A/N: …Whoa, I actually completed this. Was sitting on like half of it since November or something and just finished it yesterday, don't know how that works. It's probably not the bestest ever, but it wouldn't get out of my head so I had to write it. So…Yeah. Happy Single's Awareness Day and all that crap.

WARNING: THIS STORY CONTAINS BLATANT HETEROSEXUALITY. IF YOU ARE OFFENDED BY SUCH THINGS, KINDLY MAKE YOUR FLAME INTERESTING.

Disclaimer: I failed to match up the correct name, description, sex, or anything else to the correct Auror, just you wait. Was hoping Pottermore would be releasing things more quickly than this…Also obvious Tolkien reference is obvious, as is shout out to another thing I don't even follow.

When she told Professor Sprout that she wanted to be an Auror, Nymphadora Tonks had been dreaming of trying to fix some of the injustices in the world. She'd hoped of being able to do something to help out her community, and since she didn't fancy sitting behind a desk all day Auror seemed to be the way to go. She'd geared herself up for the vast amounts of paperwork that she knew she'd be forced to deal with in any case, as the Auror Department was still a branch of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement and no matter what part of the Ministry you're stuck at you're still stuck with paperwork. Inwardly, of course, she'd dreamed of catching a Dark wizard or two, because who doesn't dream of at least a day in the limelight, but as long as she managed to do some good in the world, that was enough for her.

What she wasn't prepared for was the politics.

People she had been close to in school she barely knew anymore, and it was almost as if everyone wore a mask. She felt like she was too, and not just by morphing her face for once. It felt like every word out of every single person's mouth was a lie. She'd wanted to avoid it in the beginning but found herself watching her words carefully, because the slightest viewpoint you had that differed from the higher-ups could put you in a much lower standing no matter what your rank was. She had to lie to survive in this place, and she hated every second of it.

She especially didn't like the idea of having to sell out her friends. Though she was out of Hogwarts, Tonks was a Hufflepuff, and Huflepuffs were loyal to the end. The idea of personally filling out the paperwork that would land Sturgis Podmore six months in Azkaban repulsed her, but she knew that she had to at least feign loyalty to the Ministry or she'd be in just as much trouble, and Sturgis even more so. Still, the fact that she was being forced to basically betray a fellow Order member…

She maintained as calm an exterior as she could as she took the scrolls from Scrimgeour, trying to hide the anxiety she felt at the thought that they might suspect her of sympathizing with Dumbledore. Though Scrimgeour had finally stopped asking so many invasive questions, there was still a sense of unease that surrounded nearly every office at the Ministry as most employees wondered if their loyalty would be brought into question next. As Tonks gathered all of the scrolls together, she couldn't help but wonder if she was the one currently being tested.

Or it could just be that the newer the Auror, the more of the office work they were stuck with. Tonks forced herself to quit worrying and set to filling out the forms, trying to remain as detached as she could. She couldn't force herself to be completely apathetic, however, as she couldn't help grumbling to herself that she had to fill out twenty-eight rolls of parchment on one simple arrest.

"What's up with you?" someone said. Tonks looked up and her vision was instantly filled with the scarlet robes of Nathanial Williamson, who was leaning against the outside of her cubical. Tonks shrugged heavily.

"Podmore case," she said shortly, indicating the massive piles of parchment she still had yet to go through.

Williamson let out a low whistle.

"That looks rough," he said sympathetically. "But hey, be glad they're only doing a quick show trial. Podmore's not coughing up anything anyway. Personally, I think Dumbledore sent him here to plant something."

"Why, did Podmore have anything on his person?" Tonks asked in a would-be casual voice, carefully arranging her expression into one of curiosity rather than rage.

"He had an Invisibility Cloak, which we of course confiscated, but nothing else really. But he could've conjured something."

"Well I suppose claiming that he was there to spy on us and steal all our secrets does sound a bit boring," said Tonks.

Williamson laughed. This was good, since he was almost as zealous as Scrimgeour in weeding out those loyal to Dumbledore over Fudge. If she managed to get on Williamson's good side, there was a very strong chance that she wouldn't be suspected any time soon.

"Hey, so I'm gathering a bunch of us together next weekend," Williamson brought up suddenly as Tonks went back to filling out the files. "Bit of an Auror picnic at my place. Would you be up for it?"

