This story follows Crying Over Spilt Tea in the Transfigured Hearts series, and is set in the autumn of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. This fic contains a reference to one of my favorite movies. Can you find it?

A Tonks By Any Other Name

The heavy red velvet curtain dropped, and the electric auditorium lights flashed on. Remus blinked, his eyes slow to adjust to the sudden glaring brightness from the Muggle lights, as all around him people were rising from the plastic chairs and making a bee-line for the exits.

"Do you need to go to the loo?" Tonks asked. "The intermission's fifteen minutes, I think. You've time."

Twisting at an awkward angle in his un-sturdy chair to let a gentleman pass who was roughly the size of Harry's Uncle Vernon, Remus chuckled.

"What?" Tonks' nose crinkled.

Remus pressed his fingers to his lips to hold back his laughter. Truthfully, what was that he was thinking he'd never been out with a girl who would blurt out like that about the call of nature, much less with genuine concern about the state of his bladder, and he found her frank sincerity strangely... cute. Adorable, even.

Of course he wasn't about to tell her that.

Instead he answered, "Only that it's a bit of an understatement to say fifteen minutes is enough time to visit the loo."

Tonks hmphed. "Obviously you've never stood in line for the ladies'."

"Actually--" Remus caught himself, feeling heat prickle up from within his collar, which suddenly felt far too tight. He undid the top button and tugged at the knot of his tie.

Tonks arched a very fair eyebrow. Tonight she'd worn her hair in a strawberry blonde bob that framed her high, delicate cheekbones and made her fair complexion glow, off-setting her lovely, shining dark eyes.

"When have you used the ladies' toilet?" she asked.

"Not the ladies'," Remus recovered quickly. Lied, actually, though he didn't like to think of it that way. Drastic times and all... "The Prefects'."

The eyebrow rose a little higher.

"At school," he clarified, unnecessarily.

Even higher, disappearing into her wispy fringe.

"With twelve girls vying for it," he said, "sometimes I'd wait for hours -- long enough to do all my Transfiguration and History of Magic homework."

"On loo roll when you ran out of parchment 'cos you'd lose your place in line if you went to get more?"

"Precisely."

Tonks laughed, and her eyebrow returned to its usual non-sceptical position on her forehead. "Nice try, Remus, but I know there's a Marauder prank story behind this. Spill it."

"Really, it's not that interesting."

Remus shifted uncomfortably on his chair, unsure whether it was more due to the fact that the chair actually was terribly uncomfortable, or to the memory of that fateful Friday the Thirteenth in third year when Padfoot and Prongs Bewitched him to use the girls' toilets. All day long, girls had shrieked and professors had given detentions and taken away House Points. And the whole time Remus remained utterly baffled as to why (except for a horrifying certainty that every female in the school had sussed what he was), because those great prats that styled themselves his mates had Confunded him, as well.

"Oh, but you wouldn't say that if it weren't interesting," Tonks said. "Or embarrassing." She drew her legs up in her chair as a tired-looking woman with a screaming, red-faced toddler squeezed her way down the row of chairs. "If it were boring or non-incriminating, you'd just tell me."

"I wouldn't," said Remus, shaking his head. "On strict principle, I only ever tell interesting stories to girls I hope will want to go out with me again."

"I'll want to go out with you again," Tonks said, raising one hand as if she were taking an oath, and laying the other over her heart.

Remus couldn't stop his eyes from drifting down to where her fingertips with their deep green shimmery lacquered nails rested at the edge the deep V neckline of her black dress; he couldn't help thinking he wished those were his fingers. Minus the nail enamel, of course.

"I'll especially go out with you again if it's an embarrassing story," she added, her voice dropping to a teasing pitch. Her hand moved from her heart now, reaching out to catch the edge of his necktie between two fingers, tugging gently at the end as the fraying silk slid between them. "Which I'm sure must be what you mean by interesting."

Tugging at the ends of his hair spilling over the back of his collar, feeling the flush prickle, Remus had to laugh when his eyes, through his fringe, met Tonks' dancing black ones.

