Of Baby-Sitters and Decorations
Title: Of Baby-Sitters and Christmas Decorations
Author: sharo_8760
Rating: PG
Warnings: -
Prompt: Everybody knows a turkey and some mistletoe / Help to make the season bright / Tiny tots with their eyes all a-glow / Will find it hard to sleep tonight - The Christmas Song
Format and Word Count: One-shot, 1706
Summary: Tonks is a bit excessive with decorations, which leads the thoughts of our three heroes to a Christmas years and years ago. And there's some mistletoe, too.
Author's Notes: I’m not late, am I? Sorry, I’ve been a little sick lately and confused about the time zones. Anyway, as my native isn’t English, I want apologize for all the possible mistakes I’ve made and would appreciate it if you told me about them so I could improve my writing. Thank you and happy 2011!
Of Baby-Sitters and Christmas Decorations
When Tonks had seen 12 Grimmauld Place for the first time, she would never have imagined the den to ever look like this. There were Christmas decorations everywhere, and the whole house was bursting with holiday glee. And the most amazing thing was that Tonks had decorated the place herself. She looked around the living room. It was full of bright colors, glitter, tiny reindeer charmed to run around the room and fake snow falling slowly from the ceiling. It looked… magical.
“Merlin’s beard, what’s happened here?” Tonks suddenly heard an all too familiar sound coming from the door.
“What do you mean, Sirius?” she asked turning around to face her cousin.
Sirius raised his eyebrows. “What do I mean? I mean the fact that someone has stolen the whole Britain’s tacky Christmas décor and put it here.”
Tonks looked around again. “I think it looks great,” she said decisively.
“Oh, you did this, then,” Sirius sighed. “Should’ve guessed.”
Tonks bit her lower lip to stop herself from saying anything nasty. It was Christmas, after all, the season of joy.
“I mean, it’s not even Christmas yet,” Sirius added, “it’s bloody November.”
Tonks let out a yell of frustration and ran to the library to look for Remus. He was sitting in his usual armchair, reading one of his usual books, and, in Tonks’s opinion, looking adorable, as per usual.
“Remus,” she began. No reaction.
“Remus,” she repeated, more loudly this time. He lifted his eyes from the book and smiled to Tonks.
“I need your opinion on something. Follow me.”
Remus rose from the chair after placing his bookmark carefully between pages. He left the book on the chair. “What is it?”
Tonks led him to the living room, where Sirius had sat down on the only seat that wasn’t covered with glitter or snow man figures. He was grinning smugly until he saw Remus. “What? He’s going to be our judge? Tonks, you know whose side he’ll take.”
Remus looked suspiciously at both of them. “What’s going on?”
“Well, Tonks here has -,” Sirius began, but Tonks cut in.
“What do you think about the decorations of this room?”
“Well,” Remus began carefully, wondering what he should think about it. “I think it’s a, um, nice follow-up to the library’s decorations, it… Tops them anytime.”
A bright smile flashed on Tonks’s face. “So you like it?”
“He didn’t say that,” Sirius pointed out. Tonks glared at him angrily before they both fixed their eyes on Remus, waiting for him to continue. He swallowed quickly.
“It’s bright, eh, and cheerful, and very colourful - I… It looks fantastic.”
Remus Lupin certainly wasn’t stupid enough to ruin the moment for Tonks. He knew how much Christmas and decorating meant to her, and that she had spent hours to make the place look cosy and Christmassy.
Sirius shook his head. “I knew it.”
“Sirius, calm down. You truly became cynic in Azkaban,” Remus said. “I remember when you yourself helped Nymphadora to decorate Andromeda and Ted’s house. It looked a lot like this.”
“I can’t remember that,” Sirius opposed. At the same time Tonks muttered something about her given name, but Remus ignored it, like always.
“You know, that Christmas when James and Lily had just had Harry, and we decided to spend Christmas at my house to give them privacy.”
“Oh. That,” Sirius said. He started smiling. “That was fun. You remember anything about that, Tonksie?”
