[Kaleidoscope update] Initiation
Here it is, as promised -- the first installment of the Kaleidoscope series.
There are little fragments in this that actually date back to October of 2006, when I thought I would be writing a short Remus/Tonks chapter-fic and posting the chapters in order. (Ha, and ha!) I've also folded in a drabble that was originally written for drumher, and a little character study from rt_challenge. Timewise, this takes place right after the end of All Will Be in Order.
Initiation
Auror Headquarters was never exactly quiet.
But today, Nymphadora Tonks found it harder than usual to ignore the buzzing of a dozen different conversations, or the occasional flash of red robes as some witch or wizard bustled past her cubicle. Because just about anything would have been more interesting than the paperwork that was her current fate.
Stuck at her desk, with its litter of empty coffee cups and haphazardly stacked files, Tonks tipped her chair back on two legs. She chewed the end of her quill and looked back over some hastily scribbled notes from an ongoing investigation, managing, pretty well, to pay attention to her work.
Until Kingsley Shacklebolt stuck his head over the cubicle wall. “Tonks?”
Her chair crashed down on all four legs. “Ow!”
“Sorry.” But he was chuckling. “Are you free for lunch? I was hoping I could talk you into showing me that Muggle curry place you’re always on about.”
Tonks blinked. Kingsley had always been friendly, but surely she was a bit too junior on the force for him to see her as a lunch chum?
His grin turned a little wry, as though he’d guessed the direction of her thoughts. “Let’s just say I’m a curry fan, and it would be a shame to miss out on a new place. Humour me.”
“Glad to.” Tonks grinned back. “Curry does sound good on a rainy day like this.”
~ * ~
Tonks’s favourite waiter was on the lunch shift. He took their order speedily and left them with some lovely fragrant tea.
“Ta, Shaheed,” she said, settling in happily to wait for the curries to arrive.
“Thanks for coming along.” Kingsley kept his voice low. “I actually wanted a chance to talk to you away from the Ministry.”
Tonks stopped adding sugar to her tea and looked up.
Kingsley was about as dead earnest as she’d ever seen him.
“You told me once,” he said, “when something ridiculous was going on, that if it ever came down to a choice between the Ministry and Dumbledore, you’d side with Dumbledore.”
“And so I would,” she vowed, immediately, around the handful of butterflies that had just set up shop in her stomach.
“All right, then. Now is the time to take sides.” He lowered his voice even more. “You-Know-Who is back.”
Tonks nearly knocked her teacup over. “What?”
“He’s definitely back, and he’s already called up the old Death Eaters. We’re sure he’s recruiting more where he can. Dumbledore’s been working to alert people, obviously, and put everyone on their guard. But Fudge seems to think Dumbledore’s fabricating the whole thing as an excuse to grab power.”
Tonks stared. She’d always thought Cornelius Fudge was a bit ineffectual to be heading up the Ministry for Magic, but this-?
Kingsley sighed. “Fudge has actually got the Ministry working to discredit Dumbledore and undermine his warnings. The Daily Prophet won’t even print a word he says these days.”
“What can we do, though?” Tonks scowled. “I’m just a very junior Auror-no one in the Ministry’s going to listen to me, if they won’t listen to Dumbledore.”
“No, of course not.” Kingsley’s smile turned a little crafty. “Dumbledore has other options. He’s running a secret organization that’s working to oppose You-Know-Who no matter what the Ministry does.” He paused and took a sip of water. “And so I wanted to get you away from the Auror Office, to ask if you were interested in joining up.”
“Absolutely!” Tonks sat up very straight, and this time her cup did go over. “What do I have to do?”
“Well,” said Kingsley slowly, “there’s a meeting tomorrow night. If you’re really willing to join us, and risk being sacked if the Auror Office finds out that you’re involved with Dumbledore-not to mention risking a confrontation with Death Eaters in the very near future-then come along.”
“If I weren’t willing to fight Death Eaters, I wouldn’t be an Auror,” said Tonks stoutly, mopping up tea with her handkerchief (this was a Muggle restaurant, after all). “And it’s not the Ministry I care about, it’s fighting Dark wizards.” She gave him her best fierce stare. “I want to join.”
“Good,” said Kingsley, with a smile that just missed being a smirk. “I thought you would.” He pulled a slip of parchment out of his pocket. “Dumbledore’s group is called the Order of the Phoenix.” He started to hand the parchment over, but then he stopped, tapping it on the table instead. “And, er, there’s something else I should tell you, about the house we’re using for headquarters.”
~ * ~
The next evening, following Kingsley’s instructions, Tonks Apparated directly into an alley that opened onto the dingy square at Grimmauld Place where the Black family house stood.
