[Kaleidoscope update] Words Unspoken
Okay -- I have to admit that I'm a little excited to post this one. This installment fills in the last missing piece of the OotP "book" of Kaleidoscope, which I'm calling Colours. (Well, technically I still need to rewrite "Gather Up the Fragments" and "Clarity" into one unified chapter, but.) This means I have actually (*gasp*) finished something. ;)
If you've been following Kaleidoscope, you may be able to guess what crucial Tonks-related event was still missing from the OotP timeline, heh. This story fits in between The Things We Remember (OotP Christmas) and Unforeseen Attachments (the one with the Weasley twins and the Permanent Sticking Charm). The first scene incorporates a Women's Day drabble I wrote a couple of years ago for a prompt from gilpin25.
Chapter 7
Words Unspoken
“Oh, bloody hell.”
Tonks crashed through the living room, knocking a pile of parchments to the floor. Nobody ever buzzed her flat unless she was already late for something.
Muttering more curses, she pressed her wand to the intercom. “Hello! Who’s there?”
“Your mother.”
Tonks closed her eyes. This was just getting better and better.
“I’m on my way out,” she said, carefully. “But do you want to come up for a minute?”
“That would be lovely!” The sarcasm was not obscured by the intercom.
Tonks cast the charm that would release the entrance door down in the foyer and vented a deep, frustrated sigh, succumbing to the temptation to hide her face behind her hands. But then she gave herself a quick shake and pointed her wand at the snowdrift of top-secret documents she had just sent sprawling. After a false start or two, she succeeded in Banishing them, along with a pile of clean (...she thought) laundry, to the bedroom, just as a brisk knock sounded at the door.
She pulled it open. “Wotcher, Mum.”
“Hello, Nymphadora.”
Her mother was as elegant and poised as always, although the smile she wore was slightly brittle.
“You’re really on your way out? Can’t you chat for a few minutes?”
Tonks swallowed. “I have a shift.” Which was true enough.
“You’re going to work in that?” Mum raised her eyebrows at the ripped jeans and black dragonhide jacket.
Tonks shrugged. “Surveillance.” And it was-only, not for the Aurors.
“Nymphadora-” A flash of hurt surfaced in Mum’s grey eyes. “You’re never here when I Floo, and you never come for Sunday lunch any more. I feel I hardly know you these days.”
You don’t. And I can’t even tell you why.
I’m sorry.
“I’ve really got to go, Mum. I’m about to be late.” She bit her lip. “I’ll come for lunch this Sunday, all right? I promise.”
“We’ll look forward to it,” Mum said, stiffly.
Tonks followed her mother out of the flat, locking the door behind them. “My love to Dad, yeah?”
She stared at her boots as she spun in place and Disapparated. That was easier than looking her mother in the eye.
~ * ~
When Tonks finally Apparated into the small forest clearing that was their planned meeting point, Remus was already there. Naturally. He’d probably never been late for anything in his life.
She couldn’t decide if it was better or worse that Remus was her partner for this mission. Of all the members of the Order, he was probably the least likely to be annoyed at her for being slightly behind schedule. But on the other hand-somehow, being less than perfectly competent stung the most when Remus was the one who saw her.
“Sorry I’m late,” she muttered, Metamorphosing away the blush she could feel trying to spread across her face. “Something came up just as I was trying to leave.”
“Not at all. We’re here in plenty of time,” said Remus easily. “Hello, by the way.” The smile he had for her was just as warm as always-he looked, if anything, happy to see her, and that warmed her right through.
“Wotcher.” She managed a sheepish grin.
“Macnair’s hunting lodge is just through there.” Remus gestured toward a path that wound out of the clearing and was soon hidden from view, even by the bare winter trees, as the forest thickened. “According to Severus’s report, we should have a couple of hours before the Death Eaters’ meeting starts.”
They crept through the wood, casting spell after spell to check for danger, but all they found was one simple Monitoring Charm that was easy to confuse.
“Severus was right,” said Remus, raising an eyebrow. “There’s almost no protection here at all. I suppose they think this location is too remote for anyone to find.”
“Lucky for us,” said Tonks, crossing her fingers just in case.
She wished they could set a couple of the Weasley twins’ Extendable Ears at strategic points in the hunting lodge, but it was too risky; even Disillusioned, the Ears might be discovered. At least she and Remus would be able to see who came to the meeting, and if there were any new Death-Eater recruits, they might be able to identify them.
