[Kaleidoscope revision] Colours | 4. Stripes
Chapter 4 of Colours (the first "book" of Kaleidoscope) has been revised and is now up at FanFiction.net.
Kaleidoscope (I): Colours
4. Stripes (2710 words | PG)
[also on FF.N] [ old LJ version]
Sirius discovers that Tonks is unaware of something rather important about Remus, so he takes matters into his own hands.
Chapter 4
Stripes
Sirius sat slouched in a corner of the kitchen, scowling at the flames that writhed and twisted in the fireplace and ignoring the Order members who had begun to arrive for that evening’s meeting. He shouldn’t even be there-he should have gone with Moony. But Dumbledore was being unreasonable about letting Sirius leave the house, and Remus, the stubborn git, had taken the old man’s side. Again.
“Oi, Mad-Eye!” Tonks’s clear voice cut through the rumble of greetings and pleasantries. “I’ve only just thawed out from all that high-altitude flying you made us do last week. Next time, give a warning, and I’ll bring an anorak!”
Blinking, Sirius straightened up and let the scowl fade. His little cousin acted tough, but he could tell his darker moods worried her. Besides, it wasn’t her fault if Moony was bullheaded and Dumbledore was paranoid.
He waved at her. She came straight over and gently tweaked his ear.
“Wotcher, Sirius. You look cheerful tonight!”
He shrugged, but he managed half a grin. “Hi, peanut.” Then he did a double take and laughed out loud, foul mood almost forgotten. “What’ve you done to your hair this time? Are those-stripes?”
“Yeah.” Tonks seemed rather pleased with herself. “Remus bet me I couldn’t do stripes. It’s taken me a few days to work it out, but I’ve got it now!” She scanned the rapidly filling room, and her smile began to dim. “Where is he, anyway? Won’t he be here for the meeting?”
“Not tonight,” said Sirius, pointedly.
But Tonks only shook her head and looked puzzled.
Sirius stared. She doesn’t know.
This was not what he had been expecting, at all.
Well, then. It was past time she found out, now that she was a member of the Order-especially if Moony was starting to think of her as a friend.
He looked her straight in the eye and spoke, quietly but clearly. “It’s full moon.”
A long moment passed, and then another, until all at once her confusion gave way to shock.
“Remus is a werewolf?” she whispered, dropping down onto the worn wooden bench next to him.
Sirius nodded, carefully casual. “Since he was a little kid. Before I knew him.”
“So that’s where-” Tonks blinked, still looking dazed. “I read about him in the Prophet last year, when they wrote up your escape from Hogwarts. I knew his name was familiar when I met him, but I couldn’t place it.”
“Remus always tried to keep his condition as quiet as he could. Until that year he taught at Hogwarts, when Snape-” Sirius felt his scowl harden into a hostile sneer-“accidentally leaked it to the students. Then the Prophet picked it up.” He sighed and rubbed his face with one bony hand. “He’s been having an awful time supporting himself ever since, especially with the new anti-werewolf employment laws the Ministry put through.”
“Oh,” said Tonks, frowning. “That’s why he doesn’t have a job. I’d wondered.”
Sirius watched his cousin stare into the fire. Her brows slowly drew together, and her mouth twisted into a scowl to rival his own. She looked rather fierce, frankly.
Moony would be devastated if this frightened her off, or made her angry with him. Which, surely, was why he hadn’t said anything. Sirius was gripped by a strong urge to shake the man, but at the same time he did rather sympathise-
“I can’t believe this.” Tonks’s hands clenched into fists, and she swung round to scowl at Sirius.
He swallowed.
“Remus is one of the nicest and cleverest blokes I’ve ever met. This is so unfair!”
“Yeah.” Sirius started breathing again. Good old Tonks. “He’ll never say a word, but it’s a hard life he leads.”
“And I’ve read-The transformation is said to be frightfully painful, isn’t it?” Her frown was definitely a worried one this time.
He laughed, without humour. “That’s something of an understatement.”
Tonks winced.
Sirius gave her another bitter half-smile. “He’s running the meeting tomorrow night for planning the Oxford reconnaissance mission. You’re on that team, aren’t you? Just you wait and see how rough he looks.”
She nodded, biting her lip.