Sirius Black’s house.
“Here we are.” Kingsley was waiting for her, arms crossed, obviously trying not to breathe too much of the alley’s foul air. “You ready?”
“Of course,” said Tonks. She shoved her hands into her pockets and raised her chin.
Kingsley began to lead her across the square. “I should probably warn you-Sirius may not be exactly how you remember him.”
“No surprise there,” said Tonks. “It’s been, what? Fourteen years?”
“And he was in Azkaban for twelve of them.” Kingsley looked at her sideways. “I’m not sure he’s completely stable. He has moods, sometimes.”
“I would, too, if I’d been wrongly imprisoned for a third of my life without even a show trial,” Tonks muttered.
She took a deep breath, trying to slow her racing pulse, as she watched an odd bit of rubbish tumble past in a fitful gust of wind. Joining the Order of the Phoenix had major consequences. But she couldn’t even think about any of that until she had got past meeting Sirius. She was so very glad to know that her cousin-her childhood hero-was innocent after all.
If only I could tell Mum.
They had reached the far side of the square, directly between Number Eleven and Number Thirteen. Tonks concentrated on the Secret that had been scribbled on the scrap of parchment Kingsley had slipped her in the curry shop, and Number Twelve appeared out of nowhere, shouldering in between its neighbours.
And who should be waiting on the doorstep but Mad-Eye Moody, leaning on his stick, his magical eye scanning the square. Tonks laughed a little. She wasn’t really surprised to see her mentor right in the thick of things, retired from the Aurors or not.
“Evening, Shacklebolt,” said Mad-Eye gruffly. And then his scarred face twisted into something that might terrify the uninitiated, but which Tonks knew how to see as an affectionate grimace. “Hello, girl. Heard you were coming tonight. Think you can handle this?”
“This,” said Tonks with spirit, “is what I’ve trained to be an Auror for.”
“Good lass.” He dropped a heavy hand on her shoulder, and Tonks knew better than to wince. “Come inside, both of you. Mind the portraits, Tonks, there’s one near the door that screams nasty rubbish if you wake it.”
The old Black house was just as gloomy and Dark as it had seemed in the tales her mother and Sirius used to tell. A whole gallery of portraits glared at her in the entrance hall, so she raised her chin and glared back-and promptly stubbed her toe on something that turned out to be an umbrella stand in the shape of a troll’s foot.
She stopped, looking at the offending obstacle a little more closely.
It was an actual troll’s foot.
She shivered. Dark, indeed.
“Come along, girl,” Mad-Eye rumbled. “We have our meetings downstairs in the kitchen, where there’s enough room.”
“And food.” Kingsley grinned. “I don’t know if you’ve ever met Molly Weasley, but Merlin’s socks, can she cook.”
Mad-Eye led the way down a flight of narrow stairs that opened into a large basement kitchen, old and soot-stained, but warm with light from the fireplace and a few heavy iron chandeliers. A long, battered table stretched much of the length of the room, lined with wooden chairs, and there were worn wooden benches ranged round the edges as well. Plenty of room for the Order. But most of them weren’t there yet, it seemed.
In any case, Tonks only had eyes for Sirius.
She might not even have known him if she hadn’t been expecting to see him. The handsome, laughing young man she remembered had been replaced by someone stooped and gaunt, with a deeply carved scowl. He was watching her, warily, out of the corner of his eye.
But he was innocent. Not a traitor, not a murderer, not a Death Eater.
She bounced over to where he was standing. “Sirius! It’s good to see you again!”
Her cousin raised one eyebrow and fixed her with a rather menacing expression.
Someone else moved, too. Tonks blinked, registering for the first time that Sirius had been standing next to a thin, shabby-looking man with greying hair. Now the man was watching Sirius carefully, subtly braced to intervene.
Tonks merely grinned, uncowed. Azkaban or no, she knew her cousin.
“You don’t recognize me, do you.” She crossed her arms and leaned back, looking up at the unfamiliar snarl that twisted at the vestiges of the face she’d known. “I’m Andromeda’s daughter. You spent an awful lot of time levitating things to keep me entertained when I was a sprog.”
Sirius froze, mid-scowl, and his whole demeanour changed. He laughed his great bark of a laugh, a sound straight out of her memory, and pulled her off-balance and into a one-armed hug. “Not little Dora!”
She wrapped her own arm around him, partly just to keep herself upright, but she gave him a squeeze before letting go. “The very same. Only,” she grimaced, “I don’t use that name any more. Just call me Tonks.”
