Be the Light in My Lantern, chapter 1
BE THE LIGHT IN MY LANTERN
Summary: In which Remus and Tonks fight battles, arrest criminals, befriend werewolves, overcome inner demons and, despite it all, find themselves a happy ending. A love story, and a story of the Order years. (At long last, my Remus/Tonks epic, which has been years in the making!)
Characters: Remus, Tonks, Sirius and all the others (Molly, Arthur, Harry, Ginny, Hermione, Ron, Mad-Eye Moody, Kingsley Shacklebolt, Bill, Fred, George, Percy, Andromeda, Ted, Dumbledore, McGonagall, Snape, Scrimgeour, other members of the Order, werewolf OCs, other OCs)
Chapters: 18 (in Part One)
Notes:
The implication in canon (which has since, I admit, been confirmed on Pottermore) was that there was nothing between Remus and Tonks beyond friendship (and a bit of her trying to convince him to let it be something more) until she confronted him at the end of the sixth book…and then they were married before the seventh book even started.
I always found that hard to believe. Nor do I believe Tonks was depressed for an entire year just because she fancied Remus a bit, but he wouldn't reciprocate - there's got to be more behind it than that!
…And thus a book-length story was born.
It’s a story I’ve been oh so slowly writing over the course of several years, since before Pottermore even existed, so I hope you’ll humor me in the way I’ve completely ignored the Pottermore version of Remus and Tonks’ unfolding relationship during OotP and HBP - this is my take on another way it might have gone.
As always, I'm only playing in this fabulous sandbox, and anything you recognise is not mine. Eternal thanks go to JKR, for creating such a wonderful world.
My deepest thanks also to stereolightning, whose thoughtful beta-reading, comments and questions have made this a better-developed story than it would otherwise have been. Any remaining flaws are of course my own.
(Oh, and yeah, I know it’s a little cheesy to start chapters with song quotes; it kind of started as an inside joke - you’ll see why in Chapter 8 - but at some point took on a life of its own, so I ran with it!)
Part One (covering all of OotP) is complete, 18 chapters in total, and I’ll be posting updates weekly. Part Two (covering all of HBP) is not yet entirely written, so there may be a hiatus between the end of posting Part One and the beginning of posting Part Two. I definitely think you can read Part One as a “novel” in its own right, though, and simply know that Part Two as its sequel will be coming later. (I'll also be posting simultaneously at AO3 - here - if you prefer to follow the story there.)
The title of the story - Be the Light in My Lantern - is from a song by one of my all-time favorite songwriters, Josh Ritter. The song, fittingly enough, is called "Lantern."
(And a small side note: Though you don't at all need to read it first, I think of " What I Have Taken Long Before" as something of a prequel to this, because it moves Remus and Sirius - and their friendship - from where they were during the "in-between years" to where they are at the start of this story.)
This has been a long, long labor of love, and I’m so pleased to finally be able to share it with you. And away we go!
Chapter 1: The Newest Member of the Order
I don't know why you say goodbye, I say hello
-The Beatles, Hello Goodbye
PROLOGUE:
When Mad-Eye Moody introduced around the newest recruit to the Order of the Phoenix, Remus couldn’t help but allow himself a tiny moment of wondering, Really?
Not that there was anything wrong with joining the Order when you were practically fresh out of school - he and James and Sirius and Peter had done the same when they were even younger than the woman now sitting in the kitchen at 12 Grimmauld Place, swinging her heels against the legs of her chair and looking unfazed by the veteran resistance fighters around her.
But joining the Order practically fresh out of school and having hot pink hair and combining all that with the unmistakeable, penetrating gaze of an Auror - it was a bit much to take in.
“Wotcher,” the young woman said, and grinned at them all.
Yes, there was undeniably something intriguing about Nymphadora Tonks.
- - - - -
When Mad-Eye introduced Tonks to Remus Lupin, asking him to stay a bit longer after the meeting to fill her in on some background about the Order’s activities the last time around, her first thought was that Remus reminded her of her grandfather, the Muggle one on her dad's side.