"Of course." Resting one hand on her knee, he leaned in toward her. "Will you go out with me again if I don't tell you my embarrassing story?"

"Hmm...Maybe. It's not like Sirius won't be more than happy to tell me if I can't get it out of you."

"True. I suppose that means there's only one thing to do."

"Tell me?" said Tonks, letting go of his tie in her eagerness.

"Invite myself over to yours for a drink after the play instead of asking you back to Grimmauld as I'd planned."

Remus' heart missed a beat in his surprise at his boldness; it compensated by giving two in rapid succession when her eyes lit with a beautiful smile he'd never seen her bless anyone else with. The expression somehow opened up a connection between his heart and mind and hers: shared memories passed between them of other nights spent together at her flat, lying on the sofa in one another's arms, legs twined together, whispering wordless conversations on each other's lips...

Hers parted now, and she said, "I reckon you might not go out with me again if I say no thanks, I'd rather go to Grimmauld and chat to Sirius about all the embarrassing things you've ever done than snog you on my sofa."

"That shallow thought never entered my head," said Remus in a tone of mock mild affront. When Tonks' expression became appropriately mock contrite, he added, "Mostly because it never occurred to me for a minute that you'd turn down a snog on the sofa for a gab session with Sirius."

"Why you great git!"

Remus leaned back out the way of the programme she'd whipped out of her handbag to whack him over the head with, bumping into a person in the aisle who turned out to be a little girl. A little girl with black plaits parted severely down the middle of her head, Remus observed on second glance; and, he thought, a little girl who had at no more than seven years of age had mastered the same straight, tight-lipped frown Professor McGonagall wore to effectively bring misbehaviour to a stop. It was a good job this child didn't wear glasses, because she had just the long nose for perching spectacles on the end of and glaring down over them.

"Terribly sorry, Miss," said Remus to Minerva, Junior. "My girlfriend suffers from the utter inability to behave herself. Don't follow her example, or you won't be made a Prefect at school."

"Why, you--"

"You shouldn't call him that name again," said the little girl, eyes pinning Tonks as she flicked a plait over her shoulder. "Mummy says it's not ladylike."

Tonks sighed heavily. "Your Mummy's right. Mine says the same thing, actually. But this bloke's not being very gentleman-like, either."

Lips pressed together again, the little girl cast an appraising eye over Remus, hmmed, then turned on her heel and flounced off in a twirl of poufy purple dress.

"Git," Tonks hissed as soon as the girl was out of earshot, and swatted Remus' shoulder with her programme.

He turned to her, and couldn't stop himself laughing at her playful scowl.

"What's funny, Lupin? Amused yourself with your clever little jokes?"

"Not at all," Remus said, truthfully, taking her hand and scuffing the side of her thumb with his. "You're very cute when you're pretending to be put out with me's all--"

"At risk of another lecture on ladylike behaviour from Andromeda Black, age six--"

"She reminded me of Minerva--"

"I'll say I'm closer to being pissed off at you than put out--"

"Perhaps not entirely ladylike, but definitely Auror-like--"

"And I don't appreciate being laughed at when I'm trying to shame you for being a git."

"I wasn't laughing at you," said Remus, sniggering.

"Well you jolly well weren't laughing with m-"

Her protest was cut off by Remus leaning in to kiss the tip of her adorably scrunched nose.

When he pulled back, her forehead was crinkled in mild confusion, which wasn't a look that often crossed her Auror's features.

"I was laughing because I really like being your boyfriend," said Remus, grinning at the way she looked nonplussed for just a moment before her expression changed and showed she was pleased as Peeves as she told him she liked being his girlfriend.

Weaving their fingers together, Remus asked, "What about the play? Do you like it as well?"