“And you’re an Auror?” Sirius shook his head in rueful disbelief, though he was still grinning. “Last I knew, you were still years away from getting your Hogwarts letter. I certainly never thought you’d be the new recruit Kingsley was talking about.” He gestured at the man next to him, who had relaxed now, and was watching them both with a certain degree of amusement. “This is Remus Lupin, my oldest friend. Remus, this is my cousin Dora-” he glanced at her sideways, so she shook her head, hard, and he laughed again. “Or, it seems I should say, Tonks.”
“Hello, Remus,” she said, offering her hand.
For an instant, he almost seemed to stiffen. She had the very odd feeling that she’d thrown him off balance.
But what could be so surprising about a handshake when you were meeting someone new?
Remus Lupin. The name seemed familiar, somehow, although she couldn’t quite place it...
And then he shook off the hesitation-if there’d really been anything there at all; everything had happened very quickly-and closed his hand around hers.
His grip was surprisingly strong.
“Hello, Tonks.” Remus smiled right into her eyes. “It’s lovely to meet you, especially if you can make Sirius the Sulk laugh like that.”
“Oi,” Tonks vaguely heard Sirius pretend to growl. But now Remus Lupin had most definitely caught her full attention.
She had thought he was plain. Mousy, even, dressed all in brown as he was, with grey streaks in his light-brown hair.
But that was before he smiled.
Merlin, his smile was warm, the way it lit up his face-and now that she was paying attention, she could see a certain glint of mischief that suggested he might not be so out of place as a friend to Sirius.
“Why aren’t you a Dora?” he asked, letting go of her hand. “That’s a nice name.”
“Too close to my full name,” she muttered. Best keep a safe distance from that. Remus looked like he was about to ask another question, so she hastily added, “Which I am not telling you.” She grinned, but it wasn’t an apology, and she sent a mock-glare Sirius’s way for good measure.
Her cousin merely smirked, so she knew he’d spill her secret soon enough. But at least he didn’t say the dreaded name in her hearing.
“You know,” said Sirius, “you two actually have met before.”
“What?” said Tonks. Remus might be good at blending into the background, but she didn’t think she ever would have forgotten his smile.
Remus shook his head, looking just as bemused as Tonks felt. “I don’t think so-”
“Oh, yes, you have. Moony, you and I were having an ice cream in Diagon Alley one day right before going back to Hogwarts, maybe sixth year. My cousin Andromeda happened by, and she stopped to chat with us. Remember that?”
“All right, yes.”
“Well, Andromeda had a little peanut with her, didn’t she?”
Remus laughed, his face lighting up again. “And that was Tonks?”
“It certainly was.” Sirius was pure mischievous glee now, with no sign that he’d ever been scowling. “I seem to recall that she got quite upset when her mum wouldn’t buy her an ice cream, and you let her have a big bite of yours. Ever the gentleman.”
“I don’t remember that at all,” Tonks put in. She supposed she would have been about two at the time. “But I reckon I should thank you for the ice cream!”
She gave Remus Lupin a good thorough look. He raised an eyebrow, and looked slightly uncomfortable, but she was curious now. What kind of sixth-year boy would share his ice cream with a sprog he’d only just met? And what sort of nickname was Moony, anyway?
~ * ~
The meeting started. Tonks watched.
After all, she was an Auror, and watching was part of her job.
“Let us all wish a very warm welcome to our newest member, and a member of the Auror squad,” said Dumbledore-“Nymphadora Tonks.”
“Erm,” said Tonks, “thank you-but it’s just Tonks. Really.”
And Remus Lupin had that warm laughter in his eyes again.
As the meeting went on, between the bouts of appalled shock that hit her every time she learned more about how useless the Ministry was being in this new fight against Voldemort, Tonks found herself watching Remus rather a lot. She had meant to be watching Sirius, but her cousin was actually being rather boring at the moment; he didn’t say anything, and he spent most of the time scowling at the table.
Remus was quiet, too, but Tonks could see that he had half his attention on Sirius all the time. Once, Professor Snape said something rather rude, and Sirius fixed him with a scowl even scarier than the one he’d tried on her. But Remus leaned in, and whispered something in her cousin’s ear, and Sirius laughed under his breath-if a little grudgingly-and went back to staring at the table.
And when he wasn’t watching Sirius, Remus was watching everyone else. She thought she could see him weighing thoughts and ideas, and indeed, once or twice he broke in to make some objection or suggestion. His points seemed like good ones, and people seemed to pay attention.
Every now and then, he even watched her.
She wasn’t quite sure what he was looking for, so she pretended not to notice.