Not because of their age difference - she suspected the earnest wizard in the carefully patched robes was younger than his premature grey seemed to suggest - but because of the calm he exuded, the impression that you would be safe in his hands, and that perhaps if you were good, he might tell you a bedtime story.
But then he smiled, and Tonks thought, Oh. There was clearly something more beneath that mild exterior, and she experienced a startling moment of feeling she’d rather like to know what it was.
She shook her head at herself, grinned at him, and they got down to business.
- - - - -
CHAPTER 1:
Slouching in the shadowed doorway to the basement kitchen at 12 Grimmauld Place after another Order meeting, glass in hand, Sirius watched his old friend chat with his young cousin. Or chat UP my cousin, he thought, though of course discussions of Dark Lords were not exactly standard chat-up fare.
Tonks had been a member of the Order of the Phoenix for only a few weeks now, but it was already clear she was a very good addition, whip-smart and possessing far more energy than several of the older, stodgier members combined. Little Dora had grown up well, in these many years Sirius had been gone.
And if Remus got enjoyment out of a late night conversation with her in the kitchen after this latest Order meeting - as he evidently did, if that small smile of his was any indication - then all the better.
If there was one person in the world who deserved more joy than he had been allotted in life - well, except maybe Harry - but if there was a second person who deserved more joy, it was Remus.
It certainly wasn't Remus' fault that Sirius was back here, haunting the family home he'd hoped never to see again. Whereas it was entirely Sirius' fault that Remus had lost his closest friends and what little normalcy he'd once had in his difficult life. Anything Sirius could do to make up for that he would do gladly, even if it was only offering up the use of his family’s kitchen for an evening.
Anyway, it was amusing, Sirius decided, methodically draining his glass of Firewhisky and watching the room’s two occupants, who were too preoccupied with each other to notice him. It was amusing how the two of them were clearly fascinated by one another and just as clearly didn't know it.
I give it till Christmas, Sirius thought, because he's going to be stubbornly noble about it, but if she's got even half her mother's determination, he doesn't stand a chance. He smirked down into his glass, then registered his own surprise at finding himself smiling. Ah, old Moony won't know what hit him.
But my Galleon's on Tonks.
With that thought, Sirius slipped off to check on Buckbeak and left the two lovebirds alone.
- - - - -
Remus stared down at his hands interlaced on the tabletop, lost in thought. Thinking about Harry, who was not James, yet so like James - impetuous, loyal, and determined to be involved in everything, consequences be damned. Standing there at the top of the stairs at Lily's sister's house tonight, he'd looked more like James than ever.
"Knut for your thoughts?" Tonks offered and Remus started.
"I'm so sorry," he said, looking up to where she stood in the doorway, gazing at him from beneath hair that was once again alarmingly pink. "I didn't hear you come back in."
"It's that skill at stealth we Aurors are so famed for," she replied, flashing him a grin. He recognised this as a joke, because just these few weeks of passing acquaintance with Nymphadora Tonks had already taught him that she was possibly the clumsiest person he'd ever met.
Remus started to get up from the table, feeling foolish to be sitting there gazing at nothing, when everyone else had gone.
But Tonks waved a hand and said, "Sit, sit. You want a Butterbeer?"
"Er -" replied Remus, half-sinking back into his chair.
"I mean, not that I'm helping myself to things in someone else's house… Okay, yes, I am. But Sirius is family. Here." She was already sliding into a seat across the table, knocking it awkwardly against the chair next to it, and pushing a chilled bottle towards him.
"Thanks?" he managed.
"You're thinking about Harry," she informed him, popping the cap off her bottle and taking a gulp.
He raised an eyebrow.
"Oh, come on, we've just filled him in on rather a lot of sensitive information, and now Sirius is slouching round the house looking dangerous and you're sitting here communing with the furniture - ergo, you're both worrying about Harry."
"They teach Legilimency in Auror boot camp, apparently?" he retorted, but smiled to let her know he wasn't annoyed. He fiddled with the Butterbeer bottle, opening it but not drinking, then said, "Frankly, I challenge anyone to know Harry and not worry."
"Point taken," Tonks replied. Then: "But what are you worrying about specifically, right now?"
