Puppy Chow
Remus and Sirius were in the kitchen of Grimmauld, drinking tea and firewhiskey respectively, when Tonks burst in. She looked flushed and excited, and carried a bulging grocery bag.
"Wotcher!"
Remus quickly set down his teacup and took the bag from Tonks.
"Thanks Remus." Tonks blew a strand of pink hair off her face, then crossed her eyes as it promptly flopped back into place, tickling her nose.
"What's all that Nymphadora?"
"It's Tonks, Sirius!!" Sirius put up his hands to ward off any stray hexes from the wand now pointed at him.
Remus intervened with "What is all this, Tonks?" as he held up a jar of peanut butter and a spatula.
"Oh!" She said, whirling to look at Remus. "It's a muggle snack I've been craving lately. I tried it years ago when Mum and Dad took me on a vacation to America. I thought we could try making it."
"Making it?" Remus raised an eyebrow as he lifted out a bag of chocolate bits. "I'm not much of a cook, and no offense, Nymphadora, but neither are you."
"Tonks!"
"Right. But still, cooking?"
"It's really easy. Or, at least it's supposed to be…" She trailed off. Remus raised the other eyebrow.
She brightened. "How hard can it be? The recipe is on the back of the box!"
"That…sounds like a recipe for disaster," Remus said, as he finished emptying the grocery bag.
"Oh, be a Marauder. It'll be fun!"
"Right." Tonks stuck her tongue out at him, then noticed Sirius with his feet propped up watching the interplay as if it were a particularly violent match of ping-pong. He silently toasted her with what remained of his glass of firewhiskey. She stuck her tongue out at him too. "Come here you. You're going to help too."
"I am?"
"Yes. You are. Now get up." Tonks stared him down in her best-commanding-auror-pose until he set down his firewhiskey. "Thank you."
Sirius grumbled something under his breath about bossy, demanding women.
Remus looked at him, commenting, "you know, you sound like Kreacher when you do that."
"Do not."
"Right then. Sirius we need eight…." she glanced sidelong at Remus, "make that 16 cups of this in this bowl," as she shook a box and thrust a large bowl into his arms. Without waiting for a response, she turned to Remus. "Remus, would you melt this and half a jar of this together? I'd do it, but it would probably explode." She rolled her eyes as she handed him the chocolate bits and a jar of peanut butter. Their fingers touched and they exchanged an intense gaze, until Sirius burst out with "Why the bloody hell didn't you tell me that sixteen cups was the whole box!"
Remus and Tonks whipped their heads around to look at Sirius. "Because that wouldn't have been near as much fun, cousin," she replied with a cheeky grin.
Remus hid a smirk by turning back to the bowl he was supposed to be measuring peanut butter into, then dumped the chocolate bits on top, and tapped the side of the bowl with his wand. "Now what?"
"Now you pour that melty chocolate over top of the cereal Sirius measured out and stir it together," Tonks replied as she measured powdered sugar into a large bag. Sirius handed the spatula to Remus, then flopped back down at the table to finish his temporarily abandoned firewhiskey.
"This looks rather disgusting, you know, right?"
"Oh, yes, I know. But it's worth it."
"Of course, it has chocolate. What is it anyway?"
She ignored his question as if it hadn't been asked, walking over to look into the bowl. "That looks good enough. Why don't you dump that in here?" she said, as she held out the bag of powdered sugar, then shrieked with laughter when a glob of gooey cereal landed on his sleeve. She laughed even harder when he accidentally-on-purpose flicked some onto her weird sisters t-shirt. Sirius merely rolled his eyes unnoticed in the background.
Eventually, they managed to get most of the cereal into the bag, which Tonks promptly closed and carried over to Sirius while Remus evanescoed the cereal and sugar on the floor. "Here, shake this up."
"Why?"
"Just do it."
"Why?"
"Shake!"
Ten minutes later, the trio was huddled around a pan of the snack at one end of the table.
"So are you actually going to tell us what this stuff is, Nym?"
"Tonks, Sirius," she said warningly, kicking him under the table.
Again, Remus intervened. "It would be nice to know what we're eating. What is this, Tonks?"
"It's called puppy chow."
"Puppy chow? But dogs can't eat choc….." Remus' perplexed comment was interrupted by a barking guffaw from Sirius.
"That's brilliant! It does kind of look like that dog food that muggle woman fed me last year in Kent."
Remus frowned slightly at the reminder that his friend had lived off of rats and handouts last year, but then burst out laughing himself when he took another look at what remained of the pan's contents.
"Mission accomplished then. I thought you might enjoy it, seeing as how you're both….dogs."
Remus and Sirius merely laughed harder.
Tonks smirked as she popped another piece into her mouth.
A/N: Inspired by a craving for puppy chow. I don't know if it's in Britain or not, but I thought I'd share anyway.