The Umbrella Stand

Number 12 Grimmauld Place was just as grim as it promised to be, Tonks surmised, unhooking her trapped jumper from the gnarled black railing and checking it scrupulously for tears. No, she decided, the cheerful knitted red buses continued on their merry way in eternal circles, uninterrupted. Alastor Moody, standing a step above her, rolled his good eye at Tonks' ever-alternative outfit choice (less a choice than a bleary-eyed early morning lunge into her wardrobe) and went inside. Shrugging her shoulders and tripping over the final step, Tonks followed. "Wotcher Mad-Eye," she snorted, "Molly's gonna have her hands full." Moody harrumphed in agreement as he elbowed his way past an umbrella stand, disturbing a cobweb and sending the spiders occupying it into a frenzy. Molly Weasley was sure to sweep into Grimmauld Place any day now, dragging her ginger brood behind her, but even her homemaking skills would be tested by the years of dust and silence that inhabited the place.

Having successfully dodged the peeved spiders and the umbrella stand entirely, Tonks was congratulating herself on her graceful entrance into the house when the door through which Moody had disappeared was suddenly pulled open once more. Tonks collided with something tall and made of cotton and brown buttons, smelling vaguely of wood smoke and apples. It might have been rather pleasant were it not for the fact that one of the aforementioned buttons had pierced Tonks' eye. "Ow!" she exclaimed, her eye watering, and all hopes for a graceful and mature introduction to the Order dashed. She could hear muffled laughter and one prolonged "ha!" which was probably Sirius.

"I'm terribly sorry," said the brown thing, which now appeared to be not a brown thing after all, but a man wearing a brown cardigan, on which hung the offending button. "I didn't see you there."

"That's okay; I was bound to bump into something. It was either gonna be you or the umbrella stand." As Tonks' vision cleared, she found she recognised the cardigan-wearing assassin, who had chuckled and extended his hand, no doubt to negotiate terms. Or introduce himself, either was possible.

"Remus Lupin," Cardigan Man said. Something stirred in the back of Tonks' memory and, bizarrely, around the red buses that rode over her stomach. This she put down to low blood sugar; having set down her sandwich at lunch and then promptly forgotten where it was.

"I'm Tonks." They shook hands, and it was nice. His hands were as kind as his eyes. "Sorry, you're not Sirius' Remus, are you?"

"Of course he is!" Sirius' head popped up, his eyes twinkling with mischief. "Although don't go around saying it like that. The man's practically a monk and everyone will think we share the same bed or something."

Remus blushed the same shade as Tonks' hair, tonight her favourite bubblegum pink. "I remember you as a girl, Tonks. Your hair," he gestured vaguely towards her head, "was somewhat different then." They laughed. At the kind suggestion of Moody ("All three of you get your arses in here so we can start.") Tonks shuffled into the room, catching a second whiff of wood smoke as Remus excused himself and squeezed past her into the hall, returning when Tonks was seated with his arms full of paper.

Aside from Minerva McGonagall and a dark-haired witch who introduced herself as Emmeline Vance, Tonks was the only woman in in the room, and definitely the youngest. She squirmed in her seat, nervous, as she shook hands with old teachers and made awkward small talk with a man on her right whose name was as refreshingly ridiculous as her own. Who calls their kid Mundungus? Her nerves were peaked until lovely Arthur Weasley, her old friend Bill's dad, squeezed her shoulder on the way to his seat. Moody waited until the small company was seated before clearing his throat.

"Let's begin. We're a small number tonight, but that'll all change in a few weeks…" Tonks listened intently, desperate to prove herself, especially in front of Sirius. She had marvelled over recent weeks how perfectly he fit into the patchy memories she had of him from her youth. The same boyish charm, the same air of mischief. The same roving eye: He had snuck out of Grimmauld Place a fortnight ago to meet her in a Muggle pub a few streets away, only to ignore her all evening to chat up three busty German blondes. He sat now, his chair balanced on its two back legs, affecting an air of carelessness. Tonks knew better than to believe it.

And then there was Remus. She found herself eying the buttons on his cardigan rather often (all except the violent one), too shy to look into his face.

"… and, of course, we have Tonks with us." Moody's voice was like shoes on gravel, she had decided upon meeting him. There was a snap and crackle to it, like a bonfire. "She qualified as an Auror last year and will be working covertly at the Ministry from now on. Best girl I ever taught." Tonks lifted her chin; Moody wasn't given to offering praise, and despite the teasing sexism she was rather pleased and embarrassed with such commendation. She twitched her nose twice so that it grew to resemble a Pinocchio puppet's, earning her laughter and smiles. The biggest came from Remus, she noticed, and for some reason this made her doubly happy. Of him she had a single strong memory. She wondered if he shared it, or if was he too sad to have kept it?