Then he shrugged, scowling again. “What makes it all that much worse is that Remus hates to be seen right after full moons, before he’s got his strength back. He doesn’t mind me-we shared a dormitory at school, after all, and I’ve seen him in some pretty bad states-but he’d rather avoid feeling vulnerable in front of other people. And...” Sirius sighed. “Having to acknowledge his condition in public shames him more than anything.” He shook his head, thumping the bench with his fist. “That meeting shouldn’t even be tomorrow night. Dumbledore should’ve given him another day to recover. But no, the ruddy Order always has to come first...”
Tonks’s hair suddenly turned midnight blue.
Sirius roused himself from his sulk again and tugged at one of her dark locks. “Oi, peanut, what happened to the stripes?”
Her eyes were still worried, but now her jaw was set. “I’m saving them for Remus.”
~ * ~
Back home in her flat after the meeting, Tonks pulled her Auror training manual off the bookshelf and opened it to Chapter Nineteen, “Recognising and Subduing Dark Creatures.”
“A transformed werewolf is a vicious creature, without a shred of human consciousness. It is driven by its very nature to attack humans; it is compelled to bite them, contaminating the innocent with its dreadful curse, or even to kill and eat them, feeding on their destruction. In human form, a werewolf may have a conscience, and may attempt to adapt to the laws and manners of human society, but this should not be taken for granted, as it is likely to be the exception rather than the rule. An Auror should never hesitate to subdue or incapacitate a werewolf if it exhibits the merest hint of aggressive behaviour, whether it is transformed or not.”
The manual seemed determined to ignore the possibility that a werewolf might have kind eyes and a warm, quiet smile. Or an unexpectedly wicked sense of humour. Or a fondness for exotic tea.
“For some hours after moonset, a werewolf is weakened and distracted, being in considerable pain from its return to human form. This provides an unparalleled opportunity to overpower the creature before it can commit any further harmful acts.”
Tonks thought of Sirius, exuding worry and belligerent protectiveness, and of Remus, undergoing-whatever it was he was undergoing.
The cold silvery moonlight inched a long way across the floor before she finally fell asleep that night.
~ * ~
Very early the following morning, Sirius sat at the kitchen table, paging blearily through a crumpled copy of the Evening Prophet. If Moony wouldn’t let him be company for the transformation, the least he could do was haul himself out of bed-ungodly hour be damned-and make sure the stubborn git ate a decent breakfast afterward.
The fireplace flared green. Remus stumbled out of the Floo, catching hold of the back of a chair just before he lost his balance altogether.
“Morning, Padfoot,” he rasped.
His gaunt, weary face betrayed a peculiar mixture of shame, guilt, and gratitude that transported Sirius straight back to post-moon mornings at Hogwarts.
“All right, Moony?” Sirius got carefully to his feet and started toward him. “Need patching up at all?”
Remus dropped heavily into the chair, leaning his head on his hands and closing his eyes. “I’ve already taken care of things,” he said, in a raw hoarse voice that made Sirius wince in sympathy. “It wasn’t too bad this time.”
Sirius frowned, resting a hand briefly on Remus’s shoulder-not too bad this time still didn’t look very good-but he kept his voice light. “Then I’ll have breakfast ready in a minute.” He tapped a cast-iron frying pan with his wand to make it sizzle, and cracked a few eggs into it. “Tea?”
“Better give the tea a miss, thanks. I should get as much sleep as I can before the meeting tonight.”
Sirius floated two plates heaped with eggs, sausages, and toast over to the table, followed by two tall glasses of iced pumpkin juice. “Look, Molly’s even made us some strawberry jam.”
“Thank you, Padfoot.” It took visible effort for Remus to lift his head and sit up straight, but he turned to his breakfast with gratifying enthusiasm. The hot food did seem to revive him a little.
“How did things go last night?” he asked after a while, his voice less rough now.
“Snivellus brought information about a Death Eater plot to recruit followers in Magical Law Enforcement,” said Sirius, rolling his eyes, “so Arthur, Kingsley, and Tonks are going to be watching out for suspicious activity at the Ministry. And the team for your Oxford mission will be Moody, Tonks, Hestia, and Bill.”
“Tonks keeps busy,” Remus observed, spreading jam on a piece of toast. He grinned a little, as if to himself, and the lines of pain around his mouth eased.
“She was asking where you were,” said Sirius offhandedly.
The grin evaporated; the lines returned. Remus slowly set the toast down on his plate. “She didn’t know?”