“Not really,” Tonks admitted. “But I’d like to hear.”
Remus led them to the library where not every chair was covered with decorations. They sat down, and Remus began: “So, Nymphadora - yes, I know, Tonks - you must have been six years old…”
***
“Hey, Moony, Andromeda just sent me an owl asking if we could look after Nymphadora tomorrow while they’re doing their Christmas shopping,” Sirius yelled from across the house to Remus. Luckily the house wasn’t that big and Remus had heard it all.
“Sure, okay,” he shouted back. He was in the middle of baking gingerbreads, and decided to do something special for little Nymphadora. It was four days until Christmas, and Remus, an expert in the field of holiday planning and execution, was right on his schedule. He was a little bit sorry about the fact that now with this baby-sitting he’d have to reschedule some arrangements, but it certainly would be nice to see the Tonks family again.
The next day Sirius and Remus Apparated to the Tonks house at noon. Sirius was still yawning but nonetheless exited about seeing her cousin’s little daughter again. She had, by far, become his favourite relative.
Remus rang the doorbell. Immediately they heard someone shouting inside, then the sound of two, or maybe three, chairs falling over, and finally after good couple of minutes a six-year old girl with red and green hair opened the door. As soon as she saw them, she started smiling brilliantly.
“MUM, THEY’RE HERE!” she informed Andromeda with an unnecessary loud voice considering that Andromeda was by her side in just seconds.
“Yes, darling - Sirius, Remus, I’m so glad you could make it. It’s… It’s not safe for neither Ted or me to go much out alone these days,” she said. Although her voice gave away her tiredness, she looked gorgeous for a stay-at-home mum. Not a single strand of her hair was out of place, she had make-up on, and her clothes were spotless.
Andromeda was already on her way to upstairs when she noticed the two young men still standing in the doorway. “Come on in, I’ll go tell Ted you’re here so we can go,” she said, smiling.
Remus and Sirius did as they were told and took off their winter coats and boots while Nymphadora was going on and on about all the things they could do that day. They all went to the Tonks’ spacious living room to wait for Nymphadora’s parents. Sirius pointed out that the room was quite bleak despite the proximity of Christmas and that they should decorate it. Remus nodded absentmindedly and tried to keep up with all the things the little girl was talking about.
Soon Andromeda and Ted were downstairs. Andromeda gave them some final pieces of advice (“Remember to eat at some point, there’s fish and pasta in the fridge, if you go out, don’t forget the scarf, we’ll be back by six, bye bye, Dora, darling”) and before Sirius and Remus knew it, they had already left.
“Alright, Nymphie, what do you say if we surprised Mum and Dad by decorating your whole house?” Sirius asked with a hint of mischief in his voice. Remus eyed him suspiciously. There was something going on, but he just wasn’t sure of what it was.
“Yeah,” Nymphadora said excitedly. “Mum took out the decorations but she hasn’t had time to put them up yet.”
Sirius grinned and went to get the decorations with Nymphadora. They soon came back with a giant box filled with sparkly ornaments, and in less than an hour the house was filled with red, green and golden all the way from basement to attic. It looked horrible.
Sirius and Nymphadora stopped to see what they had done - the girl beamed with joy, the man tried to hold back laughter. He knew Andromeda wouldn’t be happy when she’d return, but her shock would well be worth the effort.
“Um, Sirius,” Remus called hesitantly, “you do know that the hologram of Father Christmas is a bit too much, don’t you?”
Nymphadora had heard that. She turned around and looked at Remus with wide eyes. “Don’t you like it?”
Remus opened his mouth prepared to give an honest answer, but he could already see the girl’s eyes tearing up. “Of course I like it.”
Nymphadora smiled again.
***
“You should’ve seen Dromeda’s face when they came back home that day,” Sirius said to Tonks. “I have probably never seen such a mixture of utter shock, disbelief and horror. Right until the moment she saw you she thought she’d got the wrong house.”