"Dunno," Tonks replied absentmindedly, finishing at last with the eleventh scroll in the pile and reaching for the next. "I'll have to check my schedule, I'll get back to you."

"Oh come on," Williamson pressed, "even the Proudfoots are coming!"

"Proudfeet!" came a low female voice over the cubicles, along with Kingsley's low chuckle. Tonks wondered idly if Kingsley was making any progress convincing Proudfoot to join the Order, or if he'd forgotten in favor if trying to get into her knickers again.

Williamson rolled his eyes and turned back to Tonks.

"So how about it?" he went on. "You're hardly ever around for anything except work." He laughed suddenly. "You're not spying around for Dumbledore, are you?" He narrowed his eyes mockingly at her.

"If I was, don't you think I'd be hanging around everyone more often?" Tonks replied, hoping her returning grin didn't look too strained.

Williamson raised his hands in a gesture of surrender.

"Fair enough. But tell me." He leaned toward her and Tonks resisted the urge to move away; he was getting a little too far into her personal space for her peace of mind. "What are you doing that has you so conflicted over your schedule, when I personally checked to see that most of us were cleared for this weekend?"

Tonks quickly cast about for a decent excuse. It wouldn't do for him to hear that she just as easily could've been in Sturgis's place, with Kingsley filling out paperwork for her arrest. Her thoughts turned to Sirius and Remus. What kind of outlandish excuse would the Marauders have come up with?

"I might have a date," she said, feeling just as surprised as Williamson looked. What the hell had made her say that?

"What?" came Proudfoot's voice again, along with Scrimgeour's disbelieving snort. There was the sound of quickly moving footsteps as she suddenly appeared at the opening of Tonks's cubicle. "Oooh, I've got to hear about this!" she said, shoving Williamson aside as she rushed into the cubicle. She adjusted her eye patch and leaned against the wall, grinning expectantly. "So what's he like?"

"Er…"

"I'm outta here," Williamson declared, shoving his long ponytail over his shoulder and moving away. "You two enjoy your girl talk."

"Oh we will!" Proudfoot assured him as she waved him away.

It took everything Tonks had not to groan. She hated girl talk. Now she had to actually come up with something convincing…

"So is he fit?" asked Proudfoot, breaking her thoughts.

Tonks blushed, though she didn't know why. She hadn't even thought of anyone yet.

Unbidden, Remus's face suddenly popped into her head.

"Well…he's kind of plain, actually. But he's got a nice smile."

"Good, smiles are good."

"And he's got this kind of mature air, you know? But he still knows how to enjoy a good joke, he's got a very dry sense of humor." Tonks tried to smother the sense of growing horror she was feeling. What was she doing, describing Remus to someone like Samantha Proudfoot? Why was she describing Remus to Samantha Proudfoot?!

"Mature, huh?" said Proudfoot, giving Tonks a sort of knowing smirk. Tonks hated those kinds of smirks.

"Mm, sort of bookish, you know."

"Bookish?" Her smirk turned into a confused frown. "Doesn't seem like your type."

"Then I guess you don't know me as well as you thought you did" didn't seem like an appropriate thing to say in the current political climate, so Tonks just shrugged in response.

"So when you said you might have a date, did he ask you out?" Proudfoot went on, smirk back on her face as she also insisted on invading Tonks's personal bubble. "Come on, details, details!"

"…Actually, I was thinking of asking him out." The moment the words left Tonks's mouth, she knew them to be true. Why had she never realized it before now?

Proudfoot let out a high-pitched squeal that Tonks never thought her capable of.

"Make sure you tell me all the details if it all works out!" she said excitedly. "There's hardly ever any decent gossip around here anymore, it's all just 'Do you side with Dumbledore' this and 'Do you believe Potter's bullshit' that, it's so annoying."

It's not bullshit, it's true! Tonks screamed internally. Open your goddamn eyes, the lot of you! But all she said was, "I'm not exactly the kind of girl to kiss and tell, you know."

Proudfoot giggled.

"Oh please, you know girls always tell each other everything!"

Of course they do, Tonks thought to herself. Make me feel even more like a freak, why don't you.

"Oh! Oh!" Evidently Proudfoot was still talking. "You should take him along to the picnic this weekend! We could get to know him, decide if he's good enough for you, that sort of thing!"