Though his voice hadn't revealed it -- or at least he hoped not -- Remus' pulse had quickened with no small amount of trepidation, and his feet pressed rather hard against the hard institutionally carpeted floor, physically bracing himself. He had no delusions about the play; it was a school affair, and Muggle at that, which he'd seen advertised whilst doing an errand for Dumbledore in Muggle London, and as he'd actually had a bit of Muggle money on him at the time, he'd impulsively popped in and bought two tickets for a date with Tonks. When he'd told Tonks, though, you'd have thought he'd got box seats to the Wizard Shakespeare Company's production of Romeo and Juliet. Which had quite chuffed him--

--for about two seconds, after which point she told him she had seen before, her family being season ticket holders of the Wizard Shakespeare Company.

He'd worked very hard not to think too much about that, and for the most part had been successful. Well -- that wasn't quite true. Before tonight he'd worked very hard not to think too much about the sad few Knuts in his Gringott's vault, but then Tonks had opened the door of her flat to him, and no effort was required on his part whatsoever. Because it was impossible to think of any person but the young witch wearing the killer black dress. She wouldn't have looked out of place if she were out on a proper theatre date with a well-dressed man who could wine and dine her before the play. (Well -- except perhaps for the hot pink trainers she'd paired with the dress, with the explanation that she wouldn't make a very good Muggle tripping in strappy heels.) It wasn't lost on Remus that she'd made such an effort for him. The smiles she bestowed across the small corner table of an ordinary café...the way her neck curved as her head fell back in laughter...the way she hooked her foot around his ankle under the table, sliding it up over his calf...the way she linked arms with him and pressed herself close against his body as they walked from her flat to the café, to the café to the school, all went far to reassure him that what mattered to Tonks was spending a few of her precious free hours together; the date itself was incidental.

"Well," said Tonks, "I don't want to be the play's girlfriend or anything, but I do in fact love it." She added, "Though it's rather a pity they don't have Appearance Charms, isn't it, instead of those glued-on false beards and fake wigs?"

"Mm. Lady Capulet's is rather horrible, isn't it?"

"I keep thinking she's got Mrs. Norris sat on top. I'm glad we're not seeing Muggles do A Midsummer Night's Dream."

"Why's that?" Remus asked. "Or what's that, I ought to say, as I am afraid I never read much Muggle literature outside of Muggle Studies. And by not much I mean none."

"Oh, me either," said Tonks. "I've got a very bad habit of judging books by their covers, and those non-moving ones don't grab my attention at all. But Granny Tonks taught literature before Dad was born, so he's got a few books lying about the house. He used to read Shakespeare plays with me when I was little because I would morph my face for all the different parts."

Remus grinned. "I'm surprised that didn't inspire you to pursue a career in acting."

"Oh, I did want to be an actress for years." A slight crease formed between her eyebrows as she frowned. "Till I auditioned for the Junior Wizard Shakespeare Players the summer after my fourth year. I learned the hard way -- and I do mean literally -- that few plays call for the actors falling on their bums, sliding across stage, and knocking over the scenery."

"Thus you decided to become an Auror?"

"Too bad no one told me the clumsiness would nearly be my downfall there, as well."

"Pun intended?" Remus asked, and threw up his hands anticipating another blow from her programme.

But Tonks merely grinned. "'Course. Anyway, Midsummer Night's Dream is about all these people with love trouble, and two of them are Oberon and Titania--"

"The fairy king and queen?"

Tonks nodded and went on, faster, her voice climbing the scale, "Puck takes it into his head to try and help them sort things out, only he has a bit of trouble with his love potions and everybody ends up in love with the wrong people, and one of them winds up with a donkey's head, or something, it's rather confusing..." She looked confused again, and went a little pink. "It's a silly story."

"Sounds like it," said Remus. "In the good, fun way, of course. I can see how it wouldn't be quite right performed by a non-magical company."

The embarrassed tinge left Tonks' face as she turned her dark, laughing eyes up at him. "Can't you imagine us splashed across the front page of the Daily Prophet for breaking out the wands at a Muggle school play?"

"Mm," said Remus, "I think I can. WIZARD SHAKESPEARE COMPANY RALLIES BEHIND LUPIN AND TONKS IN IMPROPER USE OF MAGIC CASE; BARD STOPS ROLLING IN HIS GRAVE."

