Ain’t Misbehavin’ (2/4) - Chapter 2: In the Mood
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.
Characters: Tonks, Remus; various minor characters
Words: ca. 7,000 total; this chapter 1,900 words
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Chapter 2: In the Mood
They sailed through the double doors of the ballroom arm in arm, and the response was as gratifying as Sirius had predicted.
Proudfoot was manning the door at the moment, so Tonks handed him her little formal invitation scroll ("Nymphadora Tonks and Guest") and watched with secret glee as he looked down at the invitation, looked up at her - and went bug-eyed.
Tonks knew her colleagues thought of her as an Auror first, and only vaguely registered her as being a young woman while most of them were middle-aged men.
In fact, she worked hard to keep it that way. As a young woman with a notoriously complicated family background (that whole cousin-sent-to-Azkaban-for-killing-twelve-Muggles thing) in the old boys' club of the Auror Office, she'd had to work twice as hard just to be taken as seriously as anyone else. Her colleagues no longer looked at her as something different from them, and Tonks was proud of that fact.
But every once in a very rare while, it was fun to turn people's expectations on their heads.
"Wotcher, Proudfoot," she said, smiling sweetly. Well…smiling mischievously was probably more accurate. "This is my guest." She tilted her head towards Remus at her side.
"How do you do," Proudfoot said automatically, and Tonks saw his eyes take in Remus, too, the elegant sweep of his gorgeous dress robes. Tonks felt that thrill again, on Remus' behalf, for the admiration he was going to garner tonight. "Welcome to the Christmas party."
"It's an honour," Remus replied gravely, and Tonks bit back the urge to snicker. Remus was so good at blending in anywhere, he seemed to have managed to forget he looked like he'd just stepped out of the pages of a romance novel.
"Cloakroom's to your left, drinks table is at the back," Proudfoot offered, in the tones of someone who'd had to repeat the same information to many guests before them. "It's recorded music for another half hour or so, then the orchestra comes back on."
Remus raised his eyebrows at Tonks as they moved away from the doorway and into the room. "Orchestra? What kind of dancing is this going to be, exactly?"
"Oh, nothing you can't handle," Tonks said breezily. She was dying to see Remus on the dance floor, but she was pretty sure the only way to make that happen was to keep playing it down, make the whole thing seem as insignificant as possible.
Beside her, Remus snorted quietly, and Tonks had to admit to herself that it was possible he was onto her ploy.
She was smiling as she glanced around the ballroom. It was quite full already; the Auror Office wasn't all that many people, but between the Aurors' guests and the members of other Ministry departments who tended to turn up at these things, they managed to fill a ballroom fairly well.
At one side of the room was a small balcony, accessed by a graceful open staircase that swept down along one wall, from the balcony to the floor. The band would return to play there, later. Drinks and hors d'oeuvre, as Proudfoot had said, were on long tables lining the back wall.
A buzz of chatter and laughter filled the room, which was merrily lit by an enormous coloured lantern that had been hung up for the occasion above and in front of the balcony. The lantern was bicoloured, as a nod to the season: Of the four glass panes that made up its sides, red glass faced out towards the dance floor and back towards the balcony, while the glass at both sides rendered the light shining through it green. It made for an interesting effect on the dance floor below: The partygoers mingling in the middle of the floor were bathed in warm, reddish light, while the people who stood to the far sides, along the walls, looked almost green.
The recorded music was the usual humdrum tasteless stuff Tonks had come to expect at Ministry events, not really energetic enough to dance to. But she still found herself getting caught up in the giddy spirit of the evening. As much as she tended to moan that the yearly Auror party was stuffy and silly, there was something fun about seeing her colleagues dressed up and cutting loose, one night out of the year.
"Cloakroom first?" Tonks asked Remus. She still had her winter cloak over her arm, as did he. Though they'd Apparated almost directly from Headquarters, it was cold enough that they'd needed winter clothing even for the short distance.
