastic!"
Remus smiled at her enthusiasm, then reached out to take Tonks' cloak for her, sliding it from her shoulders in an unnecessary but admittedly sweet gesture. Tonks blinked and tried to look unfazed.
They made their way to the kitchen, where Molly was making breakfast, Arthur puttering and Sirius simply glowering at the tabletop.
"Welcome back!" Tonks said to Arthur. "Does this mean I'll be seeing you at the Ministry again soon?"
"Tomorrow, in fact," he beamed. "I feel as well as can be, so no need to sit at home."
Molly tsked, but all she said was, "Have some eggs, Tonks, dear. The children should be down shortly, but you need some breakfast too, before you leave. You too, Remus."
Remus caught Tonks' eye in sly amusement at Molly's mothering and Tonks had to fight not to blush. Remus, actually meeting her eye? What was this about?
She turned instead to Sirius. She could barely imagine how he must be feeling this morning, with his house emptying again and Harry leaving - though the expression on his face might offer some indication. He looked as if a thunderstorm might burst out of his forehead any moment.
"Wotcher, Sirius," Tonks tried.
Sirius grunted.
"He nearly came to blows with Snape last night," Remus informed her. He was gazing at Sirius with a mixture of fondness and exasperation that struck Tonks as somehow familiar. Then it came to her: it was the same look she'd so often seen on Bea's face when it came to Annagret.
"Greasy git," Sirius muttered.
Tonks looked to Remus for explanation.
"Dumbledore wants Severus to give Harry private Occlumency lessons this term. To better protect his mind from…a repeat occurrence."
"But with Snape?" Tonks asked. "Is that really wise?"
"That's what I said," came Sirius' growl.
"I'm not sure either whether it's wise or not," Remus replied evenly. "But there's no way to know until we've tried, is there?"
Again, Sirius' reply was nothing more than an inarticulate grunt.
Remus sighed.
"There've been more attacks," Tonks told them, mainly to change the subject. Arthur looked over at her and Molly too turned from the range, worry wrinkling her brow. "No one's died or anything, thank goodness, but it seems to be on an upswing. Small explosions, things like that. I saw one myself on New Year's Eve. I think they targeted that bar in particular because it's one of these places that's a bit Muggle-influenced."
Arthur shook his head and Molly set plates down in front of them, staying by the table with them so they could all talk quietly together.
Molly glanced towards the door. "It's You-Know-Who behind it, of course, isn't it?"
"I can't imagine it's not," Tonks told her. "They set off some kind of explosion and yelled 'Mudblood-lovers beware' before they Disapparated."
Molly shuddered.
Arthur turned to Tonks. "What does Scrimgeour say?"
"He doesn't say. Scrimgeour doesn't share confidences with his subordinates. But he certainly wants to believe it's just isolated incidents, and I'm sure he likes Fudge's theory, that they're only rallying round Sirius." She cast a small, ironic smile in the direction of the man in question, but he only frowned.
"Do the Aurors talk amongst themselves?" Arthur wanted to know. "Does anyone toss about different theories? Suggest You-Know-Who might be behind it after all?"
"Not yet, at least. I can push a little harder, try to get people into conversation…?"
"No, don't jeopardise your job over it. And don't get yourself in trouble. You're too important to the Order."
Tonks felt inordinately gratified at that.
"I agree," Remus said firmly and again, Tonks could only blink at him in surprise. Their eyes met for a few seconds, then he looked away.
"And to us, of course. Not only for the sake of the Order," Molly put in, frowning at her husband.
Arthur was flustered. "Of course, dear, that's what I meant."
"So, what's the plan for today?" Remus posed the question directly to Tonks, since they seemed for the moment to have lost Molly and Arthur to a wordless discussion. "Moody didn't fill me in on the details."
"Knight Bus," Tonks replied. "I'll be in disguise, so that the presence of an Auror doesn't draw attention." She felt edgy about it already. All the kids were targets, in a sense, and they were being entrusted to her protection. "But I don't think it matters about you. Er, whether you're in disguise or not. I mean, everyone knows you're a friend of the family…?"
She felt she was making a bit of a mess of this, but to her surprise, Remus looked at her with startled eyes. "Friend of the family," he repeated. "Yes, I suppose so."
Molly seemed to have rejoined the conversation and was looking between the two of them with a considering air. Tonks felt herself flush. Yet again.
Returning to their most immediate concern, Molly asked, "They'll be safe today, won't they? On the way to Hogwarts?" Her face was anxious, though she was clearly trying not to show it.
"Frankly, I can't imagine anything happening on the Knight Bus," Tonks assured her. "But we'll keep a very sharp lookout and get them there as fast as we can."
"I know you will, dear," Molly said. "I trust you."
Tonks swallowed hard at that.
"It won't be an easy term for Harry," Molly murmured, as Tonks and Remus started on their breakfasts. Sirius maintained his morose silence, looking as if he wanted to drown himself in his tea.
"Nor for any of them," Remus put in, an uncharacteristically ugly expression on his face. "Dolores Umbridge is quite a piece of work, from everything I've heard."
"Of course," Molly said. "Of course. But I meant…"
"I know," Remus said.
"We'll all be looking out for him." Tonks tried to sound reassuring, but even as she said it, she knew how empty those words were. Voldemort was getting right into Harry's head now, so how were they supposed to protect him there? "And he'll be with Dumbledore," she added lamely.
But that did seem to hearten Molly considerably. "Yes," she said. "Of course. I'm being silly."
Soon the kids were straggling into the kitchen, yawning and inhaling their breakfasts, then there was the usual last-minute mad dash to round up forgotten items.
Molly was nearly tearful as she hugged each of the children, and Tonks saw Harry casting small, sad, worried glances at Sirius. But Sirius did at least seem to have pulled himself together enough to put up a good front for Harry and wish him a proper goodbye.
Tonks quickly transformed her appearance, hardly taking notice of Ginny's impressed and envious gaze, then chivvied them all out and onto the Bus, which arrived promptly when Remus hailed it.
She intimidated (and more or less bribed) the conductor into moving them up the queue, feeling relief wash over her as they pulled into Hogsmeade's familiar streets, deep under snow.
They helped the kids and their trunks off the bus and wished them a good term, letting the Knight Bus go on without them, since the conductor was impatient to continue on and there was no reason Tonks and Remus couldn't simply Apparate back. So they stayed and watched to make sure Harry, Hermione and the Weasleys made it all the way up the long, icy drive to the castle, even once the kids were on the proper side of the school gate, the safe side.