“No.” Sirius gave him a pointed look. “So I told her why you weren’t there.”
“Of course.” Remus swallowed. “I had-wondered, whether she knew.” His voice was even, measured. “Now she does.”
There was another reason why Moony liked to keep to himself after a transformation, one that Sirius hadn’t mentioned to Tonks. The exhaustion made it harder for him to keep that damned mask of his in place. Sometimes, emotions leaked.
But the bleakness that settled over Remus now was stark enough to surprise even Sirius.
So he grinned, and winked. “You’ve nothing to worry about, Moony. Tonks sounded like she wanted to go out and knock someone over on your behalf.”
“We’ll see,” was all Remus said, eyes firmly fixed on the piece of sausage he was pushing around his plate with his fork.
He didn’t, Sirius thought, look particularly reassured.
~ * ~
Tonks arrived at Grimmauld Place a few minutes early for the meeting that evening. The kitchen was empty except for Molly and Bill, who were poking at a small cauldron of what smelled tantalisingly like lamb stew-and Remus, who seemed to have sat down in front of the fire and fallen asleep. He was snoring quietly, tilting a bit sideways in his chair.
Tonks tiptoed carefully over to where Molly and Bill were working. “Can I help?” she whispered.
“Erm.” Molly hesitated. “I think we’re about finished, dear. Why don’t you sit down and have a cup of tea while we wait for Hestia and Alastor?”
“Yeah, go on,” said Bill, giving her a nudge with his elbow. “The stew’ll be better without broken crockery in.”
Tonks stuck her tongue out at him, but she took the cup of tea Molly handed her and slid into a seat at the table. As she sipped, she watched Remus out of the corner of her eye. Sirius was right-the lines of his cheekbones were sharp, and his face was grey with exhaustion. He didn’t seem to be in any shape to sit through a meeting, let alone run one.
She wondered if Sirius had told Remus about their conversation last night.
Just then, Sirius himself came clattering down the stairs. He shot Tonks a meaningful look (she nodded back) and went over to shake Remus firmly by the shoulder. “Moony, old mate, it’s almost seven.”
Tonks caught her breath as the nickname she’d grown used to hearing suddenly made a lot more sense.
Remus opened his eyes at once, his expression surprisingly alert, although he looked a bit embarrassed at having fallen asleep. “Thanks.”
Sirius nodded. “Right, well, see you later.” He turned to head back upstairs.
“Wait,” Remus called after him, “aren’t you staying for the meeting?”
“No point, is there,” Sirius growled over his shoulder. “I can hardly contribute to a reconnaissance mission when I can’t leave the ruddy house.”
“You could lend your considerable intellect to help us work out the plan,” said Remus sharply, but there was no response except for the sound of footsteps receding overhead.
Tonks bit her lip, but she knew that if even Remus couldn’t talk Sirius out of a sulk, it was a lost cause.
Shaking his head, Remus pushed himself up out of his chair. He stretched his shoulders gingerly-wincing as he did so-and came over, limping slightly, to join the others. “That smells wonderful, Molly. Is there anything I can do?”
“Thank you, dear, but we’ve almost finished,” said Molly again, eyeing his haggard appearance. “Here, why don’t you have a cup of tea and keep Tonks company?” She patted him fondly on the arm and pressed a steaming mug into his hands.
Remus thanked her for the tea and sat down again-at the table this time, next to Tonks. She heard the tiniest of sighs as he took his weight off his feet.
“Hello, Tonks. Don’t mind Sirius; he’s just worried about Harry’s disciplinary hearing at the Ministry this week.”
He smiled, then, but it was a hesitant shadow of the warm grin he usually had for her, and his eyes were guarded.
So Sirius had told him that she knew.
It was hardly surprising that Remus didn’t seem thrilled-it was quite a private thing that her cousin had gone and spilled to her last night, without Remus’s permission. On top of that, Sirius had said that Remus hated to be seen right after a transformation, and here she was, gawking at him.
“Wotcher.” Tonks tried to smile back. She managed to meet his gaze once, but then she reddened and looked away. She felt wrong-footed and awkward, as though she’d been caught snooping in his diary. Conversation with Remus had always been easy, but now his obvious discomfort was making her nervous, and for once she had absolutely no idea what to say.
She looked up at him again, just in time to see his face change-it went very still. His smile turned wry, and his eyes settled into a mild, rather resigned expression.