~ * ~
After the official part of the meeting ended, Tonks was introduced all round. Half the room seemed to be Weasleys, including Bill and Charlie, who she knew from Hogwarts (she’d known little Percy the swot, too, but Sirius had warned her not to ask about him). There was a cup of tea, and a slice of chocolate cake-Kingsley was right about Molly Weasley’s cooking, if the cake was any indication-and then things broke up for the evening.
“’Night, Sirius,” Tonks said, and then all at once she caught him up in a hug, which he returned, a little shakily but with great enthusiasm. “I’ll see you soon.”
It felt like a promise.
Sirius grinned after her, and there, at his shoulder, Remus was smiling again.
She really liked that smile.
Tonks followed Kingsley and Mad-Eye up the stairs, wincing when the thumping of Mad-Eye’s wooden leg made a few of the slumbering portraits mutter and stir in their frames. She was so busy with her Stealth and Tracking that she walked right into the umbrella stand again, but both she and the troll’s foot remained upright, so no harm done.
“I’m glad you’re with us, Tonks,” said Kingsley, once they had pulled the front door safely shut behind them. “Given the way the Ministry’s going, the Order will need all the good people we can get.”
“Oh, I’m with you lot, all right.” For once, Tonks was in no danger of cracking a grin, even though an Auror as tough as Kingsley Shacklebolt had just called her good. “This is real. More real than anything I’m doing at the Ministry.” She shivered a little. “I knew Fudge was a self-important twit, but I had no idea he was so far in denial that he’s putting us all at risk.”
“Only, be careful at work,” said Kingsley. “You’ve got to be completely business-as-usual, so no one thinks anything’s changed, or you won’t be half as much use to the Order as you could be.” With a soft crack, he was gone.
“You’ll be fine, lass,” said Mad-Eye. “Just remember: constant vigilance. That’s the most important thing.”
“Of course,” said Tonks, grinning a little after all. Ministers for Magic might break faith with the wizarding world, and notorious murderers might turn out to be completely innocent, but Mad-Eye Moody never changed.
“There’s something else you can do, though,” her mentor said.
“What’s that?”
“Come round here for a drink sometimes of an evening.”
“Here?” Tonks blinked.
“Let me show you the security charms,” said Mad-Eye abruptly, and there were so many locks and charms and passwords that Tonks had to concentrate, hard, until he was satisfied that she could undo all the protections herself and then set them again.
“Aye,” he said then, as though their conversation hadn’t been interrupted. “Black can be a bit unstable, when he gets bored. And he seems to like you. It would be good if you could help keep him company sometimes. It’s only Lupin and the Weasleys living here with him, but the rest of us try to look in from time to time between meetings.”
“I can do that,” she said. “Glad to.”
It would be fun to get to know her favourite cousin again.
~ * ~
And so it was that, two nights later, Tonks was back at Grimmauld Place, trying to remember all the disarming charms and password spells. The front door finally swung open, much to her relief, and she scurried through, securing it again behind her.
She made it all the way along the dimly lit hall without waking any portraits or tripping over the troll’s foot, and clumped down the basement stairs with a grin-
-only to find herself flattened against the kitchen wall as Sirius shoved his way past with a face like a thundercloud, muttering vile curses under his breath. He disappeared up the stairs and slammed the door at the top.
So much for a friendly drink.
Tonks was not alone in the kitchen, however. Sirius’s friend Remus was sitting at the table, still as stone, gazing right past her and up the stairs with a look on his face that she couldn’t even begin to read.
“Erm,” she said. “Wotcher.” She shifted her weight from one dragon-hide boot to another. “It seems I’ve picked a bad time to come for a visit.”
Remus looked at her, then, his eyes clear and brown in his thin face. “Maybe not,” he said carefully.
Appraisingly.
“Maybe you can help.”
Tonks swallowed. She was no expert on emotions-she was just a simple, straightforward Dark-wizard catcher. And Sirius’s current official status as the most wanted Dark wizard in all of Britain was only indirectly related to the predicament at hand.
She raised her chin. “How?”
“Mmm.” Remus sat back in his chair and tapped at a tumbler of firewhisky with one finger. “What we need is something that will distract Sirius until he forgets that he’s sulking.”
That sounded reasonable. “Like what?”
“What we need,” said Remus slowly, “is a really good prank.” The sudden wicked gleam in his eye was not at all what she had been expecting. “Are you in?”
“Yeah.” Her grin was back, in full force. As was her curiosity. “I’m in.”
Life as a member of the Order of the Phoenix, Tonks thought, looked to be significantly more interesting than keeping up with paperwork at the Ministry.
And Sirius Black wasn’t the only Order member she wanted to get to know better.
~ fin ~
"Kaleidoscope" series index
.