Once they had disappeared from sight, Tonks slumped against one of the boar-topped posts and heaved a sigh. "I was more nervous about that than I was entirely prepared to admit to Molly."
Remus seemed to be suppressing a grin with some difficulty.
"What?" she asked.
"Disguise?" he offered.
"Oh." Tonks quickly transformed back to neutral, a bit embarrassed to have forgotten and left herself middle-aged and tweedy in front of Remus, of all people.
"Ah." Remus was still staring with a greater degree of fascination than seemed necessary. "Is that your natural colour?"
"Oh…yeah." Mousy brown had never been her favourite. "Now you know why I change it every chance I get." She screwed up her face with concentration to do just that.
He held up a hand. "No, wait. I like it that way."
"You like it?"
"Although that's not to say I don't like it the other ways too, of course. I mean…do you know what I mean?"
They were standing rather close to each other, Tonks realised. She thought a little wildly of the things she'd promised herself she was going to finally say to him today, and panicked, and didn't say them. Snow was starting to fall again, very lightly, catching in her eyelashes and in his soft brown hair.
"Do you have anywhere you have to be right now?" she asked instead.
"Well, back at Headquarters eventually…"
"But right, right now? This moment."
"I suppose not. Why…?"
"Come play in the snow with me. Come on, look at it, we don't get this in London." Tonks waved her arm, encompassing all the fields and woods between them and Hogsmeade, blanketed in softly falling white. Remus was regarding her with that expression both he and Sirius always seemed to wear whenever she suggested doing something that would actually be fun. She tugged on his arm and saw his mouth start to twitch. "Come on."
Tonks ran into the open field and Remus followed, both of them laughing and stumbling as they reached the deeper drifts. Tonks came to a halt in the middle of the sea of white and spread her arms wide, watching individual snowflakes collect on her mittens and her cloak. When she wasn't looking, Remus threw a snowball.
"Hey!" she yelled.
He laughed and darted away, so she bewitched several more snowballs to pelt after him.
"Okay, truce, truce!" Remus cried, but she only grinned wickedly and kept throwing.
Suddenly there was an invisible shield between the two of them, with some kind of clever reversal charm that made her own snowballs come flying back at her.
"Oh, that's good," she gasped, as she ducked and enchanted a small whirlwind to swirl up from behind him.
Remus' chuckle was appreciative as he darted out of its way and threw up a wall of snow in front of her, a shower of flakes that flowed up from the ground instead of down.
Tonks cast a powerful warming charm - uncreative, perhaps, but effective. As the snow between them melted, she found a grinning Remus in front of her. "You're good," he said.
"You too," she admitted.
"I think I should be glad we're on the same side."
"Remus," she said and sidestepped the last bits of the melting snow wall, going right up to him so she could put a hand on his arm. "How about this. Let me take you out to dinner. Don't think so hard about it, just…dinner, one time, okay?"
There was a small pause, in which Tonks' heart lived in her throat, then Remus said, "Okay."
"Er…really?"
"Yes, really."
"Just to be clear about this, I'm asking you as, you know, a date. Or whatever."
"I did realise, yes."
"Yeah?"
That smile was all Tonks needed by way of an answer. She couldn't help it - she let out a whoop and went spinning away from him, arms flung out wide, churning up snow.
By the time common sense finally caught up and Tonks stopped spinning, she was a little embarrassed and definitely more than a little dizzy. She looked back at Remus, his cloak covered in white patches from the snowballs she'd thrown, his scarf askew and his cheeks red. He was still smiling.
- - - - -
(continue to CHAPTER TEN)
Note: Here I'd like to credit stereolightning for the phrase "a destitute Dark creature with whom she can never truly be safe," which is plucked straight from her story " A Conversation That's Not About Dora" (which is in turn a remix of my story " A Conversation That's Not About Veela," but let's not get too meta here!) When I was revising this story and looking to consolidate all of the disparate pieces of Remus' can't-be-in-a-relationship angst around one unified theme, that was the phrase I picked to tie it all around.
In addition to being a wonderful beta, stereolightning is the author of a whole bunch of terrific R/T stories, and I encourage you to check out her work!
And by the way, hey, chapter 9 - yup, we're halfway through! (Well...halfway through Part 1. And halfway through in terms of chapters, but definitely not in terms of word count...)
And if you want more Remus/Tonks fun adventures and romance... It doesn't quite fit 100% into the timeline of this story, but if you squint you could imagine my R/T Auror-Christmas-Party romp falls somewhere in here: Ain't Misbehavin'. (Summary: "It wouldn't be the Auror Christmas party without a mystery to solve, a spot of mischief, and a very well-earned slow dance.")
Summary: In which Remus and Tonks fight battles, arrest criminals, befriend werewolves, overcome inner demons and, despite it all, find themselves a happy ending. A love story, and a story of the Order years. (At long last, my Remus/Tonks epic, which has been years in the making!)
Chapter 9: Who You Believe Yourself to Be
This life is a thump-ripe melon
So sweet and such a mess
- Greg Brown, Rexroth's Daughter
Sirius padded down the basement stairs on Christmas morning, still blinking back sleep, to find Remus wide awake and pacing the length of the kitchen. Sirius watched him from the doorway. "Knarl in your bonnet?" he asked cheerfully.
Remus started, then dropped into a chair and tried to look nonchalant, but Sirius was having none of that. He perched on the edge of the table and fixed his overly earnest friend with a quizzical stare.
"I think I may have made a mistake," Remus said at last.
"Oh?"
Remus didn't seem to care to elaborate, but Sirius was nothing if not an expert at staring people down. Remus squirmed. Sirius waited.
"Dora kissed me last night," Remus admitted.
Sirius pumped both his fists in the air and whooped so loudly, Remus nearly fell off his chair.
"Sirius! Everyone's still sleeping!"
"I had a bet on with myself," Sirius explained, "that it would happen by Christmas."
"You cannot possibly have made a bet on that," Remus protested.
"I most certainly did. And I've had my Galleon on Tonks from the very beginning. She's persistent, that one." He considered Remus. "I know you're always weird about these things and all, Moony, but shouldn't you be, I don't know, pleased?"
"That's where the mistake possibly comes in."
"Aha."
"When Dora kissed me…"
"That's a promising start to any sentence."
