A/N: I was rereading OOTP, and it made me realize how much I loved the relationship of Remus and Tonks, which is how this story came to be. It is my first time writing for the couple, and I do hope I did them justice.

I disclaim any ownership!

It had all started with the tipping of a candle, a consequence of her clumsy nature, and ended with a revelation. AU-OOTP timeframe.

Shapeshifters

It all started with the tipping of an ignited candle. Embers lashed out violently, darkening the parchment Remus Lupin and Bill Weasley poured over-soaking in every detail. Her vocal signature hadn't been enough of a warning. The flames ate up the scroll as both Bill and Remus were forced to scurry from harms way.

"Tonks!" Bill hissed, glaring at the panicked girl as Remus extinguished the flames with a wave of his wand.

Dainty fingers covered her pallid, heart shaped face, but her prominent Black family cheeks and that small nose of her muggleborn father looked as harmless as a housefly. Still, Remus couldn't help but toss her a look of annoyance. Although her clumsy nature amused him that parchment was gone. The plans he had etched with thorough detail, as candles burned down to there wax stumps, were now nothing more than a pile of ash.

Bill huffed. His hands ran through his significantly Weasley ginger locks in frustration. He left the scene, stuffing hands into his pockets and stalking towards his mum, who was fussing over curtains and holding a spray bottle of black liquid, which tainted the air rancid.

Her hands disappeared from her profile, strands of bubblegum-pink framing her pretty face. Her pout turned into a grimace as her hazel orbs bore into the back of Bill Weasley's head. When Bill didn't turn around and add fire to the flames, Tonks dropped her shoulders in defeat and instead turned to Remus. "Sorry."

Her tone was dismal, but it was enough to melt the frown coating his lips. His shoulders too dropped as his tired periwinkle-blue eyes fell to her profile.

Her grimace faded, twisting into a comical smile the instant she caught his eyes. Shoulders bunched, ready to slouch into a shrug if given the command. Fiddling with her fingers in absent fashion, Tonks uttered, "I'm a…" But Tonks didn't get to finish.

Remus's interjection nestled into her sentence with a flourish, sweeping out of his mouth before he could swallow the chuckle. "A klutz." It was his turn to twist his lips in a quirky manner.

The scars sewn into his profile faded. He looked years younger. His straw colored hair fell over those misted blue eyes. It felt as if Tonks was gazing into a crystal ball, unable to discern what she was to seek like the years hauled up in that sweltering and heavily perfumed tower Professor Trelewany preferred. Pink pirouetted across her cheeks unashamedly, clashing with her hair in a not so discrete fashion. She was staring, and it was probably obvious.

Without so much as a warning, Tonks's face contorted in concentration, and with a muted pop her hair was pin straight and periwinkle-blue. 'Great,' her mind shrieked scathingly. Now she probably resembeled candy-floss.

Bless his heart, Remus didn't laugh. Instead, his lips curved into a rather infectious smile. All nostalgia towards the etchings in a parchment turned to dust forgotten. His sweet smile touched his eyes. The periwinkle-blue Tonks had grown fond of brightened. "It's ok," Remus admitted with an unmistakable tease to his voice. "Nymphadora."

The blood rushed to her face. He was winding her up. It shouldn't have come as a surprise. He was an alumnus of the Marauders. Best friends to legendary pranksters James Potter and Sirius Black. However, Tonks didn't know that Remus. She knew him as careful and cautious. Except when his unguarded self slipped through his cautious demeanor, which frequented the more they were paired up for Order missions. Tonks didn't mind. She found the carefree Lupin alluring.

"Don't call me…" Her brows no longer furrowed. Her sentence was lost to the air. If Tonks thought about it, her name didn't sound all that terrible. At least not when it fell from his lips.

His sweet disposition turned contemplative, wondering why Tonks hadn't finished her sentence. He had seen her lash out at the other members of the Order with an unfriendly tongue even if the use of her first name was accidental. Then again, Tonks never looked at any of them that way. Remus wasn't blind. He noticed her lingering gaze. But his guarded self had written that off as nothing more than curiosity.

Remus Lupin was supposed to be a vicious werewolf. The Ministry was running anti-werewolf legislation. But then he was so Prefect "Moony", calming the tempest of Sirius's pent up frustrations towards the very place Sirius had loathed as a child, and so scholarly when he advised Hermione with her view points on house-elf enslavement. Where was that teeth bearing and entirely covered in fur wolf of a man?

Despite knowing of his monstrous nature, Tonks would smile and it would reach her doe-like eyes. It caused his heartstrings to jostle and his insides would feel as if his body was trying to mend back into a man after just having spent the day as a fearsome creature. Remus didn't dare dwell into what Tonks's staring entailed. He tried his best to keep at bay when it came to her, for if he was honest Tonks brought out the child in him.

He would find himself laughing at her failed endeavors at avoiding a collision and her quirky manners towards rough and tough aurors, Alastor Moody and Kingsley Shacklebolt, making them out to be nothing more than purring kittens. When Remus was around Tonks, it felt as if he was back in his days at Hogwarts, surrounded in the company of James, Sirius, and Lily. Then the outcome of their futures would slap him in the face, and his laughter would dwindle like water dried up in a creek.

Remus thwacked his fingers against the large wooden table between them. He couldn't go down that road of despair again. It certainly wasn't fair to drag Tonks along with him. She had a future ahead of her. A handsome young auror was probably waiting to enchant her back at the office. His eyes scurried anywhere but at her. "I-I should go."

Tonks blinked. There was that unwelcomed thick air pressing between them. Her hand reached out, but to do what? To stop him? Why would she do that? He was years older than her. Then again, no one calmed her like Remus did. She was the raging tempest, and he was the soft breeze after the storm. He would give ears to her oration of the mundane cubicle activities of her auror life when she wasn't on the hunt for the "Notorious Sirius Black".