There are little fragments in this that actually date back to October of 2006, when I thought I would be writing a short Remus/Tonks chapter-fic and posting the chapters in order. (Ha, and ha!) I've also folded in a drabble that was originally written for drumher, and a little character study from rt_challenge. Timewise, this takes place right after the end of All Will Be in Order.
- Initiation (3570 words | PG)
Tonks used to think that her life as an Auror was busy enough. Little did she know that one curry lunch with Kingsley Shacklebolt would get her involved with an underground organisation, her fugitive cousin, and a quiet man who, she suspects, might be a lot more interesting than he looks.
Initiation
Auror Headquarters was never exactly quiet.
But today, Nymphadora Tonks found it harder than usual to ignore the buzzing of a dozen different conversations, or the occasional flash of red robes as some witch or wizard bustled past her cubicle. Because just about anything would have been more interesting than the paperwork that was her current fate.
Stuck at her desk, with its litter of empty coffee cups and haphazardly stacked files, Tonks tipped her chair back on two legs. She chewed the end of her quill and looked back over some hastily scribbled notes from an ongoing investigation, managing, pretty well, to pay attention to her work.
Until Kingsley Shacklebolt stuck his head over the cubicle wall. “Tonks?”
Her chair crashed down on all four legs. “Ow!”
“Sorry.” But he was chuckling. “Are you free for lunch? I was hoping I could talk you into showing me that Muggle curry place you’re always on about.”
Tonks blinked. Kingsley had always been friendly, but surely she was a bit too junior on the force for him to see her as a lunch chum?
His grin turned a little wry, as though he’d guessed the direction of her thoughts. “Let’s just say I’m a curry fan, and it would be a shame to miss out on a new place. Humour me.”
“Glad to.” Tonks grinned back. “Curry does sound good on a rainy day like this.”
~ * ~
Tonks’s favourite waiter was on the lunch shift. He took their order speedily and left them with some lovely fragrant tea.
“Ta, Shaheed,” she said, settling in happily to wait for the curries to arrive.
“Thanks for coming along.” Kingsley kept his voice low. “I actually wanted a chance to talk to you away from the Ministry.”
Tonks stopped adding sugar to her tea and looked up.
Kingsley was about as dead earnest as she’d ever seen him.
“You told me once,” he said, “when something ridiculous was going on, that if it ever came down to a choice between the Ministry and Dumbledore, you’d side with Dumbledore.”
“And so I would,” she vowed, immediately, around the handful of butterflies that had just set up shop in her stomach.
“All right, then. Now is the time to take sides.” He lowered his voice even more. “You-Know-Who is back.”
Tonks nearly knocked her teacup over. “What?”
“He’s definitely back, and he’s already called up the old Death Eaters. We’re sure he’s recruiting more where he can. Dumbledore’s been working to alert people, obviously, and put everyone on their guard. But Fudge seems to think Dumbledore’s fabricating the whole thing as an excuse to grab power.”
Tonks stared. She’d always thought Cornelius Fudge was a bit ineffectual to be heading up the Ministry for Magic, but this-?
Kingsley sighed. “Fudge has actually got the Ministry working to discredit Dumbledore and undermine his warnings. The Daily Prophet won’t even print a word he says these days.”
“What can we do, though?” Tonks scowled. “I’m just a very junior Auror-no one in the Ministry’s going to listen to me, if they won’t listen to Dumbledore.”
“No, of course not.” Kingsley’s smile turned a little crafty. “Dumbledore has other options. He’s running a secret organization that’s working to oppose You-Know-Who no matter what the Ministry does.” He paused and took a sip of water. “And so I wanted to get you away from the Auror Office, to ask if you were interested in joining up.”
“Absolutely!” Tonks sat up very straight, and this time her cup did go over. “What do I have to do?”
“Well,” said Kingsley slowly, “there’s a meeting tomorrow night. If you’re really willing to join us, and risk being sacked if the Auror Office finds out that you’re involved with Dumbledore-not to mention risking a confrontation with Death Eaters in the very near future-then come along.”
“If I weren’t willing to fight Death Eaters, I wouldn’t be an Auror,” said Tonks stoutly, mopping up tea with her handkerchief (this was a Muggle restaurant, after all). “And it’s not the Ministry I care about, it’s fighting Dark wizards.” She gave him her best fierce stare. “I want to join.”
“Good,” said Kingsley, with a smile that just missed being a smirk. “I thought you would.” He pulled a slip of parchment out of his pocket. “Dumbledore’s group is called the Order of the Phoenix.” He started to hand the parchment over, but then he stopped, tapping it on the table instead. “And, er, there’s something else I should tell you, about the house we’re using for headquarters.”