Remus considered Tonks, her frank expression, her cheerful clumsiness and psychedelic hair. Nymphadora Tonks was not the person Remus would have planned to have a heart-to-heart with tonight, even if he'd planned to do such a thing at all. But then, when did anything ever work out as Remus had planned? And Tonks seemed truly interested to know what he was thinking. He took a sip of his Butterbeer.
"Sirius and I were friends of Harry's father," he told her at last.
"Ah."
"It wouldn't be an exaggeration to say there was a time when any one of us could look at the others and know exactly what they were thinking. Harry is…so much like James."
"But that's a good thing, isn't it?" Tonks asked, her voice gentler than he'd heard it yet.
"Well - of course. Of course it is." The fact that it was precisely James' good qualities - his trust, his loyalty - that had got him killed lay heavily on Remus' tongue, but he pushed the thought back. "Harry has somehow managed to take on the best of both his parents, without even having known them. It's quite startling, really. Sometimes I have to remind myself to whom I'm talking."
Tonks' quiet gaze encouraged him to continue.
"He's got James' drive," Remus said. "He won't rest until he's sought out evil and conquered it. But when you're a 15-year-old boy and evil is already out there hunting for you…" He shook his head. "I’m sorry. Depressing monologues should not be held over Butterbeer. I apologise, Nymphadora."
"Remus!" Tonks yelped. "Not Nymphadora, please, never Nymphadora. Tonks will do fine."
"Tonks, then."
"Yes, thank you."
"Tonks - why don't you tell me something about yourself."
"'Change the subject,' you mean?"
"Er, I suppose so." Out of the corner of his eye, Remus thought he saw movement in the doorway to the stairs, but when he turned, no one was there.
"I'm not that interesting," she shrugged.
"Oh? I beg to differ. For instance - what made you want to be an Auror?"
"The glamour of it," she replied promptly, surprising him into a laugh. "No, seriously. It's not like that, of course, but as a kid I used to think it would be. I mean, don't get me wrong, it's all worth it for the times when you've finally got all the pieces in place and you catch your Dark wizard and you know you're sending someone truly dangerous to Azkaban. Most of the time, though, it's a lot of busywork. This Order, though," she added, tapping a finger thoughtfully on the table. "Dumbledore's got the right idea. A small group of dedicated people, with as little bureaucracy as possible. It's good. I wish I could have been in the Order the first time round. But, you know, I was, like, six."
From there, Remus was surprised to find the two of them falling into easy conversation. Whereas before now they'd had at most a handful of brief conversations, always related to Order business, now they were chatting about everything, his anecdotes from back in the day and her stories of Auror training under Moody, with her making him laugh with her dead-on impression of the gruff old Auror's unrelenting paranoia.
Some time later - they were each on their second Butterbeer - he glanced up to find himself pinned by her gaze again, that penetrating Auror look.
"Tell me about Harry's dad. About James," she said.
"James?"
"Yeah. He was clearly important to you, and I don't know anything about Harry's family. Thought maybe you could reminisce a bit."
The fire was guttering down low in the fireplace and the kitchen was surprisingly hospitable, despite its bleak stone. Tonks' gaze on him was relaxed and open, and Remus hadn't felt so at peace with his ghosts in a long time. Perhaps it wouldn't do any harm to talk about James a little. "What would you like to know?" he asked finally.
Tonks considered. "How'd you meet?"
Remus couldn't help a chuckle at that. "First day of Hogwarts. He and Sirius had already managed to because fast friends, of course, just in the time on the Hogwarts Express. And then I was standing there at the Sorting, all alone and waiting for my name to be called, literally shaking, and this skinny, messy-haired kid near me - who had a truly impossible degree of self-confidence for an 11-year-old - muttered, 'Buck up, mate, worst that can happen is they'll put you in Slytherin and you'll have to drop out from shame.' And even though that was precisely my fear - that I would end up in Slytherin, since I was a Dark creature, after all - somehow that made me laugh and take myself a little less seriously. Which, essentially, is what James and Sirius spent the next seven years doing, forcing me to take myself less seriously."
