Author's Note: See? I can write happy things! Thanks to Aya for being a bomb Beta.
Disclaimer: The following characters belong to J.K. Rowling, and this story derives from her original works, storylines, and world. Please do not sue me, I can barely pay tuition.
Warnings: NA
Stacked with: MC4A; Terms of Services; Shipping War
Individual Challenge(s): Gryffindor MC; Hufflepuff MC; Short Jog (Y); Seeds; Yellow Ribbon; Yellow Ribbon Redux; Stitchin' Time; Creature Feature; In the Trench; Surprise!; Odd Feathers
Representation(s): Auror Tonks
Bonus challenge(s): Middle Name; Second Verse (Ladylike); Chorus (Machismo)
Tertiary bonus challenge: NA
Word Count: 1239
Shipping Wars
Ship (Team): Nymphadora Tonks and Remus Lupin (Technicolour Moon)
List (Prompt): Big List (Crafting)
Hogwarts Submitting Info
House: Ravenclaw
Assignment: Assignment #10, Beauty Therapy #8 Liquid Eyeliner (Write about something that requires a lot of patience)
In Stitches
She dropped the needle again and cursed under her breath. When he chuckled, she turned back.
"Sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt," Remus said. He detached himself from the kitchen doorway he was leaning on to step into Grimmauld Square's kitchen. "I was just here to make tea."
"No, I imagine it's quite laughable," Tonks said, throwing her robes and the spool of thread she'd been trying to thread through a needle back onto the table.
He lit the element of the gas stovetop with a flick of his wand and placed the kettle on it.
"What are you attempting?" Remus asked again.
"Kingsley and I were fooling around at work and my dress robes got torn. Then I had to come straight here, go out on patrol with Bill, and I didn't have a chance to ask Molly for help—so now I've got to fix them," she said. Her hair's usual pink colour seemed a bit more on the rose side than its usual vibrant shade; he wondered if this was a byproduct of fatigue. The freckles splashed across her nose looked paler, too. They had only met a week ago, at the first Order meeting, so it didn't feel quite right for Remus to ask a question like that. They had never had any other conversation, anyways.
"Perhaps I can help?" he offered.
"No, I wouldn't want to bother you," Tonks said, picking up her needle and thread again.
"Because I'm so very busy," he said. She snorted, but didn't look up from her needle, one eye shut and nose scrunched up in concentration as she tried to get it done.
He leaned against the counter, waiting for his water, and watched as she tried passing her thread through the eye of the needle with little to no success. He clamped down on his lip to bite back a smile.
"Do you need any help?" he asked.
"I'm fine," she said. "I'll get it eventually."
"Alright."
His water was still boiling, leaving him with little else to do than watch her try at it again. On the one hand, he told himself that he should have brought a book. On the other, this was… well, entertaining. He felt bad saying it, but this must have been something along the seventieth try.
"Here," he said, stepping up and pulling the chair next to her. "Can I show you a trick?"
He set the thread against his palm and laid the needle on top, eye up, and rubbed the needle against his palm. The burgundy thread bunched itself up, and soon threaded itself through the needle. Tonks' eyes sprawled.
"Motherfucker..."
He burst out laughing and handed the thread back to her. "You knew that and just sat there and watched me?"
"You said you didn't need help," Remus said, leaning back in his chair, smile teasing his lip.
"Obviously I would've gotten it eventually, but it's quite pathetic," Tonks said. "Where did you learn that?"
"Mum was Muggle," Remus said. "She taught me how to do everything by hand, and I'd go through a lot of clothes if I didn't mend things. You have to tie a knot at the end of the thread before you sew, by the way."
"Jesus," Tonks cussed. He laughed again, and reached out to take the needle back from her.
"Do you have another trick for that?" she asked.
"No, you just have to do it, I think," Remus said. "I would suggest that you turn your robes inside out, to hide the seams we're about to create. The colour's quite dark so I doubt we'll see it much, but just in case."
"Duly noted," she said, obliging. "Okay. What now?"
"What do you mean?"
"Well I'm obviously not very good at this. What's the next step?" Tonks asked.
"You're going to want to line up the two things you're sewing together," Remus said. He thought about showing her the way his mother would pinch the fabric to make the stitch even more discreet, but backtracked at the thought. Small steps. "Do you have pins?"
"Why?"
"To hold the fabric together while you sew it," he explained.
"That would've been smart of me, wouldn't it?"
He bit back a smile. "It's not that big of a fix, I'm sure we'll manage."
"A bold assumption indeed," Tonks said. He laughed again.
"Go on," he said. "You need to start your stitch."
"Does the end I start with matter?"
"Not particularly, no."
"Not particularly or no?" Tonks asked. "I need these tomorrow; all the Aurors are meeting the Minister. Scrimgeour's already told me not to do anything remotely interesting with my hair or any visible body parts. If I show up with torn robes, he'll get in a mood."
"Just to be clear; Scrimgeour didn't say anything about invisible body parts?"
"No, which is why I'll be growing an extra tentacle," Tonks said.
Remus burst out laughing, and kept laughing until a stitch split his side.
"An extra tentacle… to go with the one you already have?"
"Exactly," she grinned. He couldn't help but smile back. "Alright, so I start at any end of the hole?"
"Any end," he said. "Just make sure that you're holding your fabric together… and apart, so that you don't sew your needle shut."
"I did it!"
"You did," he said. "Okay, now keep going. Then you'll be sewing."
"I am so, so afraid of wrecking this… isn't there a fabricus reparo or something?"
"Yes, I'll show you later."
"Really?"
"No," Remus scoffed. "Well, maybe there is, but I don't know it. I can check later. We'll have to do it by hand for now."
"So careless, going around raising my dreams and breaking my heart like that..." she said, shaking her hand.
Still, she focused on her handiwork. He stopped counting the pricks at about twelve. By Merlin, she was clumsy. He never would have guessed from the precise, coordinated ways she cast spells but it was bad. Still, she was perseverant.
"I'm doing it, I've got it," she said, quite pleased with herself. "That's right, suck it Kingsley, I fixed your mess… Oh by the way, if Kingsley asks, I totally wasn't absolutely pitiful or helpless until you came by and saved me."
"Of course not," Remus said. "I wasn't even here… Try to make your stitches as even as possible."
"So that Kingsley can suck it more."
"Yes, that's why," Remus grinned. He watched her work carefully until she'd closed the gap, and then helped her tie off the knot. He reversed her robes for her and handed them over. She ran her fingers along the sleeve.
"Good as new," Tonks said, grinning. "I mean, Scrimgeour will notice, he notices everything, but it's still good. Thank you; he'd have made me do so much deskwork if I'd shown up looking like, and I quote our dear Head Auror, 'a ragamuffin as per usual.'"
"Well done," Remus said.
He got up and went to check on his kettle. They'd been sitting and talking and crafting at the table so long, the water had cooled.
He turned back to her.
"If I boil the kettle again, would you join me for a cup of tea?" he asked her.
"Of course," she said. "That'd be great."
He smiled and topped off the kettle. Something in his stomach twisted in excitement. What would she have him in stitches about next?