Domino
By: Dark Draconain
Rated: PG
Feedback: Is so lovely.
Disclaimer: Remus, unfortunately, is not mine. Nor is Tonks.
Summery: (postWarAU) It all came tumbling down when Nymphadora Tonks waltzed in.
A/N: Written in June 2005. Short attempt at humor. Points for anyone who knows the authors with either books or characters mentioned—Jane Austin doesn't count. Also, this story was written before HBP came out. Just so you know, yeah? Cheers.
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Domino
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It was an unmitigated disaster.
Music played in muted strands behind the closed backroom door, out of tune and out of place. In the front of the small store row upon row of mahogany bookshelves stood empty and neglected, derelict skeletons of wood and dust.
The little bookshop, owned by one Dorian T. Gray, was nestled between a knife-sharpener and a consignment store on a narrow stretch of cobblestone road. Outside, the black paint on the blue signboard read, Gray's Book, and just below, in smaller print, Open nine to five weekdays, Nine to eight Saturday, Noon to five Sunday. Above that, hung in a large window and blocking a display of recently acquired volumes was a large white sight that announced in angry red letters, CLOSED.
It was twelve o'clock on a drab Tuesday afternoon.
Inside, the polished wood floors were covered in a sea of books, ranging from a neon paperback edition of Porno to a non-descript black copy of Sense and Sensibility, with everything and the King James Bible in between.
Remus Lupin slumped to what little remained of the polished floor and buried his head in his hands. Just minutes before, Gray's Books had been pristine; the very picture of a quaint, clean Muggle shop: floor swept, books placed evenly on the shelves, ordered alphabetically by author and subcategorized by genre. Raising his blue eyes once more to the catastrophe before him, Lupin cursed what had to be the clumsiest person he'd ever the misfortune of knowing.
That morning, round about eleven forty-five, a woman with obnoxious purple hair had waltzed into Gray's Books. The trouble with Nymphadora Tonks waltzing was twofold: one, it wasn't so much a waltz she performed as was it a war dance, and two, she possessed slightly less grace than would a large tropical storm in Florida.
"Wotcher, Remus!" she called from the doorway, swinging in a precarious manner from the handle.
"Tonks? What are you doing here? Shouldn't you be at work or something?"
"Well it's positively lovely to see you, too."
"No," said Lupin, "that's not what I meant. I mean, I was just—TONKS!"
The warning, sadly, was not to be so much a warning as a disparaging scream of sheer terror. Slowly, as a snowflake fluttering to earth, Tonks, trained and lethal Auror, fell, crashing into one bookcase, then nimbly flinging herself into the next. Like dominos the cases plummeted, until at last the store lay in ruin, and silence was thick above their heads.
"Dear god," said Lupin. He strode to where Tonks sat nursing her foot. "Are you alright?"
"No! I've stubbed my toe!"
"You've stubbed your toe?"
"Yes!"
"You managed to single-handedly bring down the entire stock of Gray's Books, and all you can say is, 'I've stubbed my toe'?"
"Sod off, Remus, it hurts!"
"Not nearly enough," muttered Lupin through a sigh as he went to the door. He turned the OPEN sight to CLOSED and sank to the ground. He lamented. Almost cried, but instead began to laugh incessantly.
fin