"Did you know my mum at school too?" Tonks wanted to know and Remus' head jerked up in poorly disguised shock. Right, of course, he was nearly as old as this woman's mother.
"Er, no," he said quickly, "No, she'd just finished the year before. Which I know because Sirius certainly complained enough, that he would get stuck with 'Prissy Cissy' as the only one of his cousins still at Hogwarts."
Tonks laughed. "Yeah, I can picture that. Was he as incorrigible as I imagine?"
"Worse." Remus smiled.
"And Harry's dad? Also incorrigible?"
"Afraid so."
"What about you?"
"Er, sensible when I should have been more fun, and irresponsible when I should have been setting a good example, I'd say. Always getting roped into to things while simultaneously maintaining a guilty conscience about them."
Tonks sighed happily at him. "I'm picturing it like some epic story. The tale of the three gallant, adventuring friends!"
"More or less." Remus thought he probably shouldn't tread this ground tonight, yet there was something about Tonks that had him wanting to tell her the full truth. "In real life, though, it started out as four friends."
She looked at him quizzically. "Who was the fourth?"
"We had another friend, called Peter."
"And he's been written out of the collective history, has he?"
"You could put it that way, I suppose. He was the one who betrayed James and Lily to Voldemort."
Tonks' eyes went wide. "Oh, Merlin," she whispered. "Oh. I'm so sorry."
"Well, yes, it was all a long time ago," Remus said, disconcerted by her sympathy.
"Gods, and that's what Sirius was in Azkaban for, wasn't it? People thought he was the one who betrayed them? So you lost one friend, and thought another was a traitor, all at once?" For a moment she just stared at him, the knuckes of one hand pressed to her lips. Then she said, voice hushed, "I can't imagine how you survived that."
In his darker moments, Remus sometimes wondered the same thing.
"Honestly, there was a fair amount of drinking too much and running away from everything in those first years," he said. "I spent some time abroad, being aimless and not much use."
She fixed him with that inescapable gaze and said, "You must be so strong."
And really, what did one say to that?
It was some time later, after their conversation had lurched its way back into more neutral waters, that Tonks looked up and wondered, "What time is it, anyway?"
She cast around the room in vain for a clock. It was Remus who located one, glowering darkly down with an almost human face from a high corner, half-hidden behind the pots and pans. "Half twelve," he said.
"Merlin's pants!" Tonks exclaimed, then glanced sideways at Remus, looking abashed. "Er - sorry, language."
"Don't worry, I'm no longer a teacher." He smiled ruefully. "And even that didn't last all that long in the first place."
"I've got to go," she said, looking sorry about it. "Early shift tomorrow. Thanks, it was nice talking, I'll just tidy up -"
"Don't worry about it -"
"Oops!" she cried, having somehow managed to knock all four empty bottles off the table, but catching them with a Hover Charm just before they hit the floor. "Sorry."
"No, no, it's all right." Remus flicked his wand and sent the bottles sailing neatly back into the pantry. "Shall I see you to the door?"
- - - - -
Tonks followed Remus upstairs and watched as he deftly undid the various enchantments that guarded the entrance to the Order's Headquarters. She felt she ought to say something supportive about the personal things he'd shared with her, or maybe just apologise about having made him share them at all. But she couldn't seem to find the right words.
"So, see you soon, I'm sure," she said instead, as Remus slid open the last bolt.
"Yes, I'm sure," he agreed, holding the door open as she walked down the steps and raised her wand, ready to Disapparate. Just as she began to turn, one side of his mouth quirked up slightly. "Good night, Nymphadora."
Her name sounded strangely tolerable when he said it, Tonks reflected, and she found herself hiding a smile.
Still, she managed to send him a token glare just as she Disapparated. She wasn’t about to let him make a habit of that!
- - - - -
(continue to CHAPTER TWO)
End note: Updated to add: Though it's not technically part of this timeline, if you want to think of all these stories as existing within the same world, then " The Pied Piper of Privet Drive, or, How the Dursleys Came to Be Short-Listed for the All-England Best Kept Suburban Lawn Competition," a fun, early-OotP story co-written by stereolightning and me, would fall between the prologue and the main part of this chapter!