Mrs. Weasley would suddenly start pestering Bill about that French girl he kept mentioning or busy herself in keeping the twins out of earshot when they tried to listen in on Order meetings. Alastor would doze off in the frayed printed armchair he had grown rather found of while Kingsley would wave her off dismissively, not wishing to relive his daily happenings of life at the Ministry. It was then, Sirius would remember to feed the hippogriff he kept in Mrs. Black's room. Remus, however, would listen to her ramblings for hours. Everyone was aware Tonks could talk for days.

But then this tension would arise, like the thick air currently surrounding her, and Remus would leave as if he had realized there was something important he had to do. This time, however, Tonks wouldn't let him.

"Remus, wait."

Remus paused in the entryway of Grimmauld Place. His face turned towards Tonks, and he instantly regretted the decision the moment he caught her wide-eyed gaze. There was something longing woven into her expression and it clawed at him, reminding him painstakingly that these were notions unworthy of the beast he fought tooth and nail to suppress. Therefore, he tossed on his fedora and threw his patched blazer over his arm and bolted out the door.

Taken aback by his sudden haste, Tonks attempted to follow after him. Her less than graceful footsteps, however, gave her foot the unwelcome comfort of being reacquainted with that ugly troll's leg the Black's insisted on using for umbrellas. It fell to the wooden floor with a sonorous thud, and was now sequestered uncomfortably under Tonks, who pushed herself up the moment Mrs. Blacks vociferous cries permeated the noble and most ancient house of Black.

"STAINS OF DISHONOR, FILTHY HALF-BREEDS, BLOOD TRAITORS…"

Footsteps thudded down the creaky wooden steps as Sirius's yells tried to squash out the foul language screams of his mother's portrait. Before he could catch a glimpse of the perpetrator, Tonks had uprighted herself and dashed out the front door in a manner more graceful than deemed possible, especially for her.

The muggy air slapped her in the face. Clearly, the weather was going to pay her no favors, and it didn't look as if her feet would either. Where had Remus gone?

Tonks turned the corner of the shady street home to Grimmauld Place. Twilight transfigured into a darkened and faintly peppered sky. Clutching her wand around her fingers tighter, Tonks just missed a hug from a rotten pile of garbage. Pinching the bridge of her nose to extinguish the putrid odor, Tonks segued into a narrow alley and found herself thudding straight into the backside of the man she was seeking.

Startled, Remus swung back his elbow and sent Tonks flying backwards. But where Tonks was the owner of two left feet, Remus was poised-when not obliged to his wolfish tendencies, and he swung around and caught her elbow. "Tonks," he said, steading her.

Tonks ignored the sternness of his tone. Her eyes had found his periwinkle gaze, and it caused her breath to hitch in her throat. They had never been in such close proximity before. "Y-you can call me Nymphadora."

Remus blinked incredulously. Releasing his hold on her elbow, he took a step back. "You dislike being called Nymphadora." Internally, his voice was less stable. His heart sank. Suspicions were confirmed. It shouldn't be this way. It couldn't. Fate would never allow it. His wounded emotions licked his mouth dry. Tonks didn't understand the monster he could become.

Remus gazed at his palms as if they had confirmed this. He wished nothing more than to sink to the street. He had never felt such a pull at his heart where it engulfed his mind, body, and soul, and left him with an ache much worse than his transformations.

"Remus-" Her voice was gentle, and it seemed to pull him out of his self-pity enough to look at her kind, dark twinkling eyes.

However, it was his turn to apologize. When Tonks took a step towards him, he held out his palms as if she too should come to conclusions he had. He was a werewolf. No amount of Wolfsbane Potion would ever change that. Werewolves were notorious creatures. There was a reason people feared them. And most of all, it was a very lonely life. His mind ran over the sacrifices his mother, Hope, and his father, Lyall had to make, and the risks James and Sirius would take. "I'm sorry."

Her look turned defiant. Tonks jutted out her chin as her eyes bore into his. "For what? Being a werewolf?"

Her voice was loud. His eyes nervously skittered around them. The alley was at least free of muggles.

"Because that isn't your fault."

"Whether it is or isn't, Tonks," he began in that scholarly voice of his. "It doesn't change the fact that I am." Remus was surprised how calm his voice had carried out because his heart and mind were fighting a battle he was unprepared for, and Remus Lupin hated being unprepared.

"No, Remus. You're like me." She sighed, softening her stance.

Her words caught him off guard. How could a bloodthirsty monster be like a beautiful, smart, and albeit clumsy yet strong young woman?

Her lips transfigured into the smile that caused her dark eyes to crinkle. It was a smile he had grown fond of. It made his heart flutter, and his heart was currently putting up a good fight.

"We're shapeshifters." And without waiting for the pitiful lecture that was sure to follow, Tonks did the only thing she could think of. She misbehaved. Standing on the tips of her toes, she pressed her lips into his.

With his heart currently in the lead, Remus responded like a gentlemen. His brain, however, refused to give up. As much as Remus desired to relish the moment, he pulled away. The same daunting thoughts rung like alarm bells. He may have been a shapeshifter like Tonks-in the sense he could transfigure himself, but while Tonks remained harmless to those around her-if she didn't give into her less than graceful nature, Remus morphed dangerously and was unable to recognize friend from foe.

Her heart plummeted the moment he turned to her with that forlorn gaze. She didn't even have to concentrate. Her hair transformed into a mousy-brown, her natural color.

"Forgive me." And bowing like a gentlemen, he left her standing there with glassy eyes and an unable-to-grasp-for-breath throat.