But not before she’d caught a clear glimpse of the festering shame and the bleak, lonely sadness that his careful smile was obviously meant to hide.
Tonks sat, frozen, watching him fold into himself and shut her out. Helga’s leather corsets.
Remus thought she minded that he was a werewolf. That’s what this was all about.
Her heart twisted.
All she could think was how badly she wanted to see him grin at her again. She didn’t ever want to be the one who made him look that sad.
“Remus.” His arm was leaning on the table, near his mug of tea, and she reached over to rest her hand lightly on his wrist.
He started at her touch, and looked up, confusion and a certain something that could almost be called vulnerability now visible in his expression.
Tonks swallowed a lump that had risen in her throat and smiled right into his eyes. “I’m glad to see you’re up and about.”
“Oh.” He stiffened, a little, but he didn’t look away. “Thank you.”
She relaxed. Her grin widened, and her eyes narrowed. “Because you owe me.”
His eyebrows went up in surprise, but she’d startled a half-laugh from him. “For what?”
“Just watch.” She concentrated, very hard, on purple and green and one inch wide.
“Stripes! You’ve done it!”
Tonks looked up to find a delighted smile in those brown eyes, and it was her turn to laugh, from sheer relief. “Yeah. So you have to help me the next time I’m on washing-up duty. Again.”
“I concede.” Remus grinned at her, his old warm and easy grin at last. “But I’m not giving up, you know. I’ll stump you yet.”
Tonks poked him, gently but emphatically, on the arm, and was rewarded beyond all expectations when a flash of pleased surprise lit his face. “You just keep trying,” she challenged, “and I’ll keep winning. That suits me fine-I hate washing up.”
Hestia and Mad-Eye came in, then, and Molly bustled over to the table with the stew.
But Tonks rather thought, from the way his smile lingered, that Remus understood what she had really meant to say.
~ * ~
[ ← Chapter 3 | → Chapter 5 | ↑ Kaleidoscope series index ]
Author’s notes: The first and third scenes of this story are based on two ficlets posted at the rt_challenge community on LiveJournal in January 2007, called “Stripes” and “Revelations”.
.
Kaleidoscope (I): Colours
4. Stripes (2710 words | PG)
[also on FF.N] [ old LJ version]
Sirius discovers that Tonks is unaware of something rather important about Remus, so he takes matters into his own hands.
- What has changed: This chapter needed to be brought in line with a plot point that has emerged in chapters 2 and 3 (which were written much later): Remus not being able to make himself tell Tonks about his furry little problem. There are small changes in the first and last scenes, and major changes in the third (the breakfast conversation), in order to make this aspect of the story more consistent.
Chapter 4
Stripes
Sirius sat slouched in a corner of the kitchen, scowling at the flames that writhed and twisted in the fireplace and ignoring the Order members who had begun to arrive for that evening’s meeting. He shouldn’t even be there-he should have gone with Moony. But Dumbledore was being unreasonable about letting Sirius leave the house, and Remus, the stubborn git, had taken the old man’s side. Again.
“Oi, Mad-Eye!” Tonks’s clear voice cut through the rumble of greetings and pleasantries. “I’ve only just thawed out from all that high-altitude flying you made us do last week. Next time, give a warning, and I’ll bring an anorak!”
Blinking, Sirius straightened up and let the scowl fade. His little cousin acted tough, but he could tell his darker moods worried her. Besides, it wasn’t her fault if Moony was bullheaded and Dumbledore was paranoid.
He waved at her. She came straight over and gently tweaked his ear.
“Wotcher, Sirius. You look cheerful tonight!”
He shrugged, but he managed half a grin. “Hi, peanut.” Then he did a double take and laughed out loud, foul mood almost forgotten. “What’ve you done to your hair this time? Are those-stripes?”
“Yeah.” Tonks seemed rather pleased with herself. “Remus bet me I couldn’t do stripes. It’s taken me a few days to work it out, but I’ve got it now!” She scanned the rapidly filling room, and her smile began to dim. “Where is he, anyway? Won’t he be here for the meeting?”
“Not tonight,” said Sirius, pointedly.
But Tonks only shook her head and looked puzzled.
Sirius stared. She doesn’t know.
This was not what he had been expecting, at all.
Well, then. It was past time she found out, now that she was a member of the Order-especially if Moony was starting to think of her as a friend.