Summary: In which Remus and Tonks fight battles, arrest criminals, befriend werewolves, overcome inner demons and, despite it all, find themselves a happy ending. A love story, and a story of the Order years. (At long last, my Remus/Tonks epic, which has been years in the making!)
Characters: Remus, Tonks, Sirius and all the others (Molly, Arthur, Harry, Ginny, Hermione, Ron, Mad-Eye Moody, Kingsley Shacklebolt, Bill, Fred, George, Percy, Andromeda, Ted, Dumbledore, McGonagall, Snape, Scrimgeour, other members of the Order, werewolf OCs, other OCs)
Chapters: 18 (in Part One)
Notes:
The implication in canon (which has since, I admit, been confirmed on Pottermore) was that there was nothing between Remus and Tonks beyond friendship (and a bit of her trying to convince him to let it be something more) until she confronted him at the end of the sixth book…and then they were married before the seventh book even started.
I always found that hard to believe. Nor do I believe Tonks was depressed for an entire year just because she fancied Remus a bit, but he wouldn't reciprocate - there's got to be more behind it than that!
…And thus a book-length story was born.
It’s a story I’ve been oh so slowly writing over the course of several years, since before Pottermore even existed, so I hope you’ll humor me in the way I’ve completely ignored the Pottermore version of Remus and Tonks’ unfolding relationship during OotP and HBP - this is my take on another way it might have gone.
As always, I'm only playing in this fabulous sandbox, and anything you recognise is not mine. Eternal thanks go to JKR, for creating such a wonderful world.
My deepest thanks also to stereolightning, whose thoughtful beta-reading, comments and questions have made this a better-developed story than it would otherwise have been. Any remaining flaws are of course my own.
(Oh, and yeah, I know it’s a little cheesy to start chapters with song quotes; it kind of started as an inside joke - you’ll see why in Chapter 8 - but at some point took on a life of its own, so I ran with it!)
Part One (covering all of OotP) is complete, 18 chapters in total, and I’ll be posting updates weekly. Part Two (covering all of HBP) is not yet entirely written, so there may be a hiatus between the end of posting Part One and the beginning of posting Part Two. I definitely think you can read Part One as a “novel” in its own right, though, and simply know that Part Two as its sequel will be coming later. (I'll also be posting simultaneously at AO3 - here - if you prefer to follow the story there.)
The title of the story - Be the Light in My Lantern - is from a song by one of my all-time favorite songwriters, Josh Ritter. The song, fittingly enough, is called "Lantern."
(And a small side note: Though you don't at all need to read it first, I think of " What I Have Taken Long Before" as something of a prequel to this, because it moves Remus and Sirius - and their friendship - from where they were during the "in-between years" to where they are at the start of this story.)
This has been a long, long labor of love, and I’m so pleased to finally be able to share it with you. And away we go!
Chapter 1: The Newest Member of the Order
I don't know why you say goodbye, I say hello
-The Beatles, Hello Goodbye
PROLOGUE:
When Mad-Eye Moody introduced around the newest recruit to the Order of the Phoenix, Remus couldn’t help but allow himself a tiny moment of wondering, Really?
Not that there was anything wrong with joining the Order when you were practically fresh out of school - he and James and Sirius and Peter had done the same when they were even younger than the woman now sitting in the kitchen at 12 Grimmauld Place, swinging her heels against the legs of her chair and looking unfazed by the veteran resistance fighters around her.
But joining the Order practically fresh out of school and having hot pink hair and combining all that with the unmistakeable, penetrating gaze of an Auror - it was a bit much to take in.
“Wotcher,” the young woman said, and grinned at them all.
Yes, there was undeniably something intriguing about Nymphadora Tonks.
- - - - -
When Mad-Eye introduced Tonks to Remus Lupin, asking him to stay a bit longer after the meeting to fill her in on some background about the Order’s activities the last time around, her first thought was that Remus reminded her of her grandfather, the Muggle one on her dad's side.