"I don't think that's a good idea," said Tonks immediately. "It's only gonna be our first date, I don't wanna freak him out."

"Ha! If he's scared of a little get-together then he's definitely not good enough for you!"

"It's a get-together made up of well-trained Aurors," Tonks stated. "Anyone would be nervous."

Proudfoot shrugged and asked, "So where were you thinking of taking him anyway?"

"…Haven't thought that far ahead yet," admitted Tonks, though considering she'd just thought of this whole thing that very day that shouldn't have been so much of a surprise.

"Sometimes I wonder how you weren't Sorted into Gryffindor."

"Well I've still got to ask him," Tonks defended herself. "He might say no. In fact it's pretty probable that he'll say no. I don't want to get my hopes up."

"Honey," began Proudfoot, and Tonks repressed a shudder. She hated it when people other than her parents called her that. "Just because he hasn't asked you yet doesn't mean he's not interested. He might just be shy, especially if he's as timid as you're describing." She shook her head. "The more you tell me about him, the more I'm convinced he's a bad match for you. What's his name, anyway?"

"I've gotta complete this for Scrimgeour," said Tonks hastily, turning back to the piles of scrolls on her desk and nearly knocking over the photo of her parents, but she caught the frame just in time. Behind her, Proudfoot laughed.

"Don't think you're gonna walk away from this that easily!" she said cheerfully. Tonks listened to her footsteps get further and further away, and allowed herself a sigh of relief before going back to mindlessly filling out the paperwork that would ensure that a trusted companion would end up locked away with the dementors for an entirely stupid reason.

It was another one of those days where she desperately wanted to get out of work. She couldn't wait to get back to headquarters; Sirius would probably have quite a few things to say about what was going to happen to Sturgis, and she would finally have a place to vent. She could already picture Remus trying to hold him back from rushing out the door and staging some kind of mad rescue mission.

Thinking of Remus got her to think about the conversation she'd just had, of course. She still couldn't believe what came over her, and wondered why her heart was still beating as quickly as it was. Did she really like Remus that way? He was definitely a lot of fun to hang out with, he was a brilliant conversationalist, she wasn't lying when she said that he had a nice smile and sense of humor, he was the only one she hadn't hexed yet when he called her by her first name…

Why hadn't she hexed him for that yet? She'd even hexed Molly for it once; Remus was the only one who had gotten away unscathed so far. She supposed that he was the only one who said her name with no trace of teasing in his tone. Ginny had told her that he'd used everyone's first names while he was teaching; it made everything seem less formal and more personal, somehow. Tonks supposed it was just his habit of being friendly with everyone, another trait of his she admired.

When she'd first told him she didn't like her name, he gave the usual speech she'd heard a million times about how it was a perfectly fine name in addition to being unique, but he'd told her that with a perfectly straight face unlike most others. She'd thought he was being sarcastic at the time but the more he called her Nymphadora, the more she believed he was actually being honest. He'd even offered to call her Dora, which she'd shot down, claiming that it made her feel old. Then the teasing had started, from him and Sirius both, though as Remus continued to call her that, the easier it slipped from his lips. His rather soft-looking lips…

Tonks shook her currently shoulder-length magenta hair out of her face and rubbed her eyes. Checking the scroll over for any mistakes she might have made while zoning out, she nearly rolled it up and set it aside when she caught sight of her signature near the bottom.

She'd signed it Nymphadora Lupin.

Tonks stared at her signature.

And stared.

And stared.

She had no idea what came over her. She had no clue why she would sign it like that. She'd only realized just now that she might fancy the poor bloke; there was no way she could've been considering marriage just yet.

So why had she written his name instead of her own?

Well that's obvious, she told herself sarcastically. Nymphadora Tonks-Lupin just wouldn't sound right. And even if we did want to be modern about this, he couldn't very well take my name either, since Remus Tonks sounds even worse. Why am I now considering this seriously.

Shaking her head again, she hurriedly crossed out her signature, resigning herself to the cold, hard fact that she would have to redo the entire scroll. Scanning it one more time to make sure she didn't scribble the name anywhere else like some love-struck fourteen-year-old (she hadn't), she finally rolled up the scroll and grabbed the next one. She nearly rolled her eyes at the fact that she was now acting like practically every girl from back at her Hogwarts days whenever they met a cute boy; they would sigh over them for hours and trace their names on every writing surface imaginable, often with their own names in combination, showing them to their other female friends to see if it sounded good. She'd always laughed at them, never understanding exactly why they did that. She'd never really felt that any bloke at Hogwarts had actually been worth it.