The two of them explored the terrain all around the hunting lodge. At the edge of the clearing, off to one side, was a particularly promising thick, tangled thornbush.
“There’s our spot, I reckon,” said Tonks.
Remus nodded. “An excellent choice.”
They settled down behind the thornbush. Tonks propped her back against a tree and surgically removed a few small branches from the bush until she had a secret but unobstructed view of the path through the wood and the entrance to the lodge.
Now there was nothing to do but wait.
Wait, and remember how hurt Mum had looked.
“Tonks?”
She blinked. Remus was holding a battered Muggle vacuum flask in one hand and trying to pass her a tin cup of hot tea with the other.
“Oh,” she said, hiding another blush as she took the cup from him. “Ta.” She sniffed at the smoky flavour that wafted up, along with the steam. “It’s that nice lapsang souchong, isn’t it?”
“From my Christmas stash.” Remus raised his own cup in salute.
They sipped. The tea tasted as nice as it smelled.
But it didn’t take long for Tonks to start worrying again, staring across her teacup at her knees.
“Erm.” Remus broke the silence again, with a rather uncharacteristic lack of eloquence. “Nymphadora?”
“Don’t call me Nymphadora,” she said automatically, but she couldn’t help the shadow of a grin tugging at her lips as she turned to face him. She’d begun to find she didn’t mind that name quite so much when he was the one who used it.
“Are you all right?” Remus started to reach out toward her, but then he dropped his hand and wrapped it around his teacup instead.
She felt oddly disappointed.
But he was still looking at her, carefully, with the full weight of his attention. And that made her shiver.
What was wrong with her today?
“You’re awfully quiet.” Remus leaned toward her a little, drawing his eyebrows together. “You’re not truly worried about being a couple of minutes late, are you? We left ourselves a two-hour buffer before the meeting. One or two minutes couldn’t possibly make any difference.”
“No.” She tried a smile. “I am sorry I was late. But I know it doesn’t really matter all that much.”
Remus nodded, but he was still watching her, and the kindness, the warmth in his eyes brought a lump to her throat.
“It’s just-it’s my parents,” she said, the words spilling out. “There’s so much I can’t tell them-about the Order, about Sirius. I’m actually avoiding them, these days, because it’s so hard to know what to talk about. And Mum’s noticed, and it’s hurt her feelings.” She laughed, humourlessly. “That’s why I was late. Because I had to ignore her questions and walk away when she wanted to know why I haven’t been visiting.”
Tonks clamped her mouth shut, wincing. Merlin, now I’m whinging like a homesick schoolgirl.
She looked sideways at Remus, hiding her face behind the dark-brown hair she’d chosen today for camouflage. “Only it’s stupid, really, to worry about something like that, when we’ve got important things to think about.” She waved an arm in the general direction of the hunting lodge, and managed a grin, although she could tell it was a rather stiff one. “Sorry for venting at you.”
“But it’s not stupid. Not in the least.”
She blinked and looked up at him again, surprised by the steel in his voice.
He held her gaze. His eyes were every bit as open and unguarded as they were after moons, when he was too exhausted to keep up his usual careful reserve. But surely that wasn’t the case now.
Surely-he was deliberately letting her in.
Tonks swallowed.
And then he reached out again, only this time, he didn’t stop halfway. He curled his fingers around hers, where her hand rested on her knee.
His hand was warm, even on this chilly day. His fingers were strong, and rough-skinned, and impossibly gentle all at once.
She shivered again.
“Your instincts are spot-on,” he said. “You’re right to be wary of secrets. They-build walls.”
Tonks drew a quick breath as it dawned on her what Remus must be thinking about. A boy with a secret as big as lycanthropy would have had a lonely childhood, indeed.
All she could do was tighten her fingers around his.
His hand squeezed hers back. “Even though you can’t tell your parents about the Order, don’t let that keep you away from them altogether. You don’t want to wake up one day and find you’ve drifted too far apart to rebuild what you once had.”
She watched his face change, then, saw the pain that darkened his eyes.
Of course.
It wasn’t only his childhood that Remus was remembering.