"…I may have suggested that perhaps she should not have done so."
"Oh, honestly, Remus. What does that even mean? What did you say to her?"
"I told her that wasn't something she wanted to do. Which is true, Sirius! If she stopped and thought about it, Dora would absolutely see that she'd be better off not even entertaining the idea of getting involved with me. The very thought is absurd."
"She doesn't think it's absurd, clearly. And incidentally, when did you get permission to call her 'Dora'? I've been meaning to ask."
Remus groaned and leaned his head into his hands. "Really not the focus of the conversation here."
"Fine, fine, so my 'call me Tonks, never never never call me by first name or I will hex you' cousin just happened to decide that you and you alone are allowed to call her a cute nickname. No, sure, I can't see any way that would be relevant. And then, last night, she kissed you. See why I'm not exactly spotting a problem in this yet?"
"The problem is that I can't in good conscience do this! I can't do this to her."
"Remus, you're not doing anything to her. Well, that is, unless…"
Remus flapped a hand at him and Sirius relented on the innuendo.
"Look - you like Tonks," he said. "She likes you. You two have been making eyes at each other practically since you met. Seriously, you're the world's biggest idiot about these things. Just take her on a date or something. It doesn't have to be the end of the world."
"A date," Remus said, like it was foreign cultural practice he'd once read about, but never experienced in person.
"Yeah, you know, you go out to dinner or something, talk, make googly eyes at each other. Same stuff you do all the time anyway. Maybe kiss her again at the end, if it goes well."
"I can't take her on a date," Remus said, still stuck on that one word like a broken Muggle record.
Sirius gave a martyred sigh and flopped into the chair next to Remus, flicking his hair out of his eyes. "Okay, let me spell this out for you. You're a nice guy, everybody likes you, how could they not, but you always do this! You waste every opportunity by refusing to believe any woman could fall in love with you, or that you could allow yourself to try."
"Dora is most certainly not in love with me."
"That's neither here nor there for the moment - she kissed you, didn't she?"
"There was mistletoe involved -"
"And I'm sure you both ended up under it entirely by accident -"
"Besides, how do you know what I 'always' do? For all you know, I've had any number of successful relationships in the last 14 years."
"Because I know you and you haven't changed all that much, even if you did go and get all earnest and professor-y - okay, let's face it, actually you were always earnest and professor-y. But my point being… What was my point?"
"Your point, I believe, was that I always mess things up."
"Oh, yeah," Sirius agreed. "Well, this time, don't do that."
"Thanks for the vote of confidence," Remus replied dryly.
"My point," Sirius said, finding himself angry about the endless stupidity that was Remus and his love life, "is that if you could drop the whole 'I'm not worthy, no one should ever love me' thing for two seconds, you'd see that there's this great woman right in front of you who really likes you, and that maybe it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world to go ahead and let her like you."
Instead of accepting this for the good sense it was, Remus tensed visibly, staring hard at the grain of the wooden table beneath his hands. "There are so many reasons," he said, his voice quiet but clear, "why Dora should never even have looked twice at me. I'm far too old for her, I'm far too poor for her, I'm far too serious for her, frankly - she ought to be with someone young and funny, someone as lively as she is. With me, she would become that Auror with the questionable ties and the werewolf baggage. I'm a destitute Dark creature, Sirius, and that's not something I can ever change about myself."
"What you are," Sirius said, "is an idiot."
"Yes. Perhaps. But I'm also a destitute Dark creature with whom she can never truly be safe. I can't allow myself to do that to her. And yet I can't seem to walk away." He finally looked up, his eyes anguished. "Tell me I'm wrong somehow."
"You're wrong."
"I'm not, though!" Remus burst out.
"Oh, for Godric's sake!" Sirius slammed his fist on the tabletop and Remus jumped, startled. "Sure, all right, all those things are true, as far as that goes. You're a werewolf, big fucking deal. No - don't say anything," he added, as Remus was clearly about to protest. "I know how awful that is, Moony, seriously, don't you realise I know that better than anyone? But at some point you have to stop using it as an excuse, and let yourself try."
Remus took a steadying breath and seemed to force himself to speak calmly. "I could only ever be of harm to her," he said. "And I can't do that to someone I care about."
"Remus," Sirius growled. "You know what you can't do to someone you care about? You can't rudely reject them when they finally get up the courage to show you how they feel, after months of all this unspoken pining and frankly very annoying obtuseness on both your sides. What you can't do is brush her off like she doesn't even matter to you, when she's dared to show you that you matter to her. So take her on a goddamned date, okay?"
Remus looked at Sirius for a long time, seeming surprised at his earnestness. Then, something shifting in his expression, he murmured, "I must be mad even to be thinking about this."
"Then be mad for once!"
"Right, I should remember who I'm talking to. Sirius Black, the man who never takes the logical course of action if offered the choice."
"Just give it a chance, would you?"
Remus was giving him an uncomfortably searching look, so Sirius slapped a jovial smile across his face and leaned forwards.
"The truth of it, Remus, is that I get very little entertainment round here most of the time. If you manage to bollocks up one of the only interesting things to happen in this house for several centuries, I may have to hex you."
"Oh, well, then. If it's necessary for your amusement, of course I'll rearrange my life to suit," Remus said, sounding terribly arch. Sirius noticed, though, that he still hadn't agreed to do what Sirius was telling him to do. And, being Remus, he couldn't help adding, "But do you really think…she could truly have feelings for me in that way?"
"Good gargoyles, Remus. Yes, I think she has 'feelings' for you. Have you not seen the way she's been looking at you for months?"
"Apparently I haven't."
"Well, if you had, you would know what I know."
"Which is…?"
"Are you ready for this secret?"
Remus gave a put-upon sigh at the ceiling. "Yes, all right."
Sirius shuffled his chair closer, so he could lean in close to Remus' ear, clearing his throat importantly at a volume that made Remus shift away from him. "The secret is…my cousin is sweet on you!"
"Oh, honestly, Sirius."
"She fancies you. What are the kids saying these days? She wants to snog you. No, wait, she wants to pull you. In fact, I'd go so far as to say she wants to -"
"Sirius, shush!"
Now Sirius, too, heard footsteps coming down the stairs, but he kept going just to needle Remus. "Don't break my flow, I was just getting going. Where was I? Oh, yeah, she wants to -"
Remus elbowed Sirius less than gracefully as Fred Weasley's head appeared round the doorway from the stairs.