Tonks let out a shriek of laughter that echoed through the auditorium. She clapped a hand over her mouth as an elderly couple -- one of the performer's grandparents, if Remus were to hazard a guess -- eyed them curiously.

"We're theatre people," he lied, lest he and Tonks really did wind up in the Prophet for Statute of Secrecy violations. "Sets and lights and all. We call it magic."

Thankfully, the lady and gentleman nodded with understanding and started to turn around.

Started to, but didn't, as Tonks' snort held their interest.

"What's so funny?" Remus asked her in a whisper, laughing along with her even though he didn't know why.

Tonks leant in close, cupping her hand round his ear so the gawking Muggles could not hear; her puffs of giggling breath tickled his neck and made the hairs stand.

"I had a highly amusing image of you attempting to change a Muggle light bulb, throwing up your hands in frustration, and casting a Lumos charm instead."

Remus shot her a playful glower as he sat up. "At least I wouldn't be up there in the rafters causing light bulbs to rain down on the thespians."

"Oi!" Tonks cried, punching him playful in the shoulder, though it was a bit weak as her laughter was affecting her motor skills severely. Noticing the Muggles staring at them again, however, she valiantly drew deep breaths to bring herself under control once more. Though she looked as if the slightest joke might set her off again.

After a moment she said, "I haven't asked what you think of the play?"

Honestly, Remus thought it was a bit silly; several times he'd caught himself laugh at bits no one else seemed amused by (particularly, how Romeo was equal parts adolescent James and Sirius). Thus he couldn't imagine the level of silliness involved in this Midsummer play Tonks was going on about.

Not to mention the other, opposite, aspect, which was that he'd somehow managed to miss on the advertisement that Romeo and Juliet was actually The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet, as they'd put that oh-so-crucial bit in very small print. From the soliloquy at the play's onset, the theme of ancient grudges and forbidden, doomed love had niggled.

As did an idea Padfoot had planted in Remus' head: what if he and Tonks fell in love? If a play were made of their romance, would it end in tragedy? They had more, and higher, obstacles stacked against them than Romeo and Juliet. Was it foolish to risk broken hearts -- or worse?

Of course Remus didn't voice any of these things. Instead, he mentally shook himself. Once again, he was thinking too much, as Tonks had pointed out to him a few weeks ago, on their first date. Even more recently, she'd told him (not in so many words) that she wasn't thinking further ahead in their relationship than the next date or stolen kiss in the darkened corridors of Grimmauld Place before or after meetings. It ought to be her he listened to, and not Padfoot, who was more than likely just trying to wind him up anyway.

So Remus said the only thing he could say: "I quite like it."

"What's your favourite part so far?" Tonks asked.

Remus should have known that female curiosity mixed with trained interrogator wouldn't let him get away with simply saying he liked a play. Feeling a bit like he was back in Potions class, Professor Slughorn expecting the answer to what was the active ingredient in a Memory Potion Remus cast about for a suitable scene. Problem was, he really could have used a Memory Potion to help with his recall of the play.

"The start, actually," he said. "With all the banter."

"The blokey bit? Brought back those Marauder days, did it?"

Holding back a sigh of relief that he'd skirted trouble, Remus said, "It was rather like watching Sirius and Severus go at it in a doublet and hose."

Tonks' pretty features became a mask of horror with her eyes screwed tightly shut. "Please Obliviate me, Remus, or I'm going to be haunted forever by the image of Snape in tights."

"I would..." Out the corner of his eye, Remus glimpsed the Muggles in the row in front of them eavesdropping. He lowered his voice and continued: "...but I thought you didn't want us to end up all over the Daily Prophet."

"I'd make an exception just to be guaranteed not to have nightmares about Snape in tights!"

"What if," said Remus, leaning close to her and taking her hand, "instead of Obliviating you, I give you something guaranteed to make you have very sweet dreams?"

Though he'd meant to lay a smooth line on her, Remus found that he was the one feeling light-headed as her features rearranged themselves into a flirty smile, her eyes opening, lovely, dark, velvet.

"The sort of something you were going to do to make me forget about that embarrassing story of yours?" Tonks asked.