Sirius had told her, once, that what went wrong when the Marauders stopped trusting each other had itself started with harmless secrets, rooted in pride and shame. And there were twelve more years after that, after James and Lily died and Sirius was thrown into Azkaban, when Remus had been left alone with his secrets again.
Tonks blinked, hard.
“You’ve had to keep a lot of secrets, haven’t you,” she whispered. “All your life.”
He stiffened.
She bit her tongue, silently cursing herself for spoiling this unexpected gift of trust. There was no faster way to send Remus back behind his polite, careful mask than by asking personal questions.
Except that this time, all he did was to take a deep breath and smile at her. A sheepish, crooked smile that made something thump in the pit of her stomach.
“Sometimes I’ve had friends to share my secrets,” he said. “That makes all the difference in the world. And that’s what we’ve got again now, all of us in the Order.”
Tonks found herself itching to run a fingertip over that crooked smile, to brush her palm against the faint trace of stubble she could see on his cheek in the weak winter sunlight, to touch the greying brown hair that curled against his collar and see if it was really as soft as it looked. Instead, she clutched the tin cup of lapsang souchong that he had brought for her and tried to remember to keep breathing.
His thumb scuffed across her knuckles, and he gave her hand another quick squeeze before letting go.
She shivered yet again, feeling elated because he’d touched her, and bereft because he’d stopped.
And she understood, finally, what was wrong with her today.
Remus visibly shook off his melancholy mood. “So, will you go and see your parents soon?” His smile was a mischievous challenge now.
“Oh, I will.” She grinned at him, as cheerily-as normally-as she could. “I’ve already promised them I’ll be there for Sunday lunch.”
“I’m glad.” Remus cast a Warming Charm on his tea and sipped at it again. “And I know it’s tricky to manage, but do tell them whatever you can about how you spend your days. It’s best not to keep any more secrets than you absolutely have to.”
He was right, of course.
Only, now Tonks had yet another secret to keep. One she wouldn’t have guessed even a quarter of an hour ago-although she rather suspected it may have been true for a while already.
~ * ~
“Feel like a few rounds of Exploding Poker before you go, peanut?”
It hadn’t been a full Order meeting tonight, only Tonks and Remus debriefing Dumbledore and Mad-Eye about what they’d seen at the Death Eater gathering at Macnair’s hunting lodge. But Tonks had stayed behind afterward, as usual. Now Sirius was making hopeful-puppy eyes at her across a glass of firewhisky.
“Why not?” said Tonks at once. She looked carefully to her right, where Remus sat scratching notes on a tattered piece of parchment. “Remus? You in?”
He looked up and smiled at her. “Of course.”
Tonks reckoned she’d had a lot of practice deciphering Remus’s smiles, by now. There was the quiet, kind smile with which he habitually greeted the world while revealing very little of himself. There was the swift smile that might cross his face when he was feeling uncertain. There was the extremely rare (and, she suspected, completely involuntary) flash of joy that lit him up from the inside like a flare. There was the one that hurt to see, the fixed, careful mask of a smile that slammed into place when he was particularly uncomfortable.
And then there was the smile he shared on purpose, the one that warmed his eyes-the one she’d been lucky enough to startle out of him first thing, when she’d made Sirius laugh at her first Order meeting. She hadn’t realised, at the time, how unusual it was for Remus to show his real smile right away like that. But now she knew that he saved it for Sirius and Harry, for the Weasleys, for Hermione. Some of the other Order members got it occasionally-Dumbledore, Kingsley, Mad-Eye, McGonagall.
He gave it to her, too. Every time she saw him.
Getting to see Remus’s real smile was not a trivial thing.
Which was why Tonks felt more than a little selfish for having begun to wish he would give her a different kind of smile. One that was only for her.
“I’ll deal,” said Sirius, predictably.
“Think he’s stacked the deck this time?” Tonks nudged Remus with her shoulder.
His warm smile washed over her again, laced with a spark of mischief. “Can’t be. After the last time we played, I Charmed his cards to be impervious to cheating spells.”
“Moony, you wound me!” Sirius clutched dramatically at his heart.
Tonks laughed.
Remus caught her eye, and the two of them laughed harder.
Her stomach thumped, in that new way that had become so familiar so fast, when she thought about how boyish-how carefree-he looked when he was laughing like that.
Merlin, she had it bad.
And she didn’t know how to flirt.