"Merry Christmas and all that," he said, brow wrinkled in worry. "It's just, Mum's upstairs having a right meltdown, something about Percy sending back his jumper. Maybe one of you could…?" And Fred looked at them with the helpless supplication of a 17-year-old boy faced with complex emotions.
"I'll go talk to her," Remus said. "Don't worry about it."
"Brilliant, thanks!" Fred replied and was gone up the stairs in a flash. Remus followed after, once again being the shoulder everyone could lean on.
- - - - -
Remus felt strangely buoyed as he went looking for Molly, then brought her down to the kitchen for a fortifying cup of tea and some comforting words.
He surprised himself with the certainty in his voice as he assured Molly she would be able to mend fences with her son - he, Remus, who knew little of families and nothing of sons, he who would never have a family of his own. But his heart felt strangely large and empathetic today, after that unexpected, tender moment with Tonks under the mistletoe, and the equally unexpected, fierce support from Sirius.
Was Sirius right? Could Remus ever in good conscience allow Tonks to feel something for him, and himself to feel something for Tonks?
He was still asking himself that question as he joined the Weasleys on a visit to St Mungo's. Once he'd seen Arthur, Remus drifted away to allow the family some time together, and directed his steps towards the man who occupied the room's other bed - a newly turned werewolf, as it happened. Remus remembered, viscerally, the pain and fear of that part of his life, and shuddered on this man's behalf.
He'd seen the man watching as they all gathered round Arthur, so he didn't believe for a second that he was suddenly fast asleep, although he kept his eyes firmly shut as Remus approached.
"Happy Christmas," Remus said quietly when he'd arrived at the side of the bed, already a world away from a tirade about Muggle medicine Molly had launched into, which was causing her children to scatter in terror.
The man opened one eye, but only to glower at Remus. "Go away. I don't want visitors."
"You might be interested in this visitor," Remus suggested, "seeing as I'm a werewolf."
"You're not," the man growled. "So leave me alone. That's a cruel joke, if you're having me on."
"I assure you I'm not having you on. You may even have heard of me. There was rather a flap when I got thrown out of teaching at Hogwarts a couple years ago."
He finally had the man's attention, as well as the reluctant gaze of both his eyes. "You're that Lupin fellow."
"Got it in one."
"But you look…normal."
"I like to think so, yes."
Reluctant to engage but unable to master his curiosity, the man was looking him up and down. "When I heard about that, I thought Dumbledore must be raving," he informed Remus. "Having a creature like that at a school with children."
"And what do you think now?"
The man groaned and slumped back against his pillows. "Exactly the same." He glared up at Remus. "It's all over for me. Who's going to want to hire a werewolf? Nobody, that's who."
He was younger than Remus had first thought, barely into his twenties. Perhaps he'd had great career ambitions, and seen them dashed in the space of one night.
"Why would anybody want to be around me?" the man went on, his voice an asperous whine. "I don't even want to be around me."
Remus resisted an urge to say, Well, no, of course they won't, if all you do is complain that they couldn't possibly want to be, but that thought snagged uncomfortably against something Sirius had said: …if you could drop the whole "I'm not worthy, no one should ever love me" thing…
Is this what I sound like? Remus wondered, gazing down at the man in front of him. Do the concerns that feel so reasonable to me sound this illogical to everyone else?
To the man in the bed, he said softly, "Some people will do, though. I know how hard it is to imagine now, but you'll find people who truly care about you, who won't abandon you because of what you are. You will meet people, in the course of your life, who are able to see the man behind the monster."
And some of them, he thought, will be so persistent in their refusal to see only the monster, that you may begin to wonder whether you might, after all, be the man they believe you to be.
Remus remembered Tonks' lips, gentle and warm against his, and the hopeful question in her eyes.
Could I? he wondered. Could I dare?
- - - - -
Tonks spared a quick glance for her surroundings as she hurried through the crowded bar, on a Muggle side street close to Diagon Alley. Faux-Muggle chic, she decided to term it. The kind of place that's 100% wizard, but trying to be edgy and cool by looking that little bit Muggle. It almost had the look of an American diner, with plastic-y seats and Formica tabletops.
On the far side of the room, Tonks spotted her quarry: a young woman with dark blonde hair, an angular nose and eyes that always seemed to be smiling, bent over a book and nursing a Butterbeer - yup, deceptively demure looking and never without a book in hand, that was Ariadne. Tonks darted through the crowd and slid in opposite her in the narrow booth.
"Merlin, Ar, I'm so sorry. I had to work overtime all week to have even a chance of getting tonight off, and then of course, as always, something came up right at the end of my shift today… I did try to be on time, I swear."
The other woman smiled as she looked up from her book. "Oh, come on, it's only been half an hour, I wasn't even worried yet. And there's a reason, you know, that I always bring a book when I'm meeting you."
Tonks groaned. "Sorry…"
Ariadne waved her hands, shushing her. "Oh stop it, stop it, you're married to your job and I forgive you. In fact, if you ever stop ditching everything else for the sake of your work, that's when I'll be worried. Is it very hard on you, having to take an entire evening off just for the silly little reason that it's New Year's Eve?"
"I think I'll survive." Tonks grinned at her old friend. "Hey, where are Bea and Annagret? Late too?"
"Nah, they're coming later. I thought we might want a chance to catch up a bit first, before they get here."
"You didn't tell me that! I didn't realise you'd be waiting here alone -"
"If you apologise again, I'll hex you," Ariadne warned. Then she smiled again. "I thought maybe you could fill me in on what you've been doing. Didn't know if you'd want to talk about it in front of the others."
Before Tonks could say anything, a waiter appeared out of the crowd at her elbow. "What'll it be, sweetheart?" he asked. "Butterbeer like your lovely friend?" He winked, rending Tonks momentarily speechless.
"Yes, she'll start with a Butterbeer," Ariadne replied. The waiter gave them a dashing grin and melted back into the crowd.
"Ariadne… Did he just wink at me?"
"Yes, he did, but he's gay, Tonks, so don't get that panicky look."
"What panicky look? Panicky doesn't even exist in my range of facial expressions."
"You're doing that forehead crease thing, the thing you do when a guy fancies you but you don't fancy him."
"Oh, please, I am not."
"Oh yeah? Quick, tell me how you felt when Dan Bell asked you to that ball seventh year."
"That was completely -"
"See, you're doing it again!"
