A/N: Hi everyone. It's me again. I bet you're sick of seeing me around here. Anyway, it's morally wrong of me to do this seeing as I should be revising and/or updating 'Lupus Fortis'. But that one's a bit angsty so I'm going for a bit of fluff. That is pretty much all this is. Remus/Tonks not quite together but sort of both trying to get there while Sirius tries to be encouraging. Quite a lot of Remus/Sirius friendship too, because I love writing that.

This was going to be a oneshot. Not I'm pretty sure it'll be a threeshot all set on the same night. But then again, it could turn out longer. I just never know. Anyway, that's all for now.

Hope you enjoy.

Disclaimer: I don't own 'em, J.K. Rowling does. The title and quotes comes from a Five For Fighting song of the same name. I don't own that either.

Love Can't Change The Weather

"Love can't change the weather,
She says I'm out of my mind, over my head.
Love can't change the weather,
But I'll be holding you when the rain walks in."

Chapter 1:

Remus drummed his fingers on the table in a perfect echo of the rain drum-drumming outside, rattling the thin window pain of Grimmauld Place and making him glad he was inside. He didn't fancy getting drenched out on patrol as he was sure Kingsley and Hestia would be, right at this minute.

Having said that, this unexpected downpour of summer rain was a welcome interlude from the scorching heat they had all become accustomed to. Even Grimmauld Place, which normally remained obstinately chilly both in temperature and in atmosphere, had succumbed. In fact, it had been overbearingly hot these past few weeks. A delight for all the school children who had time off school for the summer, although Remus could think of one teenage boy wouldn't have too much to smile about. Though, if all went to plan, he would be out of Surrey in a week or two.

He mused idly over the plans Moody had scrawled down for everyone who was to be in the Advance Guard to study meticulously. It was just that his scratchings were extremely difficult to read.

He rose out of the armchair and padded to the window where a small chink of light filtered through. To say that the ancient house had yielded to the heat did not mean it had held its grimy hands up in surrender to his and Sirius' best cleaning efforts. Even Molly had to admit they were taking one step forward and then three steps back. A decade of dirt, dust and decay was hard to shift and Remus, and the rest of the house's inhabitants – be they fleeting or permanent – had to put up with a limited amount of daylight in nearly every room. Rather ironically, the best lit room in the house was Buckbeak's and no-one ever went in there because of the ever-growing pile of dead rat remnants. And that was not taking into account the highly strung, easily offended Hippogriff...and his lord and master. Sirius had been growing ever more sullen as the days went by and Remus often mused that he had probably been more cheerful in Azkaban than he was here. Maybe he really should consider making a permanent change into his four-legged, stick-chasing, tail-wagging alter ego. He really was a Prima Donna. Always had been, ever since Hogwarts.

Remus frowned and then squinted, the illumination in the living room was no better than the rest of the house, ivy had begun growing up the exterior walls and seemed to have a mind to engulf the already grime-smeared window. He had to concede, there really was no reading these instructions from Moody.

Wasn't it meant to be Healers whose writing was illegible?

He would have to ask Tonks the next time he saw her, maybe she could decipher for him.

Tonks. His mind instantly faltered. Nymphadora Tonks: the smiling, kind-hearted, pink-haired witch that had altogether pinched his heart without any semblance of his permission. Immediately he felt the omnipresent prickly summer heat creep further up his neck and circle round his cheeks and turn into a warmth that had nothing to do with the time of year.

Only she had this effect on him – she turned him into the awkward, bumbling, blushing school-boy who had blundered through a series of mortifying first dates and first kisses and first dances. Sirius and James hadn't helped all that much either.

But, he hadn't felt like that for years.

More years than he cared to acknowledge in fact.

A bead of sweat trickled down his throat and still the rain pounded. In spite of the weather he opened the window.

Outside, the summer rain could be smelt in the air. It smelt of warmth and tarmac and damp. Pleasant, but infuriatingly indescribable.