She hadn’t been the least bit interested in that sort of thing at school; she’d just wanted friends, not awkward snogs in the corridors after curfew. And since starting with the Aurors, well-it was hard enough trying to prove herself, especially as a Metamorphmagus. There really wasn’t time to muck about with flirting.
Which left her, now that it mattered, with absolutely no idea what to do.
“You going to fold there, peanut?” Sirius poked her shoulder.
“Not me,” she sent back automatically, although she’d already forgotten what cards were in her hand. “I’ll see your week of washing dishes and raise you a week of reading out loud-book to be chosen by the winner.”
Then she went back to Remus-watching, as he peered carefully at his own hand.
He liked her. That, she was sure of-the fact that he let her have his real smile was proof enough.
Was there anything more?
If there wasn’t, and she let it slip that she fancied him, that would be the end of their friendship. He would put up all his masks and walls, and never come out from behind them again.
There was nothing for it-she would have to wait, and watch, and see if the smile he had for her ever changed.
“Come on, Moony!” Sirius tossed back the rest of the shot of firewhisky he’d been nursing. “Are you wagering or folding?”
Remus threw down his cards in mock-disgust, pretending to grumble. Tonks touched his arm and let her fingers stay there a heartbeat longer than she would have done a week ago.
He grinned at her with the warm, casual grin of a good friend.
Tonks squared her shoulders and smiled brightly back, swallowing her secret again.
~ * ~
“More chicken, Dora?”
“Thanks, Dad. It’s really nice.” Tonks held up her plate, and her father guided another juicy slice onto it, along with a healthy scoop of jacket potatoes and another of stewed pumpkin.
“Be sure to leave room,” he said, rather hypocritically. “There’s sticky toffee pudding.”
“Your father was even more inspired than usual in his menu-planning today,” said her mother, with a pointed look. “Knowing you were coming for Sunday lunch. For a change.”
Tonks suppressed a sigh. “It’s been busy lately, that’s all. I’ll be able to come around more often now, I think.”
Unless Mum went on driving her completely batty.
“Is everything going all right at work?” asked Dad. “Only, you’ve been a little preoccupied, even today.”
“Erm,” said Tonks.
She rather thought Remus had a point about not keeping any more secrets than was absolutely necessary. But, even so, what could she actually say? I’m having my first-ever real crush, and it’s on one of my best friends, who I know from a secret illegal society, which, incidentally, is protecting Sirius, who-by the way-is innocent.
Hardly.
And she certainly couldn’t say, I’m worried because this friend of mine also happens to be a werewolf, and it cheers him up when I visit after the full moon, but yesterday when I saw the Auror duty roster I found out that I won’t be able to visit him this month, and just thinking about him looking disappointed when I tell him that breaks my heart.
“It’s nothing big,” she said at last. “I was just thinking about a friend who’s not”-who won’t be-“feeling so well, but with one thing and another I might not”-won’t-“be able to visit to cheer him up.”
“A friend?” asked Mum. “Someone we know?”
“Someone I work with,” said Tonks. At least that one was easy. It wasn’t her fault if her parents would assume she was talking about the Ministry.
“You could bake him something,” Dad suggested-no surprise there. Tonks grinned.
“There’s a crowd of us who get together some evenings after work,” she said, hardly stretching the truth at all, “and I take along a pudding sometimes. So I suppose I could do that.”
“Why not knit him something?” Mum raised an eyebrow. “A muffler, say, if he’s not feeling well. You could put to use all that time your grandmother Tonks spent teaching you how to knit.”
Tonks slowly put down her fork, feeling a smile break through. “That’s a nice idea, Mum.” Remus always seemed cold after moons. What if she did make him a thick, soft muffler? Something to warm him up.
Something he might wear close to his skin.
Tonks gave herself a mental shake, to stop that train of thought before it rolled along too far. Not at Mum’s dinner table, for Merlin’s sake!
She looked along the table, from Dad, who was grinning away with his proud of my Dora look, to Mum, who was actually looking mollified and even pleased now.
They wanted her to be their girl-to let them help her solve her problems. That was all it took to make them happy.
She could do this. She could come again for Sunday lunch, and tell them tiny pieces of the truth, and let them know she wasn’t forgetting them.
That wouldn’t be so hard.
It was the secret she was keeping from Remus that was going to be the tough one.