"Augh, Ar, stop it!"
All she got in response was an unrepentant grin. Ariadne raised her glass. "Cheers, Tonks."
A Butterbeer had just appeared on the table beside Tonks' elbow, sent over via hover charm by the waiter, who smiled and waved from behind the bar.
Tonks gave her friend a rueful look as she raised her bottle to meet Ariadne's. "I'm an open book to you, apparently." They clinked Butterbeers. "Cheers. To an almost new year."
"So, stranger," Ariadne said. "How's you're life?"
"Um. Busy. I'm not even sure when we talked last. I kind of disappeared, didn't I?"
"Aurors keeping you on the go?"
"Well, that and -" Tonks wasn't sure how much she wanted to say in a public place, even if the bar was loud and the chances of being overheard extremely low. "Also…that group I told you about?"
"How is it?" Ariadne leaned forward avidly. Tonks remembered talking Ariadne's ear off over the summer about how Moody had suggested she join a clandestine group Dumbledore was forming to resist Voldemort. In fact, since Ariadne was the only friend Tonks had dared to tell something so confidential, she'd got rather an earful.
"It's…fantastic," Tonks was surprised to hear herself say. "I mean, it's totally frustrating, our hands our tied, there's not really anything we can do. But I've met all these incredibly dedicated people, and it just feels good to…try to do something at least. You know?"
"Yeah," Ariadne sighed. "I wish there were more I could do. I were as daring as you."
"Daring or maybe just reckless," Tonks said.
"Still. If there's ever any way I can help you lot - if you ever need help of the boring, bookish kind - you've only got to say the word. You know that, right?"
"Actually…" Tonks gazed over her Butterbeer thoughtfully. Ariadne was a bibliowitch at the Magical Archives, preserving old wizarding texts of the type that made Tonks yawn, but apparently were rather important on the larger scale of things. "Sometimes we do need to research various stuff. There's one bloke in particular Dumbledore seems to trust when it comes to looking up old enchantments and spells. Maybe I'll send him your way if he ever needs more material than what we've got at Headquarters."
"Please do."
"So there you go, you can contribute to the cause after all."
"Simple as that." Ariadne's smile was a little wistful, but then she brightened. "So I have to ask this now, before Annagret arrives and turns it into an all-out interrogation… Blokes in your life? You're hanging out with all these dashing, save-the-world types…"
Tonks chuckled and wondered precisely how Ariadne imagined the Headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix. Probably not as a musty old house once owned by dark wizards, empty most of the time except for one morose ex-convict. "No, no," she said. "No dashing blokes. Not in that sense."
"But you see all those Weasley boys all the time, Bill maybe…?"
Tonks had not forgotten Ariadne's hopeless crush on Bill Weasley, back when he was the handsome, dashing Head Boy and they were lowly, forgettable fifth years. Ariadne had always insisted that it wasn't a crush, it was - "What did you always say about Bill? It wasn't that you fancied him or anything, of course…"
"It was intellectual admiration!" Ariadne protested. "He was a very good Head Boy."
"And a very good-looking one."
Ariadne stuck out her tongue.
"Don't worry, I'm not going to steal him from you. He's…otherwise involved."
Ariadne's eyes went wide. "What! Who? Anyone we know?"
"Nope, this girl from France he met when they had the Triwizard Tournament at Hogwarts last year. It's all sort of secret, though. He doesn't really seem keen to tell the family just yet."
Ariadne ruminated on this. "Well, can't compete with the French, I suppose."
"What about you? Any charming bookworms over at that dusty library of yours?"
"Nope," Ariadne sighed, "Only socially awkward bookworms, unfortunately." Then she straightened up in her seat. Her eyes narrowed. "Wait a minute."
"What?"
"There was something about the way you said that… Whoa! You've got your eye on a 'charming bookworm,' haven't you?"
"What! No!"
"I'm right, I can see it in your face! Ooh, Tonks, who is he?"
"I don't - no, Ariadne, that's ridiculous -" Tonks crumbled in the face of her friend's truly horrifying powers of observation. "Ugh, how do you do that?"
"Oh, I'm so excited for you! Tell me all about him."
"There's nothing to tell."
"Don't evade, Tonks. It's written all over your face."
"No, really, there's nothing to tell. I guess I kind of fancy this bloke, sometimes it seems like he feels the same way, but he always backs off again."
"Somebody in…the organization you're in?"
"Yeah."
Ariadne practically had stars in her eyes. "Oh, that's so romantic, missions and things together."
"Yeah, except for the part about how he's not actually interested in me."
"Oh, don't worry about that, all guys are interested in you, one way or another."
"I…what?"
"That's how it was at school."
"That's completely not true."
"But it is, it's where you got that panicky defence mechanism thing that you demonstrated so aptly before with the cocktail waiter. The guys always wanted something more, but you just wanted to fly round and play Quidditch with them."
Tonks was gaping at her friend. "Is that… is that really how you see me? I don't know how I feel about that."
"It's nothing bad! You're just…really attractive. To blokes."
Tonks opened her mouth, then shut it again.
"So whatever this guy's problem is," Ariadne continued. "Well, I can't imagine what his problem is. But just find out what's holding him back and then, you know, go for it."
"You say it like it's so easy," Tonks grumbled.
"I know, I know, always easier to say from the outside. But tell me about him, what's he like?"
Tonks had never thought about how to describe Remus. Remus just was. "I guess I'd say, sort of quiet but with this wicked sense of humour somewhere underneath. Really clever, really talented at magic, but modest about it. Kind, and dependable. A lot of people rely on him."
"Not your usual type," Ariadne murmured.
"Sort of a damaged past," Tonks mused. "Friends he lost during the war. I think he's afraid to let anyone too close." She paused. "Oh, wow."
"What is it?"
"I never put it in quite like that before. He's afraid to let anyone in. And he's got a lot in his past that makes him think he wouldn't be a good partner, though I happen to think he's wrong about that."
"Well, there you go." Ariadne beamed at her. "Now that you know his problem, you can tackle it."
"Ariaaaaadne! Tonks!"
Tonks looked up to see Annagret's riotous dark curls and Bea's honey-coloured plaits bobbing through the crowd, as Annagret carved a path through the increasingly busy bar with Bea in her wake.
The two of them were an odd pair of opposites, Annagret the poised only child of a pureblood family and Bea the Muggle-born kid who'd had to work twice as hard to figure out things Annagret had known before she'd walked through the front gate of Hogwarts. But they were best friends, always had been.