"Yes. Precisely. And it seems I cannot put that off any longer."

He lifted her hand to his lips and pressed soft kisses to each of her knuckles. She smelled like raspberries tonight. He kept her eyes on her face and watched the faintest trace of pink creep up from the low neckline of her dress.

When he removed his lips from her soft, sweet-scented skin, he saw her chest heave, as if she'd been holding her breath. Remus smiled, anticipating one of the adorable half-dazed remarks she usually made after a bit of kissing preceded by the sort of heady flirtation they'd just engaged in.

"What do you think of what Juliet said about roses smelling as sweet even if they were called by other names?"

"I..." Remus blinked and, feeling that he was the one that was dazed -- and more than half so -- said, "What?"

"I think it's barmy," Tonks said. "Names are important, and I can't believe a writer really believed otherwise."

"Hm. Well, I do think there's something in it when you consider that I would still strike fear into the hearts of most wizards, witches, and children when they discover what I am, whether I say werewolf or a lycanthrope."

Tonks, not remotely like most witches, replied, "That's cos lycanthrope's just a fancier word, and fancy words tend to scare people -- why else would Tom Riddle call himself Lord Voldemort? Tom's hardly a name that incites fear. People hear it and think of toothless barmen at the Leaky. If we were more politically correct, now, and called you...I dunno, lunarally challenged...then maybe people would start seeing you as you are: a man with a condition he can't help, but can overcome."

Tightening his grip, Remus shook her hand vigorously. "Hello, my name is Remus Lupin, and I saw you're looking to recruit new staff. Will you take me on, despite my being lunarally challenged? I can't help that it's called that, but I'm doing my best to overcome it."

Tonks grinned sheepishly. "Bit awful, isn't it?"

"I was thinking more along the lines of lunarally not being an actual word."

"We'll leave that bit to Hermione Granger, then. She's good with naming things. Unlike my mum."

She talked on, something about Squibs being more accepted by Wizarding society if they weren't called Squibs, but Remus didn't really catch most of it, being preoccupied with wondering whether Tonks hadn't considered that Hermione mightn't have more luck promoting her House-elf rights campaign if it had a name to sweeten the smell of her cause. Not that there was much to be done about Kreacher...

And then...feeling rather like James must have that time he'd flown his broom up around Gryffindor Tower to have a look inside the girls' dormitory, only to have Lily fling the window open right into his broom, as if she'd known exactly what Peeping Prongs was up to...Remus was smacked with the realisation that Tonks wasn't just filling the intermission with idle chit-chat, but really meant what she was saying.

He took a mental step backward to everything she'd said leading up to lunarally challenged. Though delivered in her typical bluntly amusing, borderline irreverent style (so like her cousin), he certainly saw the truth behind her words about fear and fancy names; in fact he agreed, whole-heartedly, just as he agreed with Dumbledore's assertions that the Order not increase fear of their enemy by avoiding his name.

On the same token, he could not deny that Tonks had put real thought into this -- into him. And Tonks wasn't just a thinker; she hadn't been sorted into Ravenclaw, she was a Hufflepuff, to the core (and probably could out-Hufflepuff Helga if it came down to it) and was, therefore, a doer. She would fight for him, wouldn't hesitate to wear a badge emblazoned with some ridiculous acronym as fearlessly and proudly as she wore pink hair.

It wasn't a surprising revelation. Or it shouldn't have surprised him, given their relationship to-date. Nonetheless, Remus found himself absolutely gob-smacked.

He couldn't speak, as his heart had lodged in his throat. Not that he'd know what the bloody hell to say even if he could speak. But he wasn't about to let this moment slip past without some acknowledgment of his gratitude.

He kissed her hand again.

For a second, Tonks appeared to have been deprived of her powers of speech, during which time Remus wondered whether he'd misread the whole thing. It wasn't unlikely; he had, after all, been told -- by her -- he thought too much. Though typically when he thought too much it wasn't about good things, so there was a chance that might not be the case for once.