Tonks giggled. “Actually I do remember something about that day - come to think of it, you might well be the reason for my Christmas obsession.”
Remus looked at Tonks, wondering whether it was wrong or not to want to kiss a young woman he had once baby-sat.
Sirius suddenly clapped his hands. “Moony - if you didn’t like the decorations back then in the eighties, and these now are similar, that must mean that you don’t like these either?”
“Eh, Padfoot…”
“It’s okay, Remus. I know someone might call it a bit over the top,” Tonks admitted. “Anyway, boys, I have to be going now. I’ve got work tomorrow.”
“I’ll walk you to the door,” Remus volunteered. When they were in the middle of the doorway Sirius all of the sudden told them to stop.
“What is it?” Tonks asked.
Sirius simply grinned once more and pointed above their heads. They both looked up to see mistletoe Tonks had put up earlier.
Remus laughed nervously. Tonks looked at him, biting her lip.
“Come on,” Sirius hurried them. Remus didn’t even hear him.
He lowered his head a little, then stopped to hesitate. Tonks quickly closed the gap between their lips. The kiss was soft and quite innocent, but enough for both Remus and Tonks not to be able to sleep well the following night.
***
After Andromeda overcame her shock and had magically toned down the decorations she made tea for everyone. At half past seven Sirius and Remus were leaving. They had just put on their coats when Nymphadora came to greet them once more.
“Merry Christmas, Sirius,” she said. Then she added shyly, “merry Christmas, Remus.”
The boys wished her the same, and Remus was just about to move when Sirius stopped him. “Hey, Nymphie, look up.”
Nymphadora raised her eyes and saw mistletoe. She blushed. Remus glanced at Sirius.
“Go on, kiss her,” he said.
Remus bent down and kissed Nymphadora quickly on the cheek. Nymphadora smiled and returned the gesture.
“Bye,” she said quietly.
When the door closed and the boys were outside Sirius started laughing.
“I’m telling you, she likes you,” he teased.
“Whatever,” Remus said. He smiled.
Author: sharo_8760
Rating: PG
Warnings: -
Prompt: Everybody knows a turkey and some mistletoe / Help to make the season bright / Tiny tots with their eyes all a-glow / Will find it hard to sleep tonight - The Christmas Song
Format and Word Count: One-shot, 1706
Summary: Tonks is a bit excessive with decorations, which leads the thoughts of our three heroes to a Christmas years and years ago. And there's some mistletoe, too.
Author's Notes: I’m not late, am I? Sorry, I’ve been a little sick lately and confused about the time zones. Anyway, as my native isn’t English, I want apologize for all the possible mistakes I’ve made and would appreciate it if you told me about them so I could improve my writing. Thank you and happy 2011!
Of Baby-Sitters and Christmas Decorations
When Tonks had seen 12 Grimmauld Place for the first time, she would never have imagined the den to ever look like this. There were Christmas decorations everywhere, and the whole house was bursting with holiday glee. And the most amazing thing was that Tonks had decorated the place herself. She looked around the living room. It was full of bright colors, glitter, tiny reindeer charmed to run around the room and fake snow falling slowly from the ceiling. It looked… magical.
“Merlin’s beard, what’s happened here?” Tonks suddenly heard an all too familiar sound coming from the door.
“What do you mean, Sirius?” she asked turning around to face her cousin.
Sirius raised his eyebrows. “What do I mean? I mean the fact that someone has stolen the whole Britain’s tacky Christmas décor and put it here.”
Tonks looked around again. “I think it looks great,” she said decisively.
“Oh, you did this, then,” Sirius sighed. “Should’ve guessed.”
Tonks bit her lower lip to stop herself from saying anything nasty. It was Christmas, after all, the season of joy.
“I mean, it’s not even Christmas yet,” Sirius added, “it’s bloody November.”
Tonks let out a yell of frustration and ran to the library to look for Remus. He was sitting in his usual armchair, reading one of his usual books, and, in Tonks’s opinion, looking adorable, as per usual.