Not because of their age difference - she suspected the earnest wizard in the carefully patched robes was younger than his premature grey seemed to suggest - but because of the calm he exuded, the impression that you would be safe in his hands, and that perhaps if you were good, he might tell you a bedtime story.
But then he smiled, and Tonks thought, Oh. There was clearly something more beneath that mild exterior, and she experienced a startling moment of feeling she’d rather like to know what it was.
She shook her head at herself, grinned at him, and they got down to business.
- - - - -
CHAPTER 1:
Slouching in the shadowed doorway to the basement kitchen at 12 Grimmauld Place after another Order meeting, glass in hand, Sirius watched his old friend chat with his young cousin. Or chat UP my cousin, he thought, though of course discussions of Dark Lords were not exactly standard chat-up fare.
Tonks had been a member of the Order of the Phoenix for only a few weeks now, but it was already clear she was a very good addition, whip-smart and possessing far more energy than several of the older, stodgier members combined. Little Dora had grown up well, in these many years Sirius had been gone.
And if Remus got enjoyment out of a late night conversation with her in the kitchen after this latest Order meeting - as he evidently did, if that small smile of his was any indication - then all the better.
If there was one person in the world who deserved more joy than he had been allotted in life - well, except maybe Harry - but if there was a second person who deserved more joy, it was Remus.
It certainly wasn't Remus' fault that Sirius was back here, haunting the family home he'd hoped never to see again. Whereas it was entirely Sirius' fault that Remus had lost his closest friends and what little normalcy he'd once had in his difficult life. Anything Sirius could do to make up for that he would do gladly, even if it was only offering up the use of his family’s kitchen for an evening.
Anyway, it was amusing, Sirius decided, methodically draining his glass of Firewhisky and watching the room’s two occupants, who were too preoccupied with each other to notice him. It was amusing how the two of them were clearly fascinated by one another and just as clearly didn't know it.
I give it till Christmas, Sirius thought, because he's going to be stubbornly noble about it, but if she's got even half her mother's determination, he doesn't stand a chance. He smirked down into his glass, then registered his own surprise at finding himself smiling. Ah, old Moony won't know what hit him.
But my Galleon's on Tonks.
With that thought, Sirius slipped off to check on Buckbeak and left the two lovebirds alone.
- - - - -
Remus stared down at his hands interlaced on the tabletop, lost in thought. Thinking about Harry, who was not James, yet so like James - impetuous, loyal, and determined to be involved in everything, consequences be damned. Standing there at the top of the stairs at Lily's sister's house tonight, he'd looked more like James than ever.
"Knut for your thoughts?" Tonks offered and Remus started.
"I'm so sorry," he said, looking up to where she stood in the doorway, gazing at him from beneath hair that was once again alarmingly pink. "I didn't hear you come back in."
"It's that skill at stealth we Aurors are so famed for," she replied, flashing him a grin. He recognised this as a joke, because just these few weeks of passing acquaintance with Nymphadora Tonks had already taught him that she was possibly the clumsiest person he'd ever met.
Remus started to get up from the table, feeling foolish to be sitting there gazing at nothing, when everyone else had gone.
But Tonks waved a hand and said, "Sit, sit. You want a Butterbeer?"
"Er -" replied Remus, half-sinking back into his chair.
"I mean, not that I'm helping myself to things in someone else's house… Okay, yes, I am. But Sirius is family. Here." She was already sliding into a seat across the table, knocking it awkwardly against the chair next to it, and pushing a chilled bottle towards him.
"Thanks?" he managed.
"You're thinking about Harry," she informed him, popping the cap off her bottle and taking a gulp.
He raised an eyebrow.
"Oh, come on, we've just filled him in on rather a lot of sensitive information, and now Sirius is slouching round the house looking dangerous and you're sitting here communing with the furniture - ergo, you're both worrying about Harry."
"They teach Legilimency in Auror boot camp, apparently?" he retorted, but smiled to let her know he wasn't annoyed. He fiddled with the Butterbeer bottle, opening it but not drinking, then said, "Frankly, I challenge anyone to know Harry and not worry."
"Point taken," Tonks replied. Then: "But what are you worrying about specifically, right now?"