"Anyway," Tonks said, her voice still a little shaky, and her face a little drawn as if she were trying to process what had just happened, "I don't think Shakespeare would've had half as successful a play on his hands if he'd called his star-crossed lovers Romeo and Ethel."

"Or Romeo and Nymphadora?"

"But soft, what witch through yonder window trips?" said Tonks in a low, dramatic voice. "It is broken, and Nymphadora is a walking disaster!" Laughing heartily along with him, she went on, "You see? This play never would have caught on if Shakespeare had asked my mum for names."

"Not necessarily," said Remus. "The cute, clumsy heroine might have popularized Nymphadora."

The elderly Muggles in front of them sat very still, heads cocked slightly to pick up the conversation. The expression on the woman's face was one of trying to solve a puzzle.

Tonks leaned forward in her chair and addressed the pair cheerfully. "My mum was a bit of a mythology fanatic."

But instead of having his curiosity satiated, the gentleman's face lit up like a child on Christmas morning. "Aha! Gift of the nymphs! Forgive me, Miss, but I couldn't help overhearing. When you said your name was Nymphadora--"

"Simply a lovely name," interrupted his wife. "From the look of you, it suits you."

Remus could barely hold back a snigger as Tonks struggled to keep smiling, her eyes blinking rapidly as she stammered out a thanks that was in no way heart-felt.

"--I was trying to work out whether you might be named for Saints Dora and Nympha," the gentleman went on. "I am a professor of linguistics and the Classics, you see -- and it also occurred to me it might be a much less obscure reference than the martyrs."

"I think it's more a case of a family obsession with over-the-top, pretentious names," Tonks blurted.

"Oh," said the Muggle gentleman, deflating. "I see."

He exchanged a mildly affronted look with his wife as they turned back to face the stage.

"Bugger," Tonks muttered, face flushing tomato red. "I'm sorry," she said to the couple, voice rising to an almost urgent pitch, "I didn't mean...Dad calls me Dora."

The lady half-turned her head and smiled woodenly. "That's nice."

Tonks didn't look at Remus, and her fingers had gone slack in his hand, her palm sweaty. "If Mum had named me for the saints, that charming behaviour would've been a bit ironic, wouldn't it?"

Remus squeezed her hand. "You didn't say anything wrong," he reassured her softly. "Everyone makes little verbal missteps--"

"Or great verbal pratfalls?"

"--and if we all took responsibility for the way everyone else interpreted our words, then no one would ever say anything, and the world would be a pretty silent and dull place, wouldn't it?"

She looked up at him and the flush receded a bit from her heart-shaped face. "It'd be less socially awkward if I never said anything else."

"But as I said, very dull for me." He kissed her temple, and released her hand to wrap his arm around her shoulders. "Your dad calls you Dora?"

Tonks nodded. "Most of the time. The rest of the time it's Vi -- for Viola."

Before Remus could ask about the story behind that nickname, Tonks went on, "According to Dad, he and Mum argued incessantly when she was pregnant with me about Nymphadora for a girl's name."

"He wanted Viola?"

"No, that didn't come till after they found out I was a Metamorphmagus. Anyway, when I was born, of course Dad went out with his mates to celebrate and got totally pissed, which I don't get at all, because isn't it exciting enough having a new baby without being drunk?"

"I would have thought so," said Remus, "though I was right there with Sirius, buying James Potter round after round when Harry was born. We made ourselves sick on cigars, as well."

"Blokes," said Tonks, shaking her head.

"Indeed."

"Well my dad made it his mission in life to discourage proud new fathers from going to the pub, 'cos before he sobered up, Mum put the quill in his hand and made him sign my birth certificate. Which, of course, was that damned legally and magically-binding document that named me Nymphadora Andromeda Tonks."

Remus gawped. "That might be the sneakiest thing I've ever heard of, and as a Marauder and former teacher of Messrs. Weasley and Weasley, I've heard a few very sneaky things in my time."

"Mum is a Slytherin," Tonks said. "And doesn't it sound just like something Sirius' cousin would do?"

"Quite. Does she mind your dad calling you Dora?"

"Not as much as she minds him calling her 'Dromeda."