~ * ~
[ ← Chapter 6 | → Chapter 8 | ↑ Kaleidoscope series index ]
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If you've been following Kaleidoscope, you may be able to guess what crucial Tonks-related event was still missing from the OotP timeline, heh. This story fits in between The Things We Remember (OotP Christmas) and Unforeseen Attachments (the one with the Weasley twins and the Permanent Sticking Charm). The first scene incorporates a Women's Day drabble I wrote a couple of years ago for a prompt from gilpin25.
- Words Unspoken (3240 words | PG-13/mild profanity and very mild innuendo)
Tonks is having a hard time balancing her daily life with all the secrets she must keep for the Order. Remus gives her some advice -- and makes the whole situation that much more complicated.
Chapter 7
Words Unspoken
“Oh, bloody hell.”
Tonks crashed through the living room, knocking a pile of parchments to the floor. Nobody ever buzzed her flat unless she was already late for something.
Muttering more curses, she pressed her wand to the intercom. “Hello! Who’s there?”
“Your mother.”
Tonks closed her eyes. This was just getting better and better.
“I’m on my way out,” she said, carefully. “But do you want to come up for a minute?”
“That would be lovely!” The sarcasm was not obscured by the intercom.
Tonks cast the charm that would release the entrance door down in the foyer and vented a deep, frustrated sigh, succumbing to the temptation to hide her face behind her hands. But then she gave herself a quick shake and pointed her wand at the snowdrift of top-secret documents she had just sent sprawling. After a false start or two, she succeeded in Banishing them, along with a pile of clean (...she thought) laundry, to the bedroom, just as a brisk knock sounded at the door.
She pulled it open. “Wotcher, Mum.”
“Hello, Nymphadora.”
Her mother was as elegant and poised as always, although the smile she wore was slightly brittle.
“You’re really on your way out? Can’t you chat for a few minutes?”
Tonks swallowed. “I have a shift.” Which was true enough.
“You’re going to work in that?” Mum raised her eyebrows at the ripped jeans and black dragonhide jacket.
Tonks shrugged. “Surveillance.” And it was-only, not for the Aurors.
“Nymphadora-” A flash of hurt surfaced in Mum’s grey eyes. “You’re never here when I Floo, and you never come for Sunday lunch any more. I feel I hardly know you these days.”
You don’t. And I can’t even tell you why.
I’m sorry.
“I’ve really got to go, Mum. I’m about to be late.” She bit her lip. “I’ll come for lunch this Sunday, all right? I promise.”
“We’ll look forward to it,” Mum said, stiffly.
Tonks followed her mother out of the flat, locking the door behind them. “My love to Dad, yeah?”
She stared at her boots as she spun in place and Disapparated. That was easier than looking her mother in the eye.
~ * ~
When Tonks finally Apparated into the small forest clearing that was their planned meeting point, Remus was already there. Naturally. He’d probably never been late for anything in his life.
She couldn’t decide if it was better or worse that Remus was her partner for this mission. Of all the members of the Order, he was probably the least likely to be annoyed at her for being slightly behind schedule. But on the other hand-somehow, being less than perfectly competent stung the most when Remus was the one who saw her.
“Sorry I’m late,” she muttered, Metamorphosing away the blush she could feel trying to spread across her face. “Something came up just as I was trying to leave.”
“Not at all. We’re here in plenty of time,” said Remus easily. “Hello, by the way.” The smile he had for her was just as warm as always-he looked, if anything, happy to see her, and that warmed her right through.
“Wotcher.” She managed a sheepish grin.
“Macnair’s hunting lodge is just through there.” Remus gestured toward a path that wound out of the clearing and was soon hidden from view, even by the bare winter trees, as the forest thickened. “According to Severus’s report, we should have a couple of hours before the Death Eaters’ meeting starts.”
They crept through the wood, casting spell after spell to check for danger, but all they found was one simple Monitoring Charm that was easy to confuse.
“Severus was right,” said Remus, raising an eyebrow. “There’s almost no protection here at all. I suppose they think this location is too remote for anyone to find.”
“Lucky for us,” said Tonks, crossing her fingers just in case.
She wished they could set a couple of the Weasley twins’ Extendable Ears at strategic points in the hunting lodge, but it was too risky; even Disillusioned, the Ears might be discovered. At least she and Remus would be able to see who came to the meeting, and if there were any new Death-Eater recruits, they might be able to identify them.