Remus nodded, and followed her towards the small cloakroom recessed into one wall, his hand hovering almost at the small of her back. Tonks felt that spike of pleasure again, that Remus, cautious Remus, didn't seem to mind physical proximity with her.
They squeezed through the press of people chatting outside the cloakroom, got inside and found hooks for both their cloaks. As they squeezed their way back out, a flash of something bright caught Tonks' eye amidst the crowd around the cloakroom door - reflected light off the surface of a gold pocket watch, cradled in the palm of an Auror only a few years older than Tonks.
"That's Albert Buckle," she muttered in Remus' ear, nodding her head towards the young Auror as they passed him. He was one of the few Aurors who were nearly as junior in the department as Tonks was. "He's obsessed with that pocket watch of his. Always showing it off, all these cool special features it has, apparently. He gets a lot of teasing from the guys for being in love with his pocket watch."
Remus laughed. "You do work with the most interesting characters."
"But I'm here tonight with the most handsome character," Tonks answered boldly. "Dance with me?"
Remus cocked his head, listening. "To this?"
Tonks gave her attention to the music, nearly devoid of any beat at all, and grimaced. "Yeah, maybe not. We'll wait for the orchestra to come back in."
"When you say orchestra…" Remus pursued again, but Tonks grabbed him by the elbow.
"Snack table, then," she said. "Let's see who's hanging around there."
She led Remus to the long back wall of the room, to one end of a table piled high with fruits and meats and platters bearing little wedges of cheese arrayed in concentric circles. She scooped up two small plates and handed one to Remus. "Fill it up," she instructed him. Then, mostly because she loved how he overreacted every time she said it, "You're going to need the energy for dancing!"
Remus laughed and shook his head at her blatant fishing for a reaction, but he moved along the table, scooping titbits onto his plate, and Tonks followed with her own.
"Tonks!"
She looked up to see Mirabelle Vivianus from the Accidental Magic Reversal Squad, holding a plate in one hand and beaming at Tonks.
"You look stunning, my dear," Mirabelle said, looking Tonks up and down in delight, taking in every detail of her dramatic red dress.
Tonks laughed. "Thanks! So do you."
Tonks liked Mirabelle a lot. She was the one who kicked cases upstairs to the Auror Office if her division found that an incidence of harmful "accidental" magic turned out not to be so accidental after all, so Tonks interacted with her reasonably often. In a way, Mirabelle - poised, elegant, of indeterminate middle age - reminded Tonks of her mum, except that Mirabelle wore her sense of humour on the outside, where Andromeda's was more subtle and hidden.
Mirabelle elbowed Tonks in the side, but somehow managed to make the action look graceful. "Aren't you going to introduce me to your handsome date?"
"Oh! Yeah." Tonks turned around to look for Remus, almost overbalanced, but caught herself against the edge of the table and didn't even drop her plate. "Remus, this is Mirabelle Vivianus, one of my colleagues. Mirabelle, this is my friend Remus."
"Charmed," Mirabelle said, as Remus smiled and returned her greeting.
And Tonks looked at her and saw that she really was charmed, gazing at Remus with frank appreciation. Tonks only hoped the compliment wasn't lost on Remus, who could be so obtuse when it came to people's positive opinions of him. He had such a sharp, incisive mind on almost every topic, but when it came to himself and the impressions he made in the world, Remus had a blind spot a mile wide.
Mirabelle moved on along the table after a little more chitchat, and Tonks was just pondering how to tease Remus about what a hit he was proving with the ladies - how to say it without making him uncomfortable, but still open his eyes to the impressive figure he cut - when an anguished voice behind her cried, "My watch!"
Tonks looked at Remus and Remus looked at Tonks.
Buckle? Remus mouthed. Tonks nodded. That had definitely been his voice.
She set her plate down on the table and turned to scan the crowd for Buckle. There he was, standing nearby, separated from her by only a few chattering partygoers. He was gazing wildly around and patting the pockets of his robes.
Tonks started towards him. Behind her, she heard Remus set down his own plate and follow.