"I see," said Remus, sniggering. "Don't call me so-and-so's a catchphrase in your house, is it?"

Tonks squirmed in the crook of his arm and pinched his side. "Why are you such a bloody smart-arse?"

"Now, now..." After checking to see that she hadn't morphed lobster pincers in place of fingers (she'd pinched him so hard that it seemed likely), Remus reached across with his free hand to stop her fingers' assault. "I'm sure there's a mini-Minerva somewhere about just waiting to tell you that wasn't a very ladylike thing to say."

She glowered at him, and Remus adopted his most innocent expression, which had got him out of a number detentions he ought to have shared with Padfoot and Prongs. "Anyway, didn't that smart-arse remark sound just like something Sirius' best mate would say?"

"Yes, which is why I'm pinching you."

She tweaked his nose with her free hand, then grinned and snuggled into his side, resting her head on his shoulder.

Judging from her sigh as she tucked one leg underneath her, the other pink trainer-clad foot dangling beneath her chair and swinging a little, he'd managed to put her at ease again. Remus smiled a little, enjoying the feeling of being able to give back to her a measure of what she'd done for him, though he wished she didn't feel so awkward to begin with. Didn't she realise how completely wonderful she was, what a bright spot she was in a life that could be so drab and dreary? He'd meant what he said in jest about her keeping his life from being dull. Not that the excitement of being a part of the Order of the Phoenix allowed for much dullness; but she brought personal meaning to him in the midst of this business of saving the world. He vowed to do a better job of showing her that, if she wasn't clear on it.

And though it seemed rather a wishful thought, he hoped also that he might bring the same thing to her life.

"Do you like being called Dora?"

Tonks shrugged against him. "It's better than Nymphadora. When I started school I tried to make people call me Andi, but it was too complicated explaining to people that my middle name's Andromeda. Anyway the Professor McGonagall shouted Nymphadora at the Sorting Feast for all the world to hear, and before pudding Nym, Nymmie, and Nymphie had already caught on like Wild-Fire Whiz-Bangs are sure to."

Shuddering, she added, her voice pinched and her face going pink again, "Some of the nasty older Slytherin boys called me Nympho the Metamorphmaniac, which I didn't even understand till one of the big girls in my house explained."

"And Severus never uttered a word of rebuke, did he?"

It was more a statement than a question, and Remus' neck and jaw ached from clenching. The abuses so many children had endured from that man's bullying. No wonder he was Neville's Boggart.

"Course not," said Tonks. "He encouraged it, overdoing it, addressing me as Nymphadora in that awful drawling way of his every chance he could get. I think I hold the distinction of being the only non-Slytherin student he's ever called by her Christian name."

Up till that point, she'd worn a deep frown that matched the one Remus felt tugging at his own features, but now her eyes glinted, and her lips curled upward in a vindictive smirk.

"Professor McGonagall heard Rabelais Lestrange call me that name in the corridor, and the next time someone said it, they got a nasty Stinging Hex."

Remus' jaw nearly hit his lap. "Minerva hexed a nickname to sting people?"

"Well, I can only assume it was her, since other Professors had heard it and only ever docked House Points. Pretty brilliant, yeah?"

"Just a bit." He let out a low whistle. "I wonder where she learned that."

"I don't know, but now I'm out of school I really ought to ask her. Could come in handy for certain gits who insist on calling me Nymphadora."

Could also come in handy for Severus. It wasn't just Tonks who had a problem with the "awful drawling way" Severus said her name; only the other day the way Severus pronounced Nymphadora had started the spiralling chain of events that had boiled over into Remus casting a Double Waddiwasi on him in the middle of an Order meeting.

"Not least of all because I have no wish to be stung," Remus said, "I shall endeavour not to torment you with it, now I know all the trials and tribulations you endured for it." In a conspiratorial whisper he added, "Though I will agree with your new friend the professor's wife that it's lovely and suits you."

"How can it suit me? When I was learning to write I couldn't even bloody spell it."