Remus considered Tonks, her frank expression, her cheerful clumsiness and psychedelic hair. Nymphadora Tonks was not the person Remus would have planned to have a heart-to-heart with tonight, even if he'd planned to do such a thing at all. But then, when did anything ever work out as Remus had planned? And Tonks seemed truly interested to know what he was thinking. He took a sip of his Butterbeer.
"Sirius and I were friends of Harry's father," he told her at last.
"Ah."
"It wouldn't be an exaggeration to say there was a time when any one of us could look at the others and know exactly what they were thinking. Harry is…so much like James."
"But that's a good thing, isn't it?" Tonks asked, her voice gentler than he'd heard it yet.
"Well - of course. Of course it is." The fact that it was precisely James' good qualities - his trust, his loyalty - that had got him killed lay heavily on Remus' tongue, but he pushed the thought back. "Harry has somehow managed to take on the best of both his parents, without even having known them. It's quite startling, really. Sometimes I have to remind myself to whom I'm talking."
Tonks' quiet gaze encouraged him to continue.
"He's got James' drive," Remus said. "He won't rest until he's sought out evil and conquered it. But when you're a 15-year-old boy and evil is already out there hunting for you…" He shook his head. "I’m sorry. Depressing monologues should not be held over Butterbeer. I apologise, Nymphadora."
"Remus!" Tonks yelped. "Not Nymphadora, please, never Nymphadora. Tonks will do fine."
"Tonks, then."
"Yes, thank you."
"Tonks - why don't you tell me something about yourself."
"'Change the subject,' you mean?"
"Er, I suppose so." Out of the corner of his eye, Remus thought he saw movement in the doorway to the stairs, but when he turned, no one was there.
"I'm not that interesting," she shrugged.
"Oh? I beg to differ. For instance - what made you want to be an Auror?"
"The glamour of it," she replied promptly, surprising him into a laugh. "No, seriously. It's not like that, of course, but as a kid I used to think it would be. I mean, don't get me wrong, it's all worth it for the times when you've finally got all the pieces in place and you catch your Dark wizard and you know you're sending someone truly dangerous to Azkaban. Most of the time, though, it's a lot of busywork. This Order, though," she added, tapping a finger thoughtfully on the table. "Dumbledore's got the right idea. A small group of dedicated people, with as little bureaucracy as possible. It's good. I wish I could have been in the Order the first time round. But, you know, I was, like, six."
From there, Remus was surprised to find the two of them falling into easy conversation. Whereas before now they'd had at most a handful of brief conversations, always related to Order business, now they were chatting about everything, his anecdotes from back in the day and her stories of Auror training under Moody, with her making him laugh with her dead-on impression of the gruff old Auror's unrelenting paranoia.
Some time later - they were each on their second Butterbeer - he glanced up to find himself pinned by her gaze again, that penetrating Auror look.
"Tell me about Harry's dad. About James," she said.
"James?"
"Yeah. He was clearly important to you, and I don't know anything about Harry's family. Thought maybe you could reminisce a bit."
The fire was guttering down low in the fireplace and the kitchen was surprisingly hospitable, despite its bleak stone. Tonks' gaze on him was relaxed and open, and Remus hadn't felt so at peace with his ghosts in a long time. Perhaps it wouldn't do any harm to talk about James a little. "What would you like to know?" he asked finally.
Tonks considered. "How'd you meet?"
Remus couldn't help a chuckle at that. "First day of Hogwarts. He and Sirius had already managed to because fast friends, of course, just in the time on the Hogwarts Express. And then I was standing there at the Sorting, all alone and waiting for my name to be called, literally shaking, and this skinny, messy-haired kid near me - who had a truly impossible degree of self-confidence for an 11-year-old - muttered, 'Buck up, mate, worst that can happen is they'll put you in Slytherin and you'll have to drop out from shame.' And even though that was precisely my fear - that I would end up in Slytherin, since I was a Dark creature, after all - somehow that made me laugh and take myself a little less seriously. Which, essentially, is what James and Sirius spent the next seven years doing, forcing me to take myself less seriously."