He looked her straight in the eye and spoke, quietly but clearly. “It’s full moon.”
A long moment passed, and then another, until all at once her confusion gave way to shock.
“Remus is a werewolf?” she whispered, dropping down onto the worn wooden bench next to him.
Sirius nodded, carefully casual. “Since he was a little kid. Before I knew him.”
“So that’s where-” Tonks blinked, still looking dazed. “I read about him in the Prophet last year, when they wrote up your escape from Hogwarts. I knew his name was familiar when I met him, but I couldn’t place it.”
“Remus always tried to keep his condition as quiet as he could. Until that year he taught at Hogwarts, when Snape-” Sirius felt his scowl harden into a hostile sneer-“accidentally leaked it to the students. Then the Prophet picked it up.” He sighed and rubbed his face with one bony hand. “He’s been having an awful time supporting himself ever since, especially with the new anti-werewolf employment laws the Ministry put through.”
“Oh,” said Tonks, frowning. “That’s why he doesn’t have a job. I’d wondered.”
Sirius watched his cousin stare into the fire. Her brows slowly drew together, and her mouth twisted into a scowl to rival his own. She looked rather fierce, frankly.
Moony would be devastated if this frightened her off, or made her angry with him. Which, surely, was why he hadn’t said anything. Sirius was gripped by a strong urge to shake the man, but at the same time he did rather sympathise-
“I can’t believe this.” Tonks’s hands clenched into fists, and she swung round to scowl at Sirius.
He swallowed.
“Remus is one of the nicest and cleverest blokes I’ve ever met. This is so unfair!”
“Yeah.” Sirius started breathing again. Good old Tonks. “He’ll never say a word, but it’s a hard life he leads.”
“And I’ve read-The transformation is said to be frightfully painful, isn’t it?” Her frown was definitely a worried one this time.
He laughed, without humour. “That’s something of an understatement.”
Tonks winced.
Sirius gave her another bitter half-smile. “He’s running the meeting tomorrow night for planning the Oxford reconnaissance mission. You’re on that team, aren’t you? Just you wait and see how rough he looks.”
She nodded, biting her lip.
Then he shrugged, scowling again. “What makes it all that much worse is that Remus hates to be seen right after full moons, before he’s got his strength back. He doesn’t mind me-we shared a dormitory at school, after all, and I’ve seen him in some pretty bad states-but he’d rather avoid feeling vulnerable in front of other people. And...” Sirius sighed. “Having to acknowledge his condition in public shames him more than anything.” He shook his head, thumping the bench with his fist. “That meeting shouldn’t even be tomorrow night. Dumbledore should’ve given him another day to recover. But no, the ruddy Order always has to come first...”
Tonks’s hair suddenly turned midnight blue.
Sirius roused himself from his sulk again and tugged at one of her dark locks. “Oi, peanut, what happened to the stripes?”
Her eyes were still worried, but now her jaw was set. “I’m saving them for Remus.”
~ * ~
Back home in her flat after the meeting, Tonks pulled her Auror training manual off the bookshelf and opened it to Chapter Nineteen, “Recognising and Subduing Dark Creatures.”
“A transformed werewolf is a vicious creature, without a shred of human consciousness. It is driven by its very nature to attack humans; it is compelled to bite them, contaminating the innocent with its dreadful curse, or even to kill and eat them, feeding on their destruction. In human form, a werewolf may have a conscience, and may attempt to adapt to the laws and manners of human society, but this should not be taken for granted, as it is likely to be the exception rather than the rule. An Auror should never hesitate to subdue or incapacitate a werewolf if it exhibits the merest hint of aggressive behaviour, whether it is transformed or not.”
The manual seemed determined to ignore the possibility that a werewolf might have kind eyes and a warm, quiet smile. Or an unexpectedly wicked sense of humour. Or a fondness for exotic tea.
“For some hours after moonset, a werewolf is weakened and distracted, being in considerable pain from its return to human form. This provides an unparalleled opportunity to overpower the creature before it can commit any further harmful acts.”
Tonks thought of Sirius, exuding worry and belligerent protectiveness, and of Remus, undergoing-whatever it was he was undergoing.
The cold silvery moonlight inched a long way across the floor before she finally fell asleep that night.