He loved all the sights and smells of summer – the feelings it gave you, but they also saddened him greatly, as memories of every summer break of his youth filtered back to him. Time spent with James, Sirius, Peter and, as time went by, Lily at his family home – a large country house in a time-forgotten village. Both were situated conveniently near a tree and weed-dense copse, perfect to accommodate his monthly transformations. The Lupin family had moved there when he was six, after he had been bitten. It all just leant itself perfectly to Remus' condition: small, Muggle population who never asked questions or wandered around the copse at night, open spaces, few or no tourists likely to wonder across Remus' werewolf self during a full moon. Yes, it was picturesque and the ultimate British-postcard stereotype; with its quiet little beach a ten-minute walk away, although above all, it was practical. But it was the only home Remus could remember. He loved it there.

"If I didn't know you better, Remus, I'd say you were being a sentimental old fool," came a voice from the doorway, one that was altogether at home in these particular memories. He shut the window and turned around and as his eyes re-accustomed themselves to the gloom he picked out the dark, tamed-but-still-long-enough-to-be-considered-straggly hair of his last remaining childhood friend.

"Just thinking about the good days," he admitted with a wistful smile and saw his expression mirrored on Sirius' face. "And trying to decode this," he said, motioning to Mad-Eye's parchment scrap.

"What, this?" Sirius, who had sat down in Remus' recently-vacated armchair, pulled one of the parchment's many brothers from his pocket. "Yeah, he gave me one too, seemed to think if I couldn't join the guard I'd at least like to know what's going on with my own Godson," he sounded more than a little bitter and angry. "You're fighting a losing battle there, mate. Only word I could make out was 'vigilance', no joke. There, look," he pointed it out to Remus and the latter snorted, swiping his fringe out of his eyes. It really was time to accept Molly's offer of a haircut.

"D'you think it's all one of Moody's safety devices? Illegible handwriting, that is. Make sure a Death Eater couldn't read it if it got intercepted or the like," Remus asked as he gingerly sat down on another armchair, one that was less commonly used. Experience had taught him that things could still jump out and ambush you if you didn't have your wits about you.

"Good theory," Sirius agreed, thinking about it before nodding decisively. "You could be right about that one, Moony. We'll have to ask Tonks when she pops by tonight, she'll most likely know," he added and Remus saw Sirius' delight in having a relative who actually wanted to 'pop by' and see him. One that didn't think he was the scum of the earth. The sentiment was written into his sunken features, although this in itself was something about Sirius that seemed to be changing – as each day went by he looked increasingly healthy, while Remus suspected that he himself looked more and more drawn.

"I thought of that too," he said in reply, to which he was rewarded with one of Sirius' customary bark-like laughs.

"Mm, I bet you'd thought of that, you sly old man."

Remus felt the heat spreading up to his cheeks. He hadn't divulged anything of his feelings towards Tonks to Sirius but his time in Azkaban had only served to heighten those already sharpened senses of perception. Interfering old sod.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Remus thought it was best to play ignorant. Agreeing was out of the question, unless in a sarcastic manner, and back at Hogwarts silence had only ever confirmed any suspicions James and Sirius had, regardless of their actual accuracy. Although Remus had always thought it was a toss up between what was more infuriating: them guessing you had taken a fancy to someone and being correct (nothing ever stayed secret for long and so you had to admit everything and be teased to death for it) or them guessing and being completely off the mark and Remus – and often Peter – having to endure weeks of endless taunts and jokes about something that wasn't even relevant.

"Tonks, of course," Sirius said, his tone matter-of-fact. "Don't think I haven't noticed the way you are around her – I am in this house twenty-four seven, don't forget. Nothing about anyone in the Order escapes my notice, least of all the business of my oldest friend." He was wearing an annoyingly superior smile.

Oh bugger it all. Had he really been that obvious? True, he and Tonks flirted a lot, but it was harmless teasing. Well, to her anyway. She'd never look at him twice of course, not as anything more than a good friend. But still, there was nothing in anything he said that could have given him away, not like when he was at school.