"Did you know my mum at school too?" Tonks wanted to know and Remus' head jerked up in poorly disguised shock. Right, of course, he was nearly as old as this woman's mother.
"Er, no," he said quickly, "No, she'd just finished the year before. Which I know because Sirius certainly complained enough, that he would get stuck with 'Prissy Cissy' as the only one of his cousins still at Hogwarts."
Tonks laughed. "Yeah, I can picture that. Was he as incorrigible as I imagine?"
"Worse." Remus smiled.
"And Harry's dad? Also incorrigible?"
"Afraid so."
"What about you?"
"Er, sensible when I should have been more fun, and irresponsible when I should have been setting a good example, I'd say. Always getting roped into to things while simultaneously maintaining a guilty conscience about them."
Tonks sighed happily at him. "I'm picturing it like some epic story. The tale of the three gallant, adventuring friends!"
"More or less." Remus thought he probably shouldn't tread this ground tonight, yet there was something about Tonks that had him wanting to tell her the full truth. "In real life, though, it started out as four friends."
She looked at him quizzically. "Who was the fourth?"
"We had another friend, called Peter."
"And he's been written out of the collective history, has he?"
"You could put it that way, I suppose. He was the one who betrayed James and Lily to Voldemort."
Tonks' eyes went wide. "Oh, Merlin," she whispered. "Oh. I'm so sorry."
"Well, yes, it was all a long time ago," Remus said, disconcerted by her sympathy.
"Gods, and that's what Sirius was in Azkaban for, wasn't it? People thought he was the one who betrayed them? So you lost one friend, and thought another was a traitor, all at once?" For a moment she just stared at him, the knuckes of one hand pressed to her lips. Then she said, voice hushed, "I can't imagine how you survived that."
In his darker moments, Remus sometimes wondered the same thing.
"Honestly, there was a fair amount of drinking too much and running away from everything in those first years," he said. "I spent some time abroad, being aimless and not much use."
She fixed him with that inescapable gaze and said, "You must be so strong."
And really, what did one say to that?
It was some time later, after their conversation had lurched its way back into more neutral waters, that Tonks looked up and wondered, "What time is it, anyway?"
She cast around the room in vain for a clock. It was Remus who located one, glowering darkly down with an almost human face from a high corner, half-hidden behind the pots and pans. "Half twelve," he said.
"Merlin's pants!" Tonks exclaimed, then glanced sideways at Remus, looking abashed. "Er - sorry, language."
"Don't worry, I'm no longer a teacher." He smiled ruefully. "And even that didn't last all that long in the first place."
"I've got to go," she said, looking sorry about it. "Early shift tomorrow. Thanks, it was nice talking, I'll just tidy up -"
"Don't worry about it -"
"Oops!" she cried, having somehow managed to knock all four empty bottles off the table, but catching them with a Hover Charm just before they hit the floor. "Sorry."
"No, no, it's all right." Remus flicked his wand and sent the bottles sailing neatly back into the pantry. "Shall I see you to the door?"
- - - - -
Tonks followed Remus upstairs and watched as he deftly undid the various enchantments that guarded the entrance to the Order's Headquarters. She felt she ought to say something supportive about the personal things he'd shared with her, or maybe just apologise about having made him share them at all. But she couldn't seem to find the right words.
"So, see you soon, I'm sure," she said instead, as Remus slid open the last bolt.
"Yes, I'm sure," he agreed, holding the door open as she walked down the steps and raised her wand, ready to Disapparate. Just as she began to turn, one side of his mouth quirked up slightly. "Good night, Nymphadora."
Her name sounded strangely tolerable when he said it, Tonks reflected, and she found herself hiding a smile.
Still, she managed to send him a token glare just as she Disapparated. She wasn’t about to let him make a habit of that!
- - - - -
(continue to CHAPTER TWO)
End note: Updated to add: Though it's not technically part of this timeline, if you want to think of all these stories as existing within the same world, then " The Pied Piper of Privet Drive, or, How the Dursleys Came to Be Short-Listed for the All-England Best Kept Suburban Lawn Competition," a fun, early-OotP story co-written by stereolightning and me, would fall between the prologue and the main part of this chapter!