The two of them explored the terrain all around the hunting lodge. At the edge of the clearing, off to one side, was a particularly promising thick, tangled thornbush.
“There’s our spot, I reckon,” said Tonks.
Remus nodded. “An excellent choice.”
They settled down behind the thornbush. Tonks propped her back against a tree and surgically removed a few small branches from the bush until she had a secret but unobstructed view of the path through the wood and the entrance to the lodge.
Now there was nothing to do but wait.
Wait, and remember how hurt Mum had looked.
“Tonks?”
She blinked. Remus was holding a battered Muggle vacuum flask in one hand and trying to pass her a tin cup of hot tea with the other.
“Oh,” she said, hiding another blush as she took the cup from him. “Ta.” She sniffed at the smoky flavour that wafted up, along with the steam. “It’s that nice lapsang souchong, isn’t it?”
“From my Christmas stash.” Remus raised his own cup in salute.
They sipped. The tea tasted as nice as it smelled.
But it didn’t take long for Tonks to start worrying again, staring across her teacup at her knees.
“Erm.” Remus broke the silence again, with a rather uncharacteristic lack of eloquence. “Nymphadora?”
“Don’t call me Nymphadora,” she said automatically, but she couldn’t help the shadow of a grin tugging at her lips as she turned to face him. She’d begun to find she didn’t mind that name quite so much when he was the one who used it.
“Are you all right?” Remus started to reach out toward her, but then he dropped his hand and wrapped it around his teacup instead.
She felt oddly disappointed.
But he was still looking at her, carefully, with the full weight of his attention. And that made her shiver.
What was wrong with her today?
“You’re awfully quiet.” Remus leaned toward her a little, drawing his eyebrows together. “You’re not truly worried about being a couple of minutes late, are you? We left ourselves a two-hour buffer before the meeting. One or two minutes couldn’t possibly make any difference.”
“No.” She tried a smile. “I am sorry I was late. But I know it doesn’t really matter all that much.”
Remus nodded, but he was still watching her, and the kindness, the warmth in his eyes brought a lump to her throat.
“It’s just-it’s my parents,” she said, the words spilling out. “There’s so much I can’t tell them-about the Order, about Sirius. I’m actually avoiding them, these days, because it’s so hard to know what to talk about. And Mum’s noticed, and it’s hurt her feelings.” She laughed, humourlessly. “That’s why I was late. Because I had to ignore her questions and walk away when she wanted to know why I haven’t been visiting.”
Tonks clamped her mouth shut, wincing. Merlin, now I’m whinging like a homesick schoolgirl.
She looked sideways at Remus, hiding her face behind the dark-brown hair she’d chosen today for camouflage. “Only it’s stupid, really, to worry about something like that, when we’ve got important things to think about.” She waved an arm in the general direction of the hunting lodge, and managed a grin, although she could tell it was a rather stiff one. “Sorry for venting at you.”
“But it’s not stupid. Not in the least.”
She blinked and looked up at him again, surprised by the steel in his voice.
He held her gaze. His eyes were every bit as open and unguarded as they were after moons, when he was too exhausted to keep up his usual careful reserve. But surely that wasn’t the case now.
Surely-he was deliberately letting her in.
Tonks swallowed.
And then he reached out again, only this time, he didn’t stop halfway. He curled his fingers around hers, where her hand rested on her knee.
His hand was warm, even on this chilly day. His fingers were strong, and rough-skinned, and impossibly gentle all at once.
She shivered again.
“Your instincts are spot-on,” he said. “You’re right to be wary of secrets. They-build walls.”
Tonks drew a quick breath as it dawned on her what Remus must be thinking about. A boy with a secret as big as lycanthropy would have had a lonely childhood, indeed.
All she could do was tighten her fingers around his.
His hand squeezed hers back. “Even though you can’t tell your parents about the Order, don’t let that keep you away from them altogether. You don’t want to wake up one day and find you’ve drifted too far apart to rebuild what you once had.”
She watched his face change, then, saw the pain that darkened his eyes.
Of course.
It wasn’t only his childhood that Remus was remembering.