“Remus,” she began. No reaction.
“Remus,” she repeated, more loudly this time. He lifted his eyes from the book and smiled to Tonks.
“I need your opinion on something. Follow me.”
Remus rose from the chair after placing his bookmark carefully between pages. He left the book on the chair. “What is it?”
Tonks led him to the living room, where Sirius had sat down on the only seat that wasn’t covered with glitter or snow man figures. He was grinning smugly until he saw Remus. “What? He’s going to be our judge? Tonks, you know whose side he’ll take.”
Remus looked suspiciously at both of them. “What’s going on?”
“Well, Tonks here has -,” Sirius began, but Tonks cut in.
“What do you think about the decorations of this room?”
“Well,” Remus began carefully, wondering what he should think about it. “I think it’s a, um, nice follow-up to the library’s decorations, it… Tops them anytime.”
A bright smile flashed on Tonks’s face. “So you like it?”
“He didn’t say that,” Sirius pointed out. Tonks glared at him angrily before they both fixed their eyes on Remus, waiting for him to continue. He swallowed quickly.
“It’s bright, eh, and cheerful, and very colourful - I… It looks fantastic.”
Remus Lupin certainly wasn’t stupid enough to ruin the moment for Tonks. He knew how much Christmas and decorating meant to her, and that she had spent hours to make the place look cosy and Christmassy.
Sirius shook his head. “I knew it.”
“Sirius, calm down. You truly became cynic in Azkaban,” Remus said. “I remember when you yourself helped Nymphadora to decorate Andromeda and Ted’s house. It looked a lot like this.”
“I can’t remember that,” Sirius opposed. At the same time Tonks muttered something about her given name, but Remus ignored it, like always.
“You know, that Christmas when James and Lily had just had Harry, and we decided to spend Christmas at my house to give them privacy.”
“Oh. That,” Sirius said. He started smiling. “That was fun. You remember anything about that, Tonksie?”
“Not really,” Tonks admitted. “But I’d like to hear.”
Remus led them to the library where not every chair was covered with decorations. They sat down, and Remus began: “So, Nymphadora - yes, I know, Tonks - you must have been six years old…”
***
“Hey, Moony, Andromeda just sent me an owl asking if we could look after Nymphadora tomorrow while they’re doing their Christmas shopping,” Sirius yelled from across the house to Remus. Luckily the house wasn’t that big and Remus had heard it all.
“Sure, okay,” he shouted back. He was in the middle of baking gingerbreads, and decided to do something special for little Nymphadora. It was four days until Christmas, and Remus, an expert in the field of holiday planning and execution, was right on his schedule. He was a little bit sorry about the fact that now with this baby-sitting he’d have to reschedule some arrangements, but it certainly would be nice to see the Tonks family again.
The next day Sirius and Remus Apparated to the Tonks house at noon. Sirius was still yawning but nonetheless exited about seeing her cousin’s little daughter again. She had, by far, become his favourite relative.
Remus rang the doorbell. Immediately they heard someone shouting inside, then the sound of two, or maybe three, chairs falling over, and finally after good couple of minutes a six-year old girl with red and green hair opened the door. As soon as she saw them, she started smiling brilliantly.
“MUM, THEY’RE HERE!” she informed Andromeda with an unnecessary loud voice considering that Andromeda was by her side in just seconds.
“Yes, darling - Sirius, Remus, I’m so glad you could make it. It’s… It’s not safe for neither Ted or me to go much out alone these days,” she said. Although her voice gave away her tiredness, she looked gorgeous for a stay-at-home mum. Not a single strand of her hair was out of place, she had make-up on, and her clothes were spotless.
Andromeda was already on her way to upstairs when she noticed the two young men still standing in the doorway. “Come on in, I’ll go tell Ted you’re here so we can go,” she said, smiling.