Though maybe that was because all of the decent ones had already left Hogwarts by the time she'd gone herself.

Tonks made sure to pay closer attention to the paperwork so she didn't catch herself making the same mistake again. If she wasn't careful, not only would she write Lupin again, but she would probably dot the i with a little heart or something equally nauseating. She still couldn't believe she'd done that in the first place. She'd never done this before with any other bloke, so why Remus?

Well, Remus was definitely different from any other bloke, that was for sure. The way he said her name…

She started to re-think about her issue with being called Dora. Somehow Dora Tonks had never sounded right, but Dora Lupin…That sounded even better than her full first name combined with Remus's. She'd actually be able to use it when casually introducing herself without any explanations of the whole "Use my surname" thing and why was she still thinking about this.

"You okay?" came Randal Savage's concerned voice outside her cubical after she'd finally stopped slamming her head down on her desk.

"Zoned out and messed something up," said Tonks resignedly, casting a quick incendio on the scroll so he wouldn't see exactly how she'd messed it up. "Filled out the whole thing too, now I have to redo it."

"Bet Scrimgeour's gonna be happy with that excuse, huh?" Savage said sympathetically.

"He might," Tonks reasoned, brushing the ashes off her desk and getting up. "He knows as well as any of us how dull the paperwork can be around here."

It seemed to be a mixture of both; Scrimgeour glared sternly at her when she described what she'd done, but he handed her a new scroll and turned away without comment, making it so that she was able to breathe again. As she turned away from him, she saw Kingsley heading back from the loo. She altered her course so she could have a quick chat with him before he got back to his desk.

"Think he's finally let it go," she whispered, pretending to show him the scroll.

"Finally, some good news," Kingsley replied softly. "Mess up?"

"Yeah, zoned out."

"Don't blame you. So," Kingsley went on, a smirk growing on his face, "Remus, huh?"

"…What are you talking about?" said Tonks, glancing around to make sure no one was listening.

"Your conversation with Sam wasn't exactly private, you know," said Kingsley, his smirk growing wider if possible. "It was kind of easy to figure out who you were talking about if you already know the bloke."

"Yes, well, it didn't mean anything," Tonks said hurriedly. "I just needed to say something to get Proudfoot off my damn back, and you know as well as I do that it's easier to go with something that already exists than it is to make something up."

"Of course, I'm sure that's all it was." Kingsley's smug expression didn't fade as he went back to his own cubicle, where Proudfoot immediately joined him. Judging from the way she looked over at Tonks while they were talking, it was pretty easy to figure out the topic of conversation. Tonks rolled her eyes and walked back to her cubicle, unfurling the scroll and being extremely careful to mark all of the blank spaces correctly this time.

She'd finally finished that scroll and two others when an interdepartmental memo landed on her desk. Curious and eager for a break, Tonks unfolded it and read its contents.

So do you want me to ask him out for you or do you want a crack at it? – KS

When Tonks finished filing out the paperwork and handed the stack over to Scrimgeour, Kingsley found himself suddenly sporting a massive neon pink afro that sparkled brightly. The entire Auror department exploded with laughter; even Amelia Bones, who was passing through to talk to Williamson about something, cracked a smile. Kingsley took it in good humor, even waiting until the work day was over before coming over to Tonks's cubicle and asking her to lift the charm.

"Hang on a sec," he said once she was done. "Oi, Savage!" he called out. "She didn't do anything else, did she?"

"Hang on," said Savage laughingly, coming back over.

"What, you don't trust me?" asked Tonks innocently.

"Not in the slightest," Kingsley replied promptly.

"Who could blame him, really," said Savage, standing on tiptoe so he could examine Kingsley's head. "Yep, you're good to go."

"Thanks, Randall. Now get out of here."

"Absolutely," said Savage, nearly jogging out of the Auror Office after the others. Kingsley and Tonks followed after them at a more leisurely pace.

"You never answered my question," said Kingsley as he ran his hand over his head, as if he was making sure he was really bald again.

"What question?" said Tonks.