"Really Sirius, I don't where you're getting your ideas from recently but if you don't mind me saying, with all due respect mate, you're really losing your touch. In fact, James would be positively ashamed of you because that's frankly a load of boll-"

"Don't pull that one Moony. I've seen the way you look at her. And Merlin, I've seen the way she looks back. Girl's infatuated with you. Don't think she's round here half her life just for my benefit,"

What? What? Could he really be...? Oh shut up Remus you old fool. Young, beautiful girl in her twenties, look at you? Don't be an arse.

"I can't really speak for Tonks, but looking objectively at myself, it's hard to see -"

"Well there's no accounting for taste, Moony," Sirius said, biting back a sardonic grin.

"You're a sarcastic old prat, you know that don't you?"

"Pride myself upon it,"

"Well you're wrong. Because, although I think that she's a lovely young woman she is nothing more, or indeed less, than a very valued friend."

"Rubbish, you're like a schoolboy again. I'm rarely wrong about you, Remus -"

"Ah, but let's not forget the times that you were wrong, shall we?" Remus began ominously and the look on Sirius' face told him that he would rather those times stayed dead and buried.

"Remember Violet Arnold in the year below?"

"Yes, and I'm still eternally sorry for that, mate – you know I am,"

"You and James thought I acted strangely around her because I was harbouring some sort of crush on her but it was because she wouldn't leave me alone, I'd turn a corner and she'd be there, eyes wide, staring up at me, not saying anything – just staring. And you thought I was looking at her all the time in the common room because I fancied her – I was unnerved by the whole thing; she never took her eyes off me."

"I think you can take that as a magnificent compliment then, can't you?"

"She sent me a singing valentine that documented our whole lives together. Including the names of our seven children – including Derek, Deirdre and Damian the triplets. No teenage boy in his right mind is going to be impressed by that!"

"Yes, well, she was rather a sweet girl."

"But I told you a million times that I didn't fancy her and gave you numerous reasons as to why!"

"Well looking back it's all very clear, but you were a bit subtle at the time."

"I shouted it at you across the common room one Sunday afternoon," Remus said blankly. "But oh no, you had to go telling her I liked her as much as she liked me, setting us up because you thought I was too shy to tell her myself. I couldn't get rid of her for a month."

"I'm sure it wasn't that long Moony,"

"It was a month, I can work it out by the transformations, Sirius. I have never seen a girl cry so much. Ever. And when she went straight to McGonagall telling her I lead her on – I got into serious trouble for that. I had to do detentions with Filch for two weeks! All because of you and your meddling."

"Yes, I won't deny that did backfire on me a bit," Sirius admitted with a sheepish smile.

"Backfire on you, a bit? And what about the time you tried to set up Peter and that Slytherin girl, now what was her name? Gaynor Greenwood, that's it!"

"Well it could have been worse," Sirius replied bashfully. "I may have misread the signals a bit there but -"

"Sirius, the poor boy was scared of her. She was about six foot seven and in her final year. Never known anyone so proficient at the jelly legs curse, and there's no use pretending that was the 'first bloom of young love' or however you put it. I've never seen anybody so thoroughly hexed."

"Mm, true. But then, that wasn't half as bad as when she followed up with the Waddiwasi on him and that Satsuma got wedged up his –"

"Yes Sirius, thanks for reminding me, I was going to gloss over that part,"

"Ah but, there's no glossing over that is there? I must say, Madam Pomfrey was ever so good over the years, rarely ever blinked an eye at any of the messes we got ourselves – or others for that matter – into. In fact, I think that was the one and only time I can remember that she lost control over herself a little. Tried to pretend she wasn't laughing, but I could see her shaking as she bent down to get something out of a drawer."

"Yes I rather think that I couldn't keep myself from grinning either at that point."

"Peter wasn't laughing though. He couldn't sit down for at least a week."

"Oh be fair Sirius, it was at least two."

They both laughed heartily and Remus took his chance.

"Yes, so just remember what your meddling can do to people, particularly when all your little suspicions are unfounded," he warned, eyes narrowed.

Sirius held his hands up in surrender.

"Okay, okay, you win this time. But I still reckon I'm onto something, I'll be quietly observing from now on."

Remus would just have to remind himself to be more careful whenever Inspector Black was around.