"Buckle," she said when she reached her panicking colleague. "What's going on?"
He swung around to face her, his brown hair disarrayed and falling in his eyes. "Tonks! Someone's stolen my pocket watch!"
"Are you sure it's stolen? Not just mislaid somewhere?"
His hands clutched convulsively at his pockets again. "Of course I'm sure! I had it out, I was showing it to a bloke from Broom Control, then I put it back in my pocket. With the chain attached and everything. There's no way it could have fallen out. Someone's stolen it!"
Tonks felt Remus arrive at her shoulder, there and ready to help out if she needed him.
"Okay, listen," she said to Buckle. "We'll find your watch, okay? What you need is to calm down, don't cause a scene, just sit tight. Go to the drinks table, get yourself something to drink, and listen to the music. I'll come find you when I've got your watch back, okay?"
She put her hands on his shoulders and looked straight into his eyes, signalling confidence and calm. She waited until she felt Buckle's shoulders drop under her hands, a little of the tension leaving them.
"Yeah," he said on an outward breath. "Yeah, okay. Thank you, Tonks. I trust you to find it."
"Good," she said firmly. "Now go get a drink and distract yourself."
Buckle shuffled away through the crowd, shoulders slumped. Tonks turned to Remus.
He looked sympathetic to Buckle's plight, but gently amused, too. "I see you've taken on the mystery."
"Not much of a mystery," she sighed. "It's not like there's any question who's taken it - the same guys who are always teasing him about his watch. They're probably planning to give it back by the end of the night, but meanwhile he'll be freaking out the whole time, and he definitely isn't going to enjoy the party."
"A prank," Remus realised.
"Yeah, but not a particularly good-natured one."
Remus grimaced. "How are you planning to get the watch back? Confront them?"
"Could do… Or we could find it and give it back to Buckle before they do. Prank the pranksters."
Tonks could feel her eyes dancing at him. Remus grinned in return.
"Right," he said. "Let's find that watch."
(continue to CHAPTER THREE: 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.
Characters: Tonks, Remus; various minor characters
Words: ca. 7,000 total; this chapter 1,900 words
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Chapter 2: In the Mood
They sailed through the double doors of the ballroom arm in arm, and the response was as gratifying as Sirius had predicted.
Proudfoot was manning the door at the moment, so Tonks handed him her little formal invitation scroll ("Nymphadora Tonks and Guest") and watched with secret glee as he looked down at the invitation, looked up at her - and went bug-eyed.
Tonks knew her colleagues thought of her as an Auror first, and only vaguely registered her as being a young woman while most of them were middle-aged men.
In fact, she worked hard to keep it that way. As a young woman with a notoriously complicated family background (that whole cousin-sent-to-Azkaban-for-killing-twelve-Muggles thing) in the old boys' club of the Auror Office, she'd had to work twice as hard just to be taken as seriously as anyone else. Her colleagues no longer looked at her as something different from them, and Tonks was proud of that fact.
But every once in a very rare while, it was fun to turn people's expectations on their heads.
"Wotcher, Proudfoot," she said, smiling sweetly. Well…smiling mischievously was probably more accurate. "This is my guest." She tilted her head towards Remus at her side.
"How do you do," Proudfoot said automatically, and Tonks saw his eyes take in Remus, too, the elegant sweep of his gorgeous dress robes. Tonks felt that thrill again, on Remus' behalf, for the admiration he was going to garner tonight. "Welcome to the Christmas party."
"It's an honour," Remus replied gravely, and Tonks bit back the urge to snicker. Remus was so good at blending in anywhere, he seemed to have managed to forget he looked like he'd just stepped out of the pages of a romance novel.
"Cloakroom's to your left, drinks table is at the back," Proudfoot offered, in the tones of someone who'd had to repeat the same information to many guests before them. "It's recorded music for another half hour or so, then the orchestra comes back on."
Remus raised his eyebrows at Tonks as they moved away from the doorway and into the room. "Orchestra? What kind of dancing is this going to be, exactly?"