"You know what I'm talking about," said Kingsley. "Seriously, I could ask him for you, put in a good word and all that. Can't really do it tonight, but…"

"I thought it was Arthur's turn?" said Tonks, keeping her voice down as they neared the lift.

"He's got a larger workload than we do for the moment, I offered to take his place."

"That's nice of you," said Tonks. The conversation trailed off as they got in the lift with the other Ministry personnel, and they kept silent until they reached the atrium.

"…I think I got it," said Tonks at last, after most of the others had either Disapparated or gone over to the fireplaces.

"Yeah?"

"Well…Might give it a few days. I…I kind of just realized all this today, so…I don't really want to rush into anything I'm not sure of."

"Oh come off it, you've had your eye on him since we joined the Order," Kingsley said in an undertone.

"…I have?" asked Tonks, looking up at him and raising an eyebrow.

"Yeah." Kingsley looked down at her, the smirk starting to form again. "And I'm fairly certain he's had his eye on you as well." With a final wink in her direction, he Disapparated, most likely to get a couple hours of sleep before his shift started.

Tonks stood staring dumbfounded at the spot where he disappeared for a long moment before she realized that she was getting some funny looks. She shook herself slightly, focused on a location, and turned on the spot.

These days she usually Apparated right to Grimmauld Place for a few hours after work before either heading back to her flat or returning to the Ministry to spend some time down in level nine. Today, however, she fancied a walk over to her cousin's house, hoping that she might be able to clear her head a little.

Remus wasn't due to meet with the werewolves for another week, so he was probably keeping Sirius company as usual. Tonks needed a bit of time before she saw him.

She reappeared in a woman's restroom in a stall she knew was perpetually out of order. Luckily, some poor mother had a squalling baby in a different stall so no one heard the loud crack Tonks had made on arrival, nor the thud she made when she fell into the stall door and nearly slipped onto the toilet. Catching herself just in time, she scrunched up her face and envisioned herself with long black hair, though she couldn't help adding some bright yellow streaks along the part in her hair. Shirking off her robe and slinging it over her arm like an overcoat, she exited the stall, barely drawing any notice from the other women in her faded jeans and long-sleeve Holyhead Harpies shirt. She briefly glanced at the mirror to check that she'd morphed right before heading out into London proper.

Hands in the pockets of her jeans, her robe trailing behind her on the ground, Tonks walked slowly towards headquarters, her eyes mostly sticking to the road below her feet as she thought about what Kingsley had told her. If what he said was true, and Remus did fancy her back…

But even if he did feel the same way, would he accept her feelings for him? Would he accept his own, if he had any for her to begin with? She knew him well enough to know that even though he would occasionally joke about it with Sirius, he was actually very self-conscious about his lycanthropy. He often warned her and Kingsley that even just being his friend was dangerous. They though he was talking about his relationship with Dumbledore, but with all of the new laws against half-breeds that Umbridge had forced through she knew it was more than that. He insisted that whenever he had a mission with one of them that everyone made themselves completely unrecognizable, just in case they were noticed by anyone. They usually brushed it off as him worrying too much over nothing, but he sounded so sincere in his pleas that Tonks always changed her face entirely whenever they were in public together. She imagined how he would react if they went beyond friendship, and if they ever left the house together and it wasn't just a mission…

It was only a matter of time before You-Know-Who came out into the open, she knew. Once that happened, Dumbledore would regain all of his status in the Wizarding World, and maybe get some of the new laws overturned. It was well-known how loyal Remus was to him, after all, and it was a reasonable expectation that Dumbledore would try to make things easier for someone he cared enough about to provide not only a job, but his entire Hogwarts education. If nothing else it would go a long way to driving the other werewolves away from You-Know-Who.

And if that didn't work, there were many ways to remind Remus that she was, in fact, a grown woman, and an Auror on top of that, so she knew how to take care of herself, especially when it came to dealing with prejudiced idiots. It might take a while, as it always had – even some of her colleagues still saw her as a little girl playing dress-up – but she always managed to get through to them in the end. Remus, hopefully, would be no different.

The next big concern she knew he had was, of course, the fact that Remus hadn't had a steady job since he resigned from Hogwarts. That was easy enough to wave away, she figured, since it was close to the twenty-first century, and as such women didn't have to rely on men for income anymore. She had a good, decent-paying job; there