Word count: 1460
First Step
Perhaps the first time Tonks saw him was when she was a young child and he had to babysit her – which is something Sirius will die for if he ever bring it up – but truth to be told, she barely remembers him from those days.
Her cousin finds it cute that she has a crush on his best friend, and she's delighted to see him smile again, even if it's at her problems while trying to get Remus interested in her. He's the only sane person of her family that isn't her parents and she likes the idea of having a larger family than just her and them.
She has learned not to listen to Sirius when he tries to help her; because his plans have a habit to get awry that's even worse than hers to trip on flat surface. Combine the two and it's just the perfect recipe for disaster. She can still smell the horrid smell of the chocolate flavored soap he told her to buy because 'Remus loves chocolate and werewolves have a sensitive nose so it will at least make him notice you'. And notice her he had. Except not in the way she wished he had.
Everyone involved in that fiasco had agreed never to talk of it again, and Tonks had thrown all the bottles of the horrible brown substance in the trash. Who could have known that chocolate flavored soap didn't smell like chocolate at all?
And that had been one of the tamest idea her cousin had had.
It takes her a longer time than she'd like to admit it to realize that maybe she should just try to be herself and see if it could work. After all, she knows who he is and many more things about what he likes than he does about who she is and what she likes. He knows her as the little baby girl he babysat once or twice – and Merlin, she hopes he doesn't remember that – and as the young woman who likes to makes funny faces for the Hogwarts' students who spent their holidays at Grimmauld's Place pretending they didn't know what was going on.
He knows her as a new Auror, a joker and part of Sirius' family, but he doesn't know her for her. And that's what she thinks she needs to work on.
The morning of the next Order meeting, one she has to show up to – one she hopes Remus will be present to – is a Saturday. It's nice because it means she has the time to prepare herself for the discussion she has decided to have. It isn't because well, she has a lot of time to prepare herself for that discussion.
In front of her mirror, her hair changes length and color maybe a thousand times, from that pink she loves to a brown that possess an unnatural inner glow she finds dull. Her eyes widen and go through different shapes too, though she notices none of the changes her face is going through as she imagines scenario after scenario.
Some ends well, others are complete disasters and then there are others and she just doesn't know what to make of them.
Finally, it's the sound of her mother pounding on the bathroom's door that drag her out of her thoughts and makes her realizes that she's almost late already. Thankfully she's already dressed and she's in too much of a hurry to realize exactly what look she chose.
It isn't until she enters Grimmauld's Place, tripping once again over that horrid troll… thing, that she remembers that maybe she should have looked into that mirror a bit more closely. She has heard about her mother's likeness with Bellatrix Lestrange, the Death Eater. Her mother had shown her a few photos of her childhood that she had kept when she left her family behind and there had been one or two wanted posters for her with a photo on them… oh, just about everywhere for a while.
The thing is, it's been so long since Tonks went somewhere as just herself that she has forgotten that she looked like her mother – which also meant she looked like her aunt too.
She mentally crosses 'go to an Order meeting looking like a death Eater' off her list of stupid things never to do, and turn her hair bright pink to convince them that, no, Bellatrix Lestrange still has no access to the house.
Remus is there and she could swear she saw something of a smile when everyone else drew their wands at a pink-haired and way too clumsy Bellatrix look-alike. Sirius didn't have that restraint and his laugh thankfully calmed everyone, though she knows Mad-Eye is still looking at her like she is a bomb about to go off.
The meeting in itself is calmer than any other meeting she remembers, and she thinks that if all it takes to finally do something is for her to appear as her aunt then she'd do it every weeks. It doesn't long for even Mad-Eye to stop being so on edge around her, though he still twitches when she scowls at Dumbledore's grandfatherly and all knowingly smiles when he catches her glancing at Remus.
At the end of the meeting, her hands are a bit too sweaty and her throat feels almost too tight for her to breathe. She wipes her ends on her jeans – really, that should have been a dead give-away, her perfect pureblood aunt would never wear something Muggle – and takes a deep breath and goes to catch Remus before he leaves and leaves her to wait for Merlin knows how long again.
"Remus?" She asks him as she grips lightly his arms as he exits the room.
He turns around and looks at her questioningly. It almost makes her feel like she's a young girl caught eating her mother's cookies – she still does it, but that's none the matter – and then she remembers that she has grown up since and that there's nothing he can do that should make her feel that way.
"I wondered if you would like to go somewhere with me?" And just as she says it she realizes that it's not what she should have said and blushes. "I mean I know an amazing coffee shop not far from here and I wondered if you would like to go there with me… Just as friends of course."
She sees that he doesn't really look convinced, but then she spots Sirius just behind him. Remus can't see him, but Tonks can and she scowls at him when he gestures at her to make a move on his friend. She delights in the slight flinch the scowl brings and then she has an idea.
"You were in the same dorm as Sirius right?"
"Yes?" He nods, clearly not expecting that question.
Gathering courage she never knew she had, at least not concerning this matter, she hooks her arm in his and half drags him to the door.
"Good. Then you know what it's like to be with him for more than a few hours. And you know that the only thing that makes him stop is good blackmail, which I'm sure you have plenty of since you seem to be one of the only people he doesn't target."
Remus seems to sight Sirius too, and though the Black tries his best to look innocent nobody is fooled by his act.
"It'd be my pleasure. But I have to warn you that most of what I know is largely outdated."
"Even better," Nymphadora replies as they finally get to the porch. "Now that I think of it, I'm sure mum must have some old baby photos of him somewhere."
"Does she really?"
"Well I can't be sure, but she has some of her sisters so… It would make sense for Sirius to be there too."
"Then you just have to show me those photos."
She smiles, inwardly glowing that she finally did something right, and gives him the address of the little coffee shop her mother had directed her to once.
"They make mean coffee and chocolate cakes. I prefer coffee, but from what I've heard, you love chocolate," she said, smirking. "I'll see you there in a moment; I'm going to ask for those photos."
"Alright, I'll see you there then."
She twirls on spot, freedom and happiness bubbling through her veins. Just before she leaves she can see he's about to do the same. If his words hadn't been enough to convince her he'd be there, the way he's looking at the small piece of paper she gave him would have.
He's too noble to stand her up anyway.
AN/ So this is my first attempt at RemusTonks… Which I somehow decided to write in present tense, for a reason that is totally beyond me because I usually find it too annoying to do… So if there is some mistake with it somewhere… Well, I'm honestly sorry about it. I reread it a few time to check, but some may have slept through…
I wrote this for Umbrella-Ella, who requested a RemusTonks, with the prompt 'soap' on the Gift-Giving Extravaganza 2013 for March.
Also written for:
-the 400 Fragrant Prompts Challenge, Day Ten (coffee cake, RemusTonks)
-the 6 Senses Competition (Emotion: nervous)
-the Colors Competition, Purple I
-the Key Signature Competition, F Major
-the Weasley-Potter-Prewett Category Challenge, Fred Weasley
-the Gemstone Competition, Bloodstone
-the Dark Side Competition, Cookies
-the As Strong As We Are United Competition.