Tonks wasn't even sure she could truly say she was friends with Annagret and Bea, who tended to form a complete unit on their own anyway. It was more that she didn't dislike them (which was more than she'd been able to say at the time about some of the other girls in her house and year), plus Ariadne was friends with them and Tonks was friends with Ariadne.
So they all still met up now and then, and at some point Tonks had grudgingly admitted to herself that it was kind of nice to have girlfriends to hang out with occasionally, not just tough Aurors several decades her senior.
There were hugs all around, and Annagret and Bea squeezed into the booth with them. "So, Tonks," Annagret launched right in. "Hot guys in your life? I personally think Aurors are absolutely to die for, you know."
"I told you!" Ariadne crowed. "The interrogation!"
"She's already had a few Firewhiskys," Bea shook her head, but couldn't disguise a fond smirk. "And she always seems to get very interested in everyone else's love lives when that happens."
Ariadne cocked her head at Tonks, giving her the opportunity to tell or not tell what she chose, and Tonks realised with a jolt of surprise that there was one major thing she'd forgotten to tell Ariadne about Remus: He's a werewolf. She hadn't been deliberately hiding that fact; it simply hadn't occurred to her. And she found she rather liked that idea - that there were a million and one things that sprang to mind first about Remus, and none of them was "werewolf."
To Annagret, she lied by omission. She'd only asked about Aurors, after all, not all men. "Yeah, Aurors are pretty great, but they're all, like, fifty. And they tend to be badly scarred."
Annagret sighed in disappointment. Then looked hopeful. "Battle wounds, right?"
"You should be quizzing Ariadne, not me," Tonks suggested. "I hear all the best awkward types hang out at the Archives."
Ariadne leaned over the table and whacked Tonks on the arm. "You just wait, one of these days I'm going to meet someone, right there in the Archives! He'll come looking for that spellbook only I know how to find…"
Tonks grinned at her friend. "Actually, I one hundred per cent believe that will happen to you. How could it not?" She was serious and she wanted to Ariadne to see that. "Everybody who meets you loves you."
Ariadne blushed a little. Annagret, who wasn't entirely paying attention to the conversation anyway, declared, "Let's dance!"
Bea grinned and hauled them all back out of the booth again.
"Drinks!" Ariadne said. "Time for something harder than Butterbeer, don't you think, Tonks?"
Tonks found herself laughing out loud, just at being surrounded by such light-heartedness.
"This is good," she told them. "Really, a night off, just to see friends and not worry about work at all? This is amazing."
"In other words," Annagret concluded, "let's go dance."
- - - - -
An hour or so later, Tonks was deep in the dancing crowd, blissfully letting her brain turn off and her body move to the music - thank Merlin for rock music, where you didn't have to be coordinated anyway. For one evening, at least, maybe there could be no work, no Order, no brewing war, just a young woman out with her friends and having a good time. Almost a new year, Tonks thought, amazed that, as always, it had managed to sneak up while she wasn't paying attention. I hope it's a good one. Despite everything.
The song changed to an even faster number, the Weird Sisters' "Put a Potion on the Fire."
"Yeah!" Annagret yelled and Bea threw her hands in the air. Tonks grinned at them and channelled all her energy into dancing.
Then from one moment to the next, something changed. Tonks was aware of a commotion by the door to the street, then there was a mighty bang and she saw the waiter who'd served them before thrown back by the force of whatever it was. "Mudblood-lovers beware!" someone screamed. At that, of course, the bar descended into chaos.
Tonks had had her wand out from the moment of the blast, and now she intently scanned the crowd, trying to pick anyone suspicious out of the mass of panicking partygoers. There was nothing to see, just people pressing away from the doorway.
Then Rufus Scrimgeour, of all people, appeared at her elbow. "Ms Tonks, we need you. Now."
Tonks found Ariadne's face in the agitated crowd and raised her shoulders helplessly.
"Go," Ariadne mouthed, eyes wide. "Do what you need to do."
With a quick apology to Annagret and Bea, Tonks followed her boss as he pushed his way towards the door.
She was relieved to see the waiter picking himself up from the floor, shaken but uninjured. By the time Scrimgeour and Tonks reached him, he was giving his statement to Buckle, one of the other most junior members of the Auror division, and the one who'd had the misfortune of being on call on New Year's Eve.
"I came over to close the door, because someone had left it open," the waiter was saying. "There were a couple of guys in dark cloaks standing outside. They shouted at me to get back, then they cast some kind of blasting spell and I was thrown off my feet. That's all I saw. I'm sorry, I wish I could tell you more." He was shaking.
"Did you see their faces?" Scrimgeour wanted to know.
"No, nothing, just hoods."
"Recognise their voices?"
"No, I'm sorry."
"Who shouted 'Mudblood-lovers beware'?"
"I assume it was them, the men in cloaks. I don't know."
"Did you hear whether they Disapparated?"
The man shook his head miserably.
Scrimgeour sighed. "That's fine, son. Why don't you go back inside."
The waiter mumbled his thanks and slipped into the bar, his earlier carefree charm erased.
"This can not keep happening," Scrimgeour murmured to himself. Then, in his usual businesslike tones, "All right, I'll look down this street. Tonks and Buckle, go together and check Diagon Alley and Knockturn Alley. I'll meet you there. I highly doubt there's anyone still around, but keep your wits about you."
Both junior Aurors nodded and set off with their wands at the ready, scanning the streets and casting Revealing charms. There was no one there, of course, except partygoers spilling out of a few other bars. Whoever had caused the explosion was long gone. That's the problem with wizards, Tonks thought sourly. They just disappear. In Muggle crime stories, at least they have to run away or find a getaway car or something.
It was well into the new year by the time they reported back, clutching their cloaks tightly against the cold of Diagon Alley.
"I'll file the report back at the office," Scrimgeour informed them. "You two can go home. Or wherever it is you were planning to go."
Buckle looked uncertain. "I'm supposed to be on call for one more hour…?"
"Don't worry about it," Scrimgeour said. "I'll keep an eye on things. I need to stop by the Ministry anyway."
Buckle nodded his thanks and Disapparated.
Tonks turned to go too, but to her surprise, her boss stopped her with a hand on her arm. "I'm sorry for ruining your night out, Ms Tonks," he said gravely.
"Oh," she replied, nonplussed. "That's all right. It's my job."