~ * ~
The next evening, following Kingsley’s instructions, Tonks Apparated directly into an alley that opened onto the dingy square at Grimmauld Place where the Black family house stood.
Sirius Black’s house.
“Here we are.” Kingsley was waiting for her, arms crossed, obviously trying not to breathe too much of the alley’s foul air. “You ready?”
“Of course,” said Tonks. She shoved her hands into her pockets and raised her chin.
Kingsley began to lead her across the square. “I should probably warn you-Sirius may not be exactly how you remember him.”
“No surprise there,” said Tonks. “It’s been, what? Fourteen years?”
“And he was in Azkaban for twelve of them.” Kingsley looked at her sideways. “I’m not sure he’s completely stable. He has moods, sometimes.”
“I would, too, if I’d been wrongly imprisoned for a third of my life without even a show trial,” Tonks muttered.
She took a deep breath, trying to slow her racing pulse, as she watched an odd bit of rubbish tumble past in a fitful gust of wind. Joining the Order of the Phoenix had major consequences. But she couldn’t even think about any of that until she had got past meeting Sirius. She was so very glad to know that her cousin-her childhood hero-was innocent after all.
If only I could tell Mum.
They had reached the far side of the square, directly between Number Eleven and Number Thirteen. Tonks concentrated on the Secret that had been scribbled on the scrap of parchment Kingsley had slipped her in the curry shop, and Number Twelve appeared out of nowhere, shouldering in between its neighbours.
And who should be waiting on the doorstep but Mad-Eye Moody, leaning on his stick, his magical eye scanning the square. Tonks laughed a little. She wasn’t really surprised to see her mentor right in the thick of things, retired from the Aurors or not.
“Evening, Shacklebolt,” said Mad-Eye gruffly. And then his scarred face twisted into something that might terrify the uninitiated, but which Tonks knew how to see as an affectionate grimace. “Hello, girl. Heard you were coming tonight. Think you can handle this?”
“This,” said Tonks with spirit, “is what I’ve trained to be an Auror for.”
“Good lass.” He dropped a heavy hand on her shoulder, and Tonks knew better than to wince. “Come inside, both of you. Mind the portraits, Tonks, there’s one near the door that screams nasty rubbish if you wake it.”
The old Black house was just as gloomy and Dark as it had seemed in the tales her mother and Sirius used to tell. A whole gallery of portraits glared at her in the entrance hall, so she raised her chin and glared back-and promptly stubbed her toe on something that turned out to be an umbrella stand in the shape of a troll’s foot.
She stopped, looking at the offending obstacle a little more closely.
It was an actual troll’s foot.
She shivered. Dark, indeed.
“Come along, girl,” Mad-Eye rumbled. “We have our meetings downstairs in the kitchen, where there’s enough room.”
“And food.” Kingsley grinned. “I don’t know if you’ve ever met Molly Weasley, but Merlin’s socks, can she cook.”
Mad-Eye led the way down a flight of narrow stairs that opened into a large basement kitchen, old and soot-stained, but warm with light from the fireplace and a few heavy iron chandeliers. A long, battered table stretched much of the length of the room, lined with wooden chairs, and there were worn wooden benches ranged round the edges as well. Plenty of room for the Order. But most of them weren’t there yet, it seemed.
In any case, Tonks only had eyes for Sirius.
She might not even have known him if she hadn’t been expecting to see him. The handsome, laughing young man she remembered had been replaced by someone stooped and gaunt, with a deeply carved scowl. He was watching her, warily, out of the corner of his eye.
But he was innocent. Not a traitor, not a murderer, not a Death Eater.
She bounced over to where he was standing. “Sirius! It’s good to see you again!”
Her cousin raised one eyebrow and fixed her with a rather menacing expression.
Someone else moved, too. Tonks blinked, registering for the first time that Sirius had been standing next to a thin, shabby-looking man with greying hair. Now the man was watching Sirius carefully, subtly braced to intervene.
Tonks merely grinned, uncowed. Azkaban or no, she knew her cousin.
“You don’t recognize me, do you.” She crossed her arms and leaned back, looking up at the unfamiliar snarl that twisted at the vestiges of the face she’d known. “I’m Andromeda’s daughter. You spent an awful lot of time levitating things to keep me entertained when I was a sprog.”
Sirius froze, mid-scowl, and his whole demeanour changed. He laughed his great bark of a laugh, a sound straight out of her memory, and pulled her off-balance and into a one-armed hug. “Not little Dora!”
She wrapped her own arm around him, partly just to keep herself upright, but she gave him a squeeze before letting go. “The very same. Only,” she grimaced, “I don’t use that name any more. Just call me Tonks.”