"Oh, nothing you can't handle," Tonks said breezily. She was dying to see Remus on the dance floor, but she was pretty sure the only way to make that happen was to keep playing it down, make the whole thing seem as insignificant as possible.
Beside her, Remus snorted quietly, and Tonks had to admit to herself that it was possible he was onto her ploy.
She was smiling as she glanced around the ballroom. It was quite full already; the Auror Office wasn't all that many people, but between the Aurors' guests and the members of other Ministry departments who tended to turn up at these things, they managed to fill a ballroom fairly well.
At one side of the room was a small balcony, accessed by a graceful open staircase that swept down along one wall, from the balcony to the floor. The band would return to play there, later. Drinks and hors d'oeuvre, as Proudfoot had said, were on long tables lining the back wall.
A buzz of chatter and laughter filled the room, which was merrily lit by an enormous coloured lantern that had been hung up for the occasion above and in front of the balcony. The lantern was bicoloured, as a nod to the season: Of the four glass panes that made up its sides, red glass faced out towards the dance floor and back towards the balcony, while the glass at both sides rendered the light shining through it green. It made for an interesting effect on the dance floor below: The partygoers mingling in the middle of the floor were bathed in warm, reddish light, while the people who stood to the far sides, along the walls, looked almost green.
The recorded music was the usual humdrum tasteless stuff Tonks had come to expect at Ministry events, not really energetic enough to dance to. But she still found herself getting caught up in the giddy spirit of the evening. As much as she tended to moan that the yearly Auror party was stuffy and silly, there was something fun about seeing her colleagues dressed up and cutting loose, one night out of the year.
"Cloakroom first?" Tonks asked Remus. She still had her winter cloak over her arm, as did he. Though they'd Apparated almost directly from Headquarters, it was cold enough that they'd needed winter clothing even for the short distance.
Remus nodded, and followed her towards the small cloakroom recessed into one wall, his hand hovering almost at the small of her back. Tonks felt that spike of pleasure again, that Remus, cautious Remus, didn't seem to mind physical proximity with her.
They squeezed through the press of people chatting outside the cloakroom, got inside and found hooks for both their cloaks. As they squeezed their way back out, a flash of something bright caught Tonks' eye amidst the crowd around the cloakroom door - reflected light off the surface of a gold pocket watch, cradled in the palm of an Auror only a few years older than Tonks.
"That's Albert Buckle," she muttered in Remus' ear, nodding her head towards the young Auror as they passed him. He was one of the few Aurors who were nearly as junior in the department as Tonks was. "He's obsessed with that pocket watch of his. Always showing it off, all these cool special features it has, apparently. He gets a lot of teasing from the guys for being in love with his pocket watch."
Remus laughed. "You do work with the most interesting characters."
"But I'm here tonight with the most handsome character," Tonks answered boldly. "Dance with me?"
Remus cocked his head, listening. "To this?"
Tonks gave her attention to the music, nearly devoid of any beat at all, and grimaced. "Yeah, maybe not. We'll wait for the orchestra to come back in."
"When you say orchestra…" Remus pursued again, but Tonks grabbed him by the elbow.
"Snack table, then," she said. "Let's see who's hanging around there."
She led Remus to the long back wall of the room, to one end of a table piled high with fruits and meats and platters bearing little wedges of cheese arrayed in concentric circles. She scooped up two small plates and handed one to Remus. "Fill it up," she instructed him. Then, mostly because she loved how he overreacted every time she said it, "You're going to need the energy for dancing!"
Remus laughed and shook his head at her blatant fishing for a reaction, but he moved along the table, scooping titbits onto his plate, and Tonks followed with her own.
"Tonks!"
She looked up to see Mirabelle Vivianus from the Accidental Magic Reversal Squad, holding a plate in one hand and beaming at Tonks.
"You look stunning, my dear," Mirabelle said, looking Tonks up and down in delight, taking in every detail of her dramatic red dress.