Scrimgeour nodded, then Disapparated, presumably to the Ministry to file an entirely uninformative report.
Tonks looked round Diagon Alley, mostly empty, the parties in some of the pubs already winding down. She thought about seeing if Ariadne and the others were still out together somewhere nearby, but didn't really feel like it.
As she gazed down the darkened alley, Tonks couldn't help thinking how far she'd ended up from the girls she'd gone to school with, people who worked normal jobs and then went home from them at night.
Ariadne was certainly right, except Tonks wasn't married to her job so much as to the business of catching Dark wizards. Whether Auror or Order didn't much matter - if there was a battle to be fought, Tonks would be there. She didn't know how she'd ended up like that. Probably inherited it subconsciously from her mother somehow.
Tonks felt a brief pang of regret for her carefree friends, out dancing somewhere in London, but it passed. This is my life now, she thought with some surprise. Remus and Sirius and everybody in the Order, they're the ones I'm closest to, now. Those are the people who understand best.
She laughed out loud at the surprise of it, then clapped a hand over her mouth as the sound echoed weirdly in the empty street. She drew her cloak round her and spun on the spot, thinking of home for now, but already looking forward to the next time she would visit Grimmauld Place.
- - - - -
"You've missed a number of goings on, here," Remus told her when he answered the door the morning they were to escort the kids back to school. Tonks could definitely feel the whole mistletoe debacle hovering unspoken between them, but at least he was smiling at her.
"There've been some goings on out there too," she told him. "I'll tell you together with the others. Are Molly and Sirius downstairs?"
"And Arthur, too."
"He's back from St Mungo's already? Oh, that's fantastic!"
Remus smiled at her enthusiasm, then reached out to take Tonks' cloak for her, sliding it from her shoulders in an unnecessary but admittedly sweet gesture. Tonks blinked and tried to look unfazed.
They made their way to the kitchen, where Molly was making breakfast, Arthur puttering and Sirius simply glowering at the tabletop.
"Welcome back!" Tonks said to Arthur. "Does this mean I'll be seeing you at the Ministry again soon?"
"Tomorrow, in fact," he beamed. "I feel as well as can be, so no need to sit at home."
Molly tsked, but all she said was, "Have some eggs, Tonks, dear. The children should be down shortly, but you need some breakfast too, before you leave. You too, Remus."
Remus caught Tonks' eye in sly amusement at Molly's mothering and Tonks had to fight not to blush. Remus, actually meeting her eye? What was this about?
She turned instead to Sirius. She could barely imagine how he must be feeling this morning, with his house emptying again and Harry leaving - though the expression on his face might offer some indication. He looked as if a thunderstorm might burst out of his forehead any moment.
"Wotcher, Sirius," Tonks tried.
Sirius grunted.
"He nearly came to blows with Snape last night," Remus informed her. He was gazing at Sirius with a mixture of fondness and exasperation that struck Tonks as somehow familiar. Then it came to her: it was the same look she'd so often seen on Bea's face when it came to Annagret.
"Greasy git," Sirius muttered.
Tonks looked to Remus for explanation.
"Dumbledore wants Severus to give Harry private Occlumency lessons this term. To better protect his mind from…a repeat occurrence."
"But with Snape?" Tonks asked. "Is that really wise?"
"That's what I said," came Sirius' growl.
"I'm not sure either whether it's wise or not," Remus replied evenly. "But there's no way to know until we've tried, is there?"
Again, Sirius' reply was nothing more than an inarticulate grunt.
Remus sighed.
"There've been more attacks," Tonks told them, mainly to change the subject. Arthur looked over at her and Molly too turned from the range, worry wrinkling her brow. "No one's died or anything, thank goodness, but it seems to be on an upswing. Small explosions, things like that. I saw one myself on New Year's Eve. I think they targeted that bar in particular because it's one of these places that's a bit Muggle-influenced."
Arthur shook his head and Molly set plates down in front of them, staying by the table with them so they could all talk quietly together.
Molly glanced towards the door. "It's You-Know-Who behind it, of course, isn't it?"
"I can't imagine it's not," Tonks told her. "They set off some kind of explosion and yelled 'Mudblood-lovers beware' before they Disapparated."
Molly shuddered.
Arthur turned to Tonks. "What does Scrimgeour say?"
"He doesn't say. Scrimgeour doesn't share confidences with his subordinates. But he certainly wants to believe it's just isolated incidents, and I'm sure he likes Fudge's theory, that they're only rallying round Sirius." She cast a small, ironic smile in the direction of the man in question, but he only frowned.
"Do the Aurors talk amongst themselves?" Arthur wanted to know. "Does anyone toss about different theories? Suggest You-Know-Who might be behind it after all?"
"Not yet, at least. I can push a little harder, try to get people into conversation…?"
"No, don't jeopardise your job over it. And don't get yourself in trouble. You're too important to the Order."
Tonks felt inordinately gratified at that.
"I agree," Remus said firmly and again, Tonks could only blink at him in surprise. Their eyes met for a few seconds, then he looked away.
"And to us, of course. Not only for the sake of the Order," Molly put in, frowning at her husband.
Arthur was flustered. "Of course, dear, that's what I meant."
"So, what's the plan for today?" Remus posed the question directly to Tonks, since they seemed for the moment to have lost Molly and Arthur to a wordless discussion. "Moody didn't fill me in on the details."
"Knight Bus," Tonks replied. "I'll be in disguise, so that the presence of an Auror doesn't draw attention." She felt edgy about it already. All the kids were targets, in a sense, and they were being entrusted to her protection. "But I don't think it matters about you. Er, whether you're in disguise or not. I mean, everyone knows you're a friend of the family…?"
She felt she was making a bit of a mess of this, but to her surprise, Remus looked at her with startled eyes. "Friend of the family," he repeated. "Yes, I suppose so."
Molly seemed to have rejoined the conversation and was looking between the two of them with a considering air. Tonks felt herself flush. Yet again.
Returning to their most immediate concern, Molly asked, "They'll be safe today, won't they? On the way to Hogwarts?" Her face was anxious, though she was clearly trying not to show it.
"Frankly, I can't imagine anything happening on the Knight Bus," Tonks assured her. "But we'll keep a very sharp lookout and get them there as fast as we can."
"I know you will, dear," Molly said. "I trust you."
Tonks swallowed hard at that.