She said it with a scowl, but despite the forecast calling for strong chances of Stinging Hexes, Remus couldn't stop a grin from breaking across his face at the image she conjured of a very small Tonks with pink pigtails crouched on her knees at a table. In her chubby fist she awkwardly clutched a quill. Her face was scrunched up in the same look of intense concentration that crossed her features when she morphed; the tip of her tongue poked out from between her lips.

"The PH tripped you up, did it?"

"And the Y. I couldn't understand why it wasn't spelt "N-I-M-F-A-D-O-R-A."

"Bloody English language."

"When I've got kids," said Tonks vehemently, "I'm not going to give them names they can't spell or pronounce. Or names that will become jokes at Hogwarts. Or anything that might be top contender for Worst Name In the History Of Merlin-Awful Names."

"It's not that bad."

"Oh yeah?" The quirk-browed, dubious look Tonks gave him was reminiscent of Sirius, though a vast deal less superior. "Tell me a worse one."

Remus didn't have to think long or hard. "Dolores," he said decisively. "I would be far more likely to name a child Nymphadora than Dolores."

"You dislike it because you associate it with a person," Tonks argued. "And you like Nymphadora because you like me."

"I liked your name before I liked you."

Tonks' eyes snapped wide open, and her mouth hung slightly open, though in a slight grin. Why was she looking at him like that? What had he said?

Panic rose, his heart leaping into his throat and beating rapidly as her lips were now pressed together, unsmiling, and she turned large, soulful black eyes on him. He'd said something awful. Truly awful.

But what?

"Remus..." Her hand slipped out of his, tentatively reaching up to touch the lapel of his jacket. Her lower lip quivered.

Oh God...

"You mean you didn't like me the second you laid eyes on me?"

"Of course I--"

Wait a minute.

Her lower lip wasn't quivering.

Well, it was -- but it was with a barely repressed laugh.

Remus felt his face go as red as hers had looked when she inadvertently offended the Muggles. But chuckled as he ran a hand through his hair and said, "You see? You're not the only person who makes occasional verbal pratfalls."

Her breath as she laughed, along with her soft hair, tickled his neck as he squeezed her tighter against him. The lights flashed several times in succession, signalling those who'd got up to use the loo or go to the drinking fountain or stretch their legs during the intermission to return to their seats. A moment later, the auditorium dimmed.

"Oh," murmured Remus as the curtain rose, "you're right. A Tonks by any other name wouldn't be Nymphadora."

The stage lights rose, and gleamed in Tonks' dark eyes as she looked up at him. Clearly illuminated was that typical annoyance at anyone who dared use her given name. But there was something else, as well, which made Remus catch his breath and think suddenly that this Romeo bloke wasn't so silly after all. Her blonde-red waves caught the light, the wispy baby hairs creating a pinkish halo around her, and he found himself thinking, But soft! What light through yonder window breaks? It is the east, and Nymphadora is the sun!

The elderly Muggle woman leant into her husband and whispered loudly, "Thank goodness we don't have to hear anymore of that gibberish. I never know what young people are talking about these days."

"It's not young people, Edith. It's thespians."

Tonks snorted, but though she covered her mouth her eyes were scrunched up so that she looked about to explode with laughter; Remus felt precisely the same as he barely held back his sniggers.

"Come on," he whispered, grabbing her hand and tugging her to her feet, stooping so as not to annoy the audience members in the row behind. "I think I need to use the loo after all."

As they quickly made their way out of the darkened auditorium, not quite managing to keep in their laughter, Remus took no small amount of pleasure from the realisation that in his experience, Romeo and Juliet was not a tragedy. And his own life, for the moment, was a romantic comedy.

The End

A/N: Thank you very much for reading -- or re-reading, as the case may be. As a token of my appreciation, I offer you the Remus of your choice to spend a night at the theatre with: cultured Professor Lupin, who read a critical analysis of the play beforehand and discusses it on a high intellectual level during the intermission; Moony the Marauder, who pulls pranks on Muggles during the intermission; or sexy Remus, who drags you out of the theatre after the intermission to perform the role of the Romantic Hero for you in private...