“And you’re an Auror?” Sirius shook his head in rueful disbelief, though he was still grinning. “Last I knew, you were still years away from getting your Hogwarts letter. I certainly never thought you’d be the new recruit Kingsley was talking about.” He gestured at the man next to him, who had relaxed now, and was watching them both with a certain degree of amusement. “This is Remus Lupin, my oldest friend. Remus, this is my cousin Dora-” he glanced at her sideways, so she shook her head, hard, and he laughed again. “Or, it seems I should say, Tonks.”
“Hello, Remus,” she said, offering her hand.
For an instant, he almost seemed to stiffen. She had the very odd feeling that she’d thrown him off balance.
But what could be so surprising about a handshake when you were meeting someone new?
Remus Lupin. The name seemed familiar, somehow, although she couldn’t quite place it...
And then he shook off the hesitation-if there’d really been anything there at all; everything had happened very quickly-and closed his hand around hers.
His grip was surprisingly strong.
“Hello, Tonks.” Remus smiled right into her eyes. “It’s lovely to meet you, especially if you can make Sirius the Sulk laugh like that.”
“Oi,” Tonks vaguely heard Sirius pretend to growl. But now Remus Lupin had most definitely caught her full attention.
She had thought he was plain. Mousy, even, dressed all in brown as he was, with grey streaks in his light-brown hair.
But that was before he smiled.
Merlin, his smile was warm, the way it lit up his face-and now that she was paying attention, she could see a certain glint of mischief that suggested he might not be so out of place as a friend to Sirius.
“Why aren’t you a Dora?” he asked, letting go of her hand. “That’s a nice name.”
“Too close to my full name,” she muttered. Best keep a safe distance from that. Remus looked like he was about to ask another question, so she hastily added, “Which I am not telling you.” She grinned, but it wasn’t an apology, and she sent a mock-glare Sirius’s way for good measure.
Her cousin merely smirked, so she knew he’d spill her secret soon enough. But at least he didn’t say the dreaded name in her hearing.
“You know,” said Sirius, “you two actually have met before.”
“What?” said Tonks. Remus might be good at blending into the background, but she didn’t think she ever would have forgotten his smile.
Remus shook his head, looking just as bemused as Tonks felt. “I don’t think so-”
“Oh, yes, you have. Moony, you and I were having an ice cream in Diagon Alley one day right before going back to Hogwarts, maybe sixth year. My cousin Andromeda happened by, and she stopped to chat with us. Remember that?”
“All right, yes.”
“Well, Andromeda had a little peanut with her, didn’t she?”
Remus laughed, his face lighting up again. “And that was Tonks?”
“It certainly was.” Sirius was pure mischievous glee now, with no sign that he’d ever been scowling. “I seem to recall that she got quite upset when her mum wouldn’t buy her an ice cream, and you let her have a big bite of yours. Ever the gentleman.”
“I don’t remember that at all,” Tonks put in. She supposed she would have been about two at the time. “But I reckon I should thank you for the ice cream!”
She gave Remus Lupin a good thorough look. He raised an eyebrow, and looked slightly uncomfortable, but she was curious now. What kind of sixth-year boy would share his ice cream with a sprog he’d only just met? And what sort of nickname was Moony, anyway?
~ * ~
The meeting started. Tonks watched.
After all, she was an Auror, and watching was part of her job.
“Let us all wish a very warm welcome to our newest member, and a member of the Auror squad,” said Dumbledore-“Nymphadora Tonks.”
“Erm,” said Tonks, “thank you-but it’s just Tonks. Really.”
And Remus Lupin had that warm laughter in his eyes again.
As the meeting went on, between the bouts of appalled shock that hit her every time she learned more about how useless the Ministry was being in this new fight against Voldemort, Tonks found herself watching Remus rather a lot. She had meant to be watching Sirius, but her cousin was actually being rather boring at the moment; he didn’t say anything, and he spent most of the time scowling at the table.
Remus was quiet, too, but Tonks could see that he had half his attention on Sirius all the time. Once, Professor Snape said something rather rude, and Sirius fixed him with a scowl even scarier than the one he’d tried on her. But Remus leaned in, and whispered something in her cousin’s ear, and Sirius laughed under his breath-if a little grudgingly-and went back to staring at the table.
And when he wasn’t watching Sirius, Remus was watching everyone else. She thought she could see him weighing thoughts and ideas, and indeed, once or twice he broke in to make some objection or suggestion. His points seemed like good ones, and people seemed to pay attention.
Every now and then, he even watched her.
She wasn’t quite sure what he was looking for, so she pretended not to notice.