~ * ~
Very early the following morning, Sirius sat at the kitchen table, paging blearily through a crumpled copy of the Evening Prophet. If Moony wouldn’t let him be company for the transformation, the least he could do was haul himself out of bed-ungodly hour be damned-and make sure the stubborn git ate a decent breakfast afterward.
The fireplace flared green. Remus stumbled out of the Floo, catching hold of the back of a chair just before he lost his balance altogether.
“Morning, Padfoot,” he rasped.
His gaunt, weary face betrayed a peculiar mixture of shame, guilt, and gratitude that transported Sirius straight back to post-moon mornings at Hogwarts.
“All right, Moony?” Sirius got carefully to his feet and started toward him. “Need patching up at all?”
Remus dropped heavily into the chair, leaning his head on his hands and closing his eyes. “I’ve already taken care of things,” he said, in a raw hoarse voice that made Sirius wince in sympathy. “It wasn’t too bad this time.”
Sirius frowned, resting a hand briefly on Remus’s shoulder-not too bad this time still didn’t look very good-but he kept his voice light. “Then I’ll have breakfast ready in a minute.” He tapped a cast-iron frying pan with his wand to make it sizzle, and cracked a few eggs into it. “Tea?”
“Better give the tea a miss, thanks. I should get as much sleep as I can before the meeting tonight.”
Sirius floated two plates heaped with eggs, sausages, and toast over to the table, followed by two tall glasses of iced pumpkin juice. “Look, Molly’s even made us some strawberry jam.”
“Thank you, Padfoot.” It took visible effort for Remus to lift his head and sit up straight, but he turned to his breakfast with gratifying enthusiasm. The hot food did seem to revive him a little.
“How did things go last night?” he asked after a while, his voice less rough now.
“Snivellus brought information about a Death Eater plot to recruit followers in Magical Law Enforcement,” said Sirius, rolling his eyes, “so Arthur, Kingsley, and Tonks are going to be watching out for suspicious activity at the Ministry. And the team for your Oxford mission will be Moody, Tonks, Hestia, and Bill.”
“Tonks keeps busy,” Remus observed, spreading jam on a piece of toast. He grinned a little, as if to himself, and the lines of pain around his mouth eased.
“She was asking where you were,” said Sirius offhandedly.
The grin evaporated; the lines returned. Remus slowly set the toast down on his plate. “She didn’t know?”
“No.” Sirius gave him a pointed look. “So I told her why you weren’t there.”
“Of course.” Remus swallowed. “I had-wondered, whether she knew.” His voice was even, measured. “Now she does.”
There was another reason why Moony liked to keep to himself after a transformation, one that Sirius hadn’t mentioned to Tonks. The exhaustion made it harder for him to keep that damned mask of his in place. Sometimes, emotions leaked.
But the bleakness that settled over Remus now was stark enough to surprise even Sirius.
So he grinned, and winked. “You’ve nothing to worry about, Moony. Tonks sounded like she wanted to go out and knock someone over on your behalf.”
“We’ll see,” was all Remus said, eyes firmly fixed on the piece of sausage he was pushing around his plate with his fork.
He didn’t, Sirius thought, look particularly reassured.
~ * ~
Tonks arrived at Grimmauld Place a few minutes early for the meeting that evening. The kitchen was empty except for Molly and Bill, who were poking at a small cauldron of what smelled tantalisingly like lamb stew-and Remus, who seemed to have sat down in front of the fire and fallen asleep. He was snoring quietly, tilting a bit sideways in his chair.
Tonks tiptoed carefully over to where Molly and Bill were working. “Can I help?” she whispered.
“Erm.” Molly hesitated. “I think we’re about finished, dear. Why don’t you sit down and have a cup of tea while we wait for Hestia and Alastor?”
“Yeah, go on,” said Bill, giving her a nudge with his elbow. “The stew’ll be better without broken crockery in.”
Tonks stuck her tongue out at him, but she took the cup of tea Molly handed her and slid into a seat at the table. As she sipped, she watched Remus out of the corner of her eye. Sirius was right-the lines of his cheekbones were sharp, and his face was grey with exhaustion. He didn’t seem to be in any shape to sit through a meeting, let alone run one.
She wondered if Sirius had told Remus about their conversation last night.
Just then, Sirius himself came clattering down the stairs. He shot Tonks a meaningful look (she nodded back) and went over to shake Remus firmly by the shoulder. “Moony, old mate, it’s almost seven.”
Tonks caught her breath as the nickname she’d grown used to hearing suddenly made a lot more sense.