"It won't be an easy term for Harry," Molly murmured, as Tonks and Remus started on their breakfasts. Sirius maintained his morose silence, looking as if he wanted to drown himself in his tea.
"Nor for any of them," Remus put in, an uncharacteristically ugly expression on his face. "Dolores Umbridge is quite a piece of work, from everything I've heard."
"Of course," Molly said. "Of course. But I meant…"
"I know," Remus said.
"We'll all be looking out for him." Tonks tried to sound reassuring, but even as she said it, she knew how empty those words were. Voldemort was getting right into Harry's head now, so how were they supposed to protect him there? "And he'll be with Dumbledore," she added lamely.
But that did seem to hearten Molly considerably. "Yes," she said. "Of course. I'm being silly."
Soon the kids were straggling into the kitchen, yawning and inhaling their breakfasts, then there was the usual last-minute mad dash to round up forgotten items.
Molly was nearly tearful as she hugged each of the children, and Tonks saw Harry casting small, sad, worried glances at Sirius. But Sirius did at least seem to have pulled himself together enough to put up a good front for Harry and wish him a proper goodbye.
Tonks quickly transformed her appearance, hardly taking notice of Ginny's impressed and envious gaze, then chivvied them all out and onto the Bus, which arrived promptly when Remus hailed it.
She intimidated (and more or less bribed) the conductor into moving them up the queue, feeling relief wash over her as they pulled into Hogsmeade's familiar streets, deep under snow.
They helped the kids and their trunks off the bus and wished them a good term, letting the Knight Bus go on without them, since the conductor was impatient to continue on and there was no reason Tonks and Remus couldn't simply Apparate back. So they stayed and watched to make sure Harry, Hermione and the Weasleys made it all the way up the long, icy drive to the castle, even once the kids were on the proper side of the school gate, the safe side.
Once they had disappeared from sight, Tonks slumped against one of the boar-topped posts and heaved a sigh. "I was more nervous about that than I was entirely prepared to admit to Molly."
Remus seemed to be suppressing a grin with some difficulty.
"What?" she asked.
"Disguise?" he offered.
"Oh." Tonks quickly transformed back to neutral, a bit embarrassed to have forgotten and left herself middle-aged and tweedy in front of Remus, of all people.
"Ah." Remus was still staring with a greater degree of fascination than seemed necessary. "Is that your natural colour?"
"Oh…yeah." Mousy brown had never been her favourite. "Now you know why I change it every chance I get." She screwed up her face with concentration to do just that.
He held up a hand. "No, wait. I like it that way."
"You like it?"
"Although that's not to say I don't like it the other ways too, of course. I mean…do you know what I mean?"
They were standing rather close to each other, Tonks realised. She thought a little wildly of the things she'd promised herself she was going to finally say to him today, and panicked, and didn't say them. Snow was starting to fall again, very lightly, catching in her eyelashes and in his soft brown hair.
"Do you have anywhere you have to be right now?" she asked instead.
"Well, back at Headquarters eventually…"
"But right, right now? This moment."
"I suppose not. Why…?"
"Come play in the snow with me. Come on, look at it, we don't get this in London." Tonks waved her arm, encompassing all the fields and woods between them and Hogsmeade, blanketed in softly falling white. Remus was regarding her with that expression both he and Sirius always seemed to wear whenever she suggested doing something that would actually be fun. She tugged on his arm and saw his mouth start to twitch. "Come on."
Tonks ran into the open field and Remus followed, both of them laughing and stumbling as they reached the deeper drifts. Tonks came to a halt in the middle of the sea of white and spread her arms wide, watching individual snowflakes collect on her mittens and her cloak. When she wasn't looking, Remus threw a snowball.
"Hey!" she yelled.
He laughed and darted away, so she bewitched several more snowballs to pelt after him.
"Okay, truce, truce!" Remus cried, but she only grinned wickedly and kept throwing.
Suddenly there was an invisible shield between the two of them, with some kind of clever reversal charm that made her own snowballs come flying back at her.
"Oh, that's good," she gasped, as she ducked and enchanted a small whirlwind to swirl up from behind him.
Remus' chuckle was appreciative as he darted out of its way and threw up a wall of snow in front of her, a shower of flakes that flowed up from the ground instead of down.
Tonks cast a powerful warming charm - uncreative, perhaps, but effective. As the snow between them melted, she found a grinning Remus in front of her. "You're good," he said.
"You too," she admitted.
"I think I should be glad we're on the same side."
"Remus," she said and sidestepped the last bits of the melting snow wall, going right up to him so she could put a hand on his arm. "How about this. Let me take you out to dinner. Don't think so hard about it, just…dinner, one time, okay?"
There was a small pause, in which Tonks' heart lived in her throat, then Remus said, "Okay."
"Er…really?"
"Yes, really."
"Just to be clear about this, I'm asking you as, you know, a date. Or whatever."
"I did realise, yes."
"Yeah?"
That smile was all Tonks needed by way of an answer. She couldn't help it - she let out a whoop and went spinning away from him, arms flung out wide, churning up snow.
By the time common sense finally caught up and Tonks stopped spinning, she was a little embarrassed and definitely more than a little dizzy. She looked back at Remus, his cloak covered in white patches from the snowballs she'd thrown, his scarf askew and his cheeks red. He was still smiling.
- - - - -
(continue to CHAPTER TEN)
Note: Here I'd like to credit stereolightning for the phrase "a destitute Dark creature with whom she can never truly be safe," which is plucked straight from her story " A Conversation That's Not About Dora" (which is in turn a remix of my story " A Conversation That's Not About Veela," but let's not get too meta here!) When I was revising this story and looking to consolidate all of the disparate pieces of Remus' can't-be-in-a-relationship angst around one unified theme, that was the phrase I picked to tie it all around.
In addition to being a wonderful beta, stereolightning is the author of a whole bunch of terrific R/T stories, and I encourage you to check out her work!
And by the way, hey, chapter 9 - yup, we're halfway through! (Well...halfway through Part 1. And halfway through in terms of chapters, but definitely not in terms of word count...)
And if you want more Remus/Tonks fun adventures and romance... It doesn't quite fit 100% into the timeline of this story, but if you squint you could imagine my R/T Auror-Christmas-Party romp falls somewhere in here: Ain't Misbehavin'. (Summary: "It wouldn't be the Auror Christmas party without a mystery to solve, a spot of mischief, and a very well-earned slow dance.")