~ * ~
After the official part of the meeting ended, Tonks was introduced all round. Half the room seemed to be Weasleys, including Bill and Charlie, who she knew from Hogwarts (she’d known little Percy the swot, too, but Sirius had warned her not to ask about him). There was a cup of tea, and a slice of chocolate cake-Kingsley was right about Molly Weasley’s cooking, if the cake was any indication-and then things broke up for the evening.
“’Night, Sirius,” Tonks said, and then all at once she caught him up in a hug, which he returned, a little shakily but with great enthusiasm. “I’ll see you soon.”
It felt like a promise.
Sirius grinned after her, and there, at his shoulder, Remus was smiling again.
She really liked that smile.
Tonks followed Kingsley and Mad-Eye up the stairs, wincing when the thumping of Mad-Eye’s wooden leg made a few of the slumbering portraits mutter and stir in their frames. She was so busy with her Stealth and Tracking that she walked right into the umbrella stand again, but both she and the troll’s foot remained upright, so no harm done.
“I’m glad you’re with us, Tonks,” said Kingsley, once they had pulled the front door safely shut behind them. “Given the way the Ministry’s going, the Order will need all the good people we can get.”
“Oh, I’m with you lot, all right.” For once, Tonks was in no danger of cracking a grin, even though an Auror as tough as Kingsley Shacklebolt had just called her good. “This is real. More real than anything I’m doing at the Ministry.” She shivered a little. “I knew Fudge was a self-important twit, but I had no idea he was so far in denial that he’s putting us all at risk.”
“Only, be careful at work,” said Kingsley. “You’ve got to be completely business-as-usual, so no one thinks anything’s changed, or you won’t be half as much use to the Order as you could be.” With a soft crack, he was gone.
“You’ll be fine, lass,” said Mad-Eye. “Just remember: constant vigilance. That’s the most important thing.”
“Of course,” said Tonks, grinning a little after all. Ministers for Magic might break faith with the wizarding world, and notorious murderers might turn out to be completely innocent, but Mad-Eye Moody never changed.
“There’s something else you can do, though,” her mentor said.
“What’s that?”
“Come round here for a drink sometimes of an evening.”
“Here?” Tonks blinked.
“Let me show you the security charms,” said Mad-Eye abruptly, and there were so many locks and charms and passwords that Tonks had to concentrate, hard, until he was satisfied that she could undo all the protections herself and then set them again.
“Aye,” he said then, as though their conversation hadn’t been interrupted. “Black can be a bit unstable, when he gets bored. And he seems to like you. It would be good if you could help keep him company sometimes. It’s only Lupin and the Weasleys living here with him, but the rest of us try to look in from time to time between meetings.”
“I can do that,” she said. “Glad to.”
It would be fun to get to know her favourite cousin again.
~ * ~
And so it was that, two nights later, Tonks was back at Grimmauld Place, trying to remember all the disarming charms and password spells. The front door finally swung open, much to her relief, and she scurried through, securing it again behind her.
She made it all the way along the dimly lit hall without waking any portraits or tripping over the troll’s foot, and clumped down the basement stairs with a grin-
-only to find herself flattened against the kitchen wall as Sirius shoved his way past with a face like a thundercloud, muttering vile curses under his breath. He disappeared up the stairs and slammed the door at the top.
So much for a friendly drink.
Tonks was not alone in the kitchen, however. Sirius’s friend Remus was sitting at the table, still as stone, gazing right past her and up the stairs with a look on his face that she couldn’t even begin to read.
“Erm,” she said. “Wotcher.” She shifted her weight from one dragon-hide boot to another. “It seems I’ve picked a bad time to come for a visit.”
Remus looked at her, then, his eyes clear and brown in his thin face. “Maybe not,” he said carefully.
Appraisingly.
“Maybe you can help.”
Tonks swallowed. She was no expert on emotions-she was just a simple, straightforward Dark-wizard catcher. And Sirius’s current official status as the most wanted Dark wizard in all of Britain was only indirectly related to the predicament at hand.
She raised her chin. “How?”
“Mmm.” Remus sat back in his chair and tapped at a tumbler of firewhisky with one finger. “What we need is something that will distract Sirius until he forgets that he’s sulking.”
That sounded reasonable. “Like what?”
“What we need,” said Remus slowly, “is a really good prank.” The sudden wicked gleam in his eye was not at all what she had been expecting. “Are you in?”
“Yeah.” Her grin was back, in full force. As was her curiosity. “I’m in.”
Life as a member of the Order of the Phoenix, Tonks thought, looked to be significantly more interesting than keeping up with paperwork at the Ministry.
And Sirius Black wasn’t the only Order member she wanted to get to know better.
~ fin ~
"Kaleidoscope" series index
.