Remus opened his eyes at once, his expression surprisingly alert, although he looked a bit embarrassed at having fallen asleep. “Thanks.”
Sirius nodded. “Right, well, see you later.” He turned to head back upstairs.
“Wait,” Remus called after him, “aren’t you staying for the meeting?”
“No point, is there,” Sirius growled over his shoulder. “I can hardly contribute to a reconnaissance mission when I can’t leave the ruddy house.”
“You could lend your considerable intellect to help us work out the plan,” said Remus sharply, but there was no response except for the sound of footsteps receding overhead.
Tonks bit her lip, but she knew that if even Remus couldn’t talk Sirius out of a sulk, it was a lost cause.
Shaking his head, Remus pushed himself up out of his chair. He stretched his shoulders gingerly-wincing as he did so-and came over, limping slightly, to join the others. “That smells wonderful, Molly. Is there anything I can do?”
“Thank you, dear, but we’ve almost finished,” said Molly again, eyeing his haggard appearance. “Here, why don’t you have a cup of tea and keep Tonks company?” She patted him fondly on the arm and pressed a steaming mug into his hands.
Remus thanked her for the tea and sat down again-at the table this time, next to Tonks. She heard the tiniest of sighs as he took his weight off his feet.
“Hello, Tonks. Don’t mind Sirius; he’s just worried about Harry’s disciplinary hearing at the Ministry this week.”
He smiled, then, but it was a hesitant shadow of the warm grin he usually had for her, and his eyes were guarded.
So Sirius had told him that she knew.
It was hardly surprising that Remus didn’t seem thrilled-it was quite a private thing that her cousin had gone and spilled to her last night, without Remus’s permission. On top of that, Sirius had said that Remus hated to be seen right after a transformation, and here she was, gawking at him.
“Wotcher.” Tonks tried to smile back. She managed to meet his gaze once, but then she reddened and looked away. She felt wrong-footed and awkward, as though she’d been caught snooping in his diary. Conversation with Remus had always been easy, but now his obvious discomfort was making her nervous, and for once she had absolutely no idea what to say.
She looked up at him again, just in time to see his face change-it went very still. His smile turned wry, and his eyes settled into a mild, rather resigned expression.
But not before she’d caught a clear glimpse of the festering shame and the bleak, lonely sadness that his careful smile was obviously meant to hide.
Tonks sat, frozen, watching him fold into himself and shut her out. Helga’s leather corsets.
Remus thought she minded that he was a werewolf. That’s what this was all about.
Her heart twisted.
All she could think was how badly she wanted to see him grin at her again. She didn’t ever want to be the one who made him look that sad.
“Remus.” His arm was leaning on the table, near his mug of tea, and she reached over to rest her hand lightly on his wrist.
He started at her touch, and looked up, confusion and a certain something that could almost be called vulnerability now visible in his expression.
Tonks swallowed a lump that had risen in her throat and smiled right into his eyes. “I’m glad to see you’re up and about.”
“Oh.” He stiffened, a little, but he didn’t look away. “Thank you.”
She relaxed. Her grin widened, and her eyes narrowed. “Because you owe me.”
His eyebrows went up in surprise, but she’d startled a half-laugh from him. “For what?”
“Just watch.” She concentrated, very hard, on purple and green and one inch wide.
“Stripes! You’ve done it!”
Tonks looked up to find a delighted smile in those brown eyes, and it was her turn to laugh, from sheer relief. “Yeah. So you have to help me the next time I’m on washing-up duty. Again.”
“I concede.” Remus grinned at her, his old warm and easy grin at last. “But I’m not giving up, you know. I’ll stump you yet.”
Tonks poked him, gently but emphatically, on the arm, and was rewarded beyond all expectations when a flash of pleased surprise lit his face. “You just keep trying,” she challenged, “and I’ll keep winning. That suits me fine-I hate washing up.”
Hestia and Mad-Eye came in, then, and Molly bustled over to the table with the stew.
But Tonks rather thought, from the way his smile lingered, that Remus understood what she had really meant to say.
~ * ~
[ ← Chapter 3 | → Chapter 5 | ↑ Kaleidoscope series index ]
Author’s notes: The first and third scenes of this story are based on two ficlets posted at the rt_challenge community on LiveJournal in January 2007, called “Stripes” and “Revelations”.
.