Sirius had told her, once, that what went wrong when the Marauders stopped trusting each other had itself started with harmless secrets, rooted in pride and shame. And there were twelve more years after that, after James and Lily died and Sirius was thrown into Azkaban, when Remus had been left alone with his secrets again.
Tonks blinked, hard.
“You’ve had to keep a lot of secrets, haven’t you,” she whispered. “All your life.”
He stiffened.
She bit her tongue, silently cursing herself for spoiling this unexpected gift of trust. There was no faster way to send Remus back behind his polite, careful mask than by asking personal questions.
Except that this time, all he did was to take a deep breath and smile at her. A sheepish, crooked smile that made something thump in the pit of her stomach.
“Sometimes I’ve had friends to share my secrets,” he said. “That makes all the difference in the world. And that’s what we’ve got again now, all of us in the Order.”
Tonks found herself itching to run a fingertip over that crooked smile, to brush her palm against the faint trace of stubble she could see on his cheek in the weak winter sunlight, to touch the greying brown hair that curled against his collar and see if it was really as soft as it looked. Instead, she clutched the tin cup of lapsang souchong that he had brought for her and tried to remember to keep breathing.
His thumb scuffed across her knuckles, and he gave her hand another quick squeeze before letting go.
She shivered yet again, feeling elated because he’d touched her, and bereft because he’d stopped.
And she understood, finally, what was wrong with her today.
Remus visibly shook off his melancholy mood. “So, will you go and see your parents soon?” His smile was a mischievous challenge now.
“Oh, I will.” She grinned at him, as cheerily-as normally-as she could. “I’ve already promised them I’ll be there for Sunday lunch.”
“I’m glad.” Remus cast a Warming Charm on his tea and sipped at it again. “And I know it’s tricky to manage, but do tell them whatever you can about how you spend your days. It’s best not to keep any more secrets than you absolutely have to.”
He was right, of course.
Only, now Tonks had yet another secret to keep. One she wouldn’t have guessed even a quarter of an hour ago-although she rather suspected it may have been true for a while already.
~ * ~
“Feel like a few rounds of Exploding Poker before you go, peanut?”
It hadn’t been a full Order meeting tonight, only Tonks and Remus debriefing Dumbledore and Mad-Eye about what they’d seen at the Death Eater gathering at Macnair’s hunting lodge. But Tonks had stayed behind afterward, as usual. Now Sirius was making hopeful-puppy eyes at her across a glass of firewhisky.
“Why not?” said Tonks at once. She looked carefully to her right, where Remus sat scratching notes on a tattered piece of parchment. “Remus? You in?”
He looked up and smiled at her. “Of course.”
Tonks reckoned she’d had a lot of practice deciphering Remus’s smiles, by now. There was the quiet, kind smile with which he habitually greeted the world while revealing very little of himself. There was the swift smile that might cross his face when he was feeling uncertain. There was the extremely rare (and, she suspected, completely involuntary) flash of joy that lit him up from the inside like a flare. There was the one that hurt to see, the fixed, careful mask of a smile that slammed into place when he was particularly uncomfortable.
And then there was the smile he shared on purpose, the one that warmed his eyes-the one she’d been lucky enough to startle out of him first thing, when she’d made Sirius laugh at her first Order meeting. She hadn’t realised, at the time, how unusual it was for Remus to show his real smile right away like that. But now she knew that he saved it for Sirius and Harry, for the Weasleys, for Hermione. Some of the other Order members got it occasionally-Dumbledore, Kingsley, Mad-Eye, McGonagall.
He gave it to her, too. Every time she saw him.
Getting to see Remus’s real smile was not a trivial thing.
Which was why Tonks felt more than a little selfish for having begun to wish he would give her a different kind of smile. One that was only for her.
“I’ll deal,” said Sirius, predictably.
“Think he’s stacked the deck this time?” Tonks nudged Remus with her shoulder.
His warm smile washed over her again, laced with a spark of mischief. “Can’t be. After the last time we played, I Charmed his cards to be impervious to cheating spells.”
“Moony, you wound me!” Sirius clutched dramatically at his heart.
Tonks laughed.
Remus caught her eye, and the two of them laughed harder.
Her stomach thumped, in that new way that had become so familiar so fast, when she thought about how boyish-how carefree-he looked when he was laughing like that.
Merlin, she had it bad.
And she didn’t know how to flirt.