Tonks laughed. "Thanks! So do you."
Tonks liked Mirabelle a lot. She was the one who kicked cases upstairs to the Auror Office if her division found that an incidence of harmful "accidental" magic turned out not to be so accidental after all, so Tonks interacted with her reasonably often. In a way, Mirabelle - poised, elegant, of indeterminate middle age - reminded Tonks of her mum, except that Mirabelle wore her sense of humour on the outside, where Andromeda's was more subtle and hidden.
Mirabelle elbowed Tonks in the side, but somehow managed to make the action look graceful. "Aren't you going to introduce me to your handsome date?"
"Oh! Yeah." Tonks turned around to look for Remus, almost overbalanced, but caught herself against the edge of the table and didn't even drop her plate. "Remus, this is Mirabelle Vivianus, one of my colleagues. Mirabelle, this is my friend Remus."
"Charmed," Mirabelle said, as Remus smiled and returned her greeting.
And Tonks looked at her and saw that she really was charmed, gazing at Remus with frank appreciation. Tonks only hoped the compliment wasn't lost on Remus, who could be so obtuse when it came to people's positive opinions of him. He had such a sharp, incisive mind on almost every topic, but when it came to himself and the impressions he made in the world, Remus had a blind spot a mile wide.
Mirabelle moved on along the table after a little more chitchat, and Tonks was just pondering how to tease Remus about what a hit he was proving with the ladies - how to say it without making him uncomfortable, but still open his eyes to the impressive figure he cut - when an anguished voice behind her cried, "My watch!"
Tonks looked at Remus and Remus looked at Tonks.
Buckle? Remus mouthed. Tonks nodded. That had definitely been his voice.
She set her plate down on the table and turned to scan the crowd for Buckle. There he was, standing nearby, separated from her by only a few chattering partygoers. He was gazing wildly around and patting the pockets of his robes.
Tonks started towards him. Behind her, she heard Remus set down his own plate and follow.
"Buckle," she said when she reached her panicking colleague. "What's going on?"
He swung around to face her, his brown hair disarrayed and falling in his eyes. "Tonks! Someone's stolen my pocket watch!"
"Are you sure it's stolen? Not just mislaid somewhere?"
His hands clutched convulsively at his pockets again. "Of course I'm sure! I had it out, I was showing it to a bloke from Broom Control, then I put it back in my pocket. With the chain attached and everything. There's no way it could have fallen out. Someone's stolen it!"
Tonks felt Remus arrive at her shoulder, there and ready to help out if she needed him.
"Okay, listen," she said to Buckle. "We'll find your watch, okay? What you need is to calm down, don't cause a scene, just sit tight. Go to the drinks table, get yourself something to drink, and listen to the music. I'll come find you when I've got your watch back, okay?"
She put her hands on his shoulders and looked straight into his eyes, signalling confidence and calm. She waited until she felt Buckle's shoulders drop under her hands, a little of the tension leaving them.
"Yeah," he said on an outward breath. "Yeah, okay. Thank you, Tonks. I trust you to find it."
"Good," she said firmly. "Now go get a drink and distract yourself."
Buckle shuffled away through the crowd, shoulders slumped. Tonks turned to Remus.
He looked sympathetic to Buckle's plight, but gently amused, too. "I see you've taken on the mystery."
"Not much of a mystery," she sighed. "It's not like there's any question who's taken it - the same guys who are always teasing him about his watch. They're probably planning to give it back by the end of the night, but meanwhile he'll be freaking out the whole time, and he definitely isn't going to enjoy the party."
"A prank," Remus realised.
"Yeah, but not a particularly good-natured one."
Remus grimaced. "How are you planning to get the watch back? Confront them?"
"Could do… Or we could find it and give it back to Buckle before they do. Prank the pranksters."
Tonks could feel her eyes dancing at him. Remus grinned in return.
"Right," he said. "Let's find that watch."
(continue to CHAPTER THREE: Ain't Misbehavin')
.