Remus and Sirius did as they were told and took off their winter coats and boots while Nymphadora was going on and on about all the things they could do that day. They all went to the Tonks’ spacious living room to wait for Nymphadora’s parents. Sirius pointed out that the room was quite bleak despite the proximity of Christmas and that they should decorate it. Remus nodded absentmindedly and tried to keep up with all the things the little girl was talking about.
Soon Andromeda and Ted were downstairs. Andromeda gave them some final pieces of advice (“Remember to eat at some point, there’s fish and pasta in the fridge, if you go out, don’t forget the scarf, we’ll be back by six, bye bye, Dora, darling”) and before Sirius and Remus knew it, they had already left.
“Alright, Nymphie, what do you say if we surprised Mum and Dad by decorating your whole house?” Sirius asked with a hint of mischief in his voice. Remus eyed him suspiciously. There was something going on, but he just wasn’t sure of what it was.
“Yeah,” Nymphadora said excitedly. “Mum took out the decorations but she hasn’t had time to put them up yet.”
Sirius grinned and went to get the decorations with Nymphadora. They soon came back with a giant box filled with sparkly ornaments, and in less than an hour the house was filled with red, green and golden all the way from basement to attic. It looked horrible.
Sirius and Nymphadora stopped to see what they had done - the girl beamed with joy, the man tried to hold back laughter. He knew Andromeda wouldn’t be happy when she’d return, but her shock would well be worth the effort.
“Um, Sirius,” Remus called hesitantly, “you do know that the hologram of Father Christmas is a bit too much, don’t you?”
Nymphadora had heard that. She turned around and looked at Remus with wide eyes. “Don’t you like it?”
Remus opened his mouth prepared to give an honest answer, but he could already see the girl’s eyes tearing up. “Of course I like it.”
Nymphadora smiled again.
***
“You should’ve seen Dromeda’s face when they came back home that day,” Sirius said to Tonks. “I have probably never seen such a mixture of utter shock, disbelief and horror. Right until the moment she saw you she thought she’d got the wrong house.”
Tonks giggled. “Actually I do remember something about that day - come to think of it, you might well be the reason for my Christmas obsession.”
Remus looked at Tonks, wondering whether it was wrong or not to want to kiss a young woman he had once baby-sat.
Sirius suddenly clapped his hands. “Moony - if you didn’t like the decorations back then in the eighties, and these now are similar, that must mean that you don’t like these either?”
“Eh, Padfoot…”
“It’s okay, Remus. I know someone might call it a bit over the top,” Tonks admitted. “Anyway, boys, I have to be going now. I’ve got work tomorrow.”
“I’ll walk you to the door,” Remus volunteered. When they were in the middle of the doorway Sirius all of the sudden told them to stop.
“What is it?” Tonks asked.
Sirius simply grinned once more and pointed above their heads. They both looked up to see mistletoe Tonks had put up earlier.
Remus laughed nervously. Tonks looked at him, biting her lip.
“Come on,” Sirius hurried them. Remus didn’t even hear him.
He lowered his head a little, then stopped to hesitate. Tonks quickly closed the gap between their lips. The kiss was soft and quite innocent, but enough for both Remus and Tonks not to be able to sleep well the following night.
***
After Andromeda overcame her shock and had magically toned down the decorations she made tea for everyone. At half past seven Sirius and Remus were leaving. They had just put on their coats when Nymphadora came to greet them once more.
“Merry Christmas, Sirius,” she said. Then she added shyly, “merry Christmas, Remus.”
The boys wished her the same, and Remus was just about to move when Sirius stopped him. “Hey, Nymphie, look up.”
Nymphadora raised her eyes and saw mistletoe. She blushed. Remus glanced at Sirius.
“Go on, kiss her,” he said.
Remus bent down and kissed Nymphadora quickly on the cheek. Nymphadora smiled and returned the gesture.
“Bye,” she said quietly.
When the door closed and the boys were outside Sirius started laughing.
“I’m telling you, she likes you,” he teased.
“Whatever,” Remus said. He smiled.