She hadn’t been the least bit interested in that sort of thing at school; she’d just wanted friends, not awkward snogs in the corridors after curfew. And since starting with the Aurors, well-it was hard enough trying to prove herself, especially as a Metamorphmagus. There really wasn’t time to muck about with flirting.
Which left her, now that it mattered, with absolutely no idea what to do.
“You going to fold there, peanut?” Sirius poked her shoulder.
“Not me,” she sent back automatically, although she’d already forgotten what cards were in her hand. “I’ll see your week of washing dishes and raise you a week of reading out loud-book to be chosen by the winner.”
Then she went back to Remus-watching, as he peered carefully at his own hand.
He liked her. That, she was sure of-the fact that he let her have his real smile was proof enough.
Was there anything more?
If there wasn’t, and she let it slip that she fancied him, that would be the end of their friendship. He would put up all his masks and walls, and never come out from behind them again.
There was nothing for it-she would have to wait, and watch, and see if the smile he had for her ever changed.
“Come on, Moony!” Sirius tossed back the rest of the shot of firewhisky he’d been nursing. “Are you wagering or folding?”
Remus threw down his cards in mock-disgust, pretending to grumble. Tonks touched his arm and let her fingers stay there a heartbeat longer than she would have done a week ago.
He grinned at her with the warm, casual grin of a good friend.
Tonks squared her shoulders and smiled brightly back, swallowing her secret again.
~ * ~
“More chicken, Dora?”
“Thanks, Dad. It’s really nice.” Tonks held up her plate, and her father guided another juicy slice onto it, along with a healthy scoop of jacket potatoes and another of stewed pumpkin.
“Be sure to leave room,” he said, rather hypocritically. “There’s sticky toffee pudding.”
“Your father was even more inspired than usual in his menu-planning today,” said her mother, with a pointed look. “Knowing you were coming for Sunday lunch. For a change.”
Tonks suppressed a sigh. “It’s been busy lately, that’s all. I’ll be able to come around more often now, I think.”
Unless Mum went on driving her completely batty.
“Is everything going all right at work?” asked Dad. “Only, you’ve been a little preoccupied, even today.”
“Erm,” said Tonks.
She rather thought Remus had a point about not keeping any more secrets than was absolutely necessary. But, even so, what could she actually say? I’m having my first-ever real crush, and it’s on one of my best friends, who I know from a secret illegal society, which, incidentally, is protecting Sirius, who-by the way-is innocent.
Hardly.
And she certainly couldn’t say, I’m worried because this friend of mine also happens to be a werewolf, and it cheers him up when I visit after the full moon, but yesterday when I saw the Auror duty roster I found out that I won’t be able to visit him this month, and just thinking about him looking disappointed when I tell him that breaks my heart.
“It’s nothing big,” she said at last. “I was just thinking about a friend who’s not”-who won’t be-“feeling so well, but with one thing and another I might not”-won’t-“be able to visit to cheer him up.”
“A friend?” asked Mum. “Someone we know?”
“Someone I work with,” said Tonks. At least that one was easy. It wasn’t her fault if her parents would assume she was talking about the Ministry.
“You could bake him something,” Dad suggested-no surprise there. Tonks grinned.
“There’s a crowd of us who get together some evenings after work,” she said, hardly stretching the truth at all, “and I take along a pudding sometimes. So I suppose I could do that.”
“Why not knit him something?” Mum raised an eyebrow. “A muffler, say, if he’s not feeling well. You could put to use all that time your grandmother Tonks spent teaching you how to knit.”
Tonks slowly put down her fork, feeling a smile break through. “That’s a nice idea, Mum.” Remus always seemed cold after moons. What if she did make him a thick, soft muffler? Something to warm him up.
Something he might wear close to his skin.
Tonks gave herself a mental shake, to stop that train of thought before it rolled along too far. Not at Mum’s dinner table, for Merlin’s sake!
She looked along the table, from Dad, who was grinning away with his proud of my Dora look, to Mum, who was actually looking mollified and even pleased now.
They wanted her to be their girl-to let them help her solve her problems. That was all it took to make them happy.
She could do this. She could come again for Sunday lunch, and tell them tiny pieces of the truth, and let them know she wasn’t forgetting them.
That wouldn’t be so hard.
It was the secret she was keeping from Remus that was going to be the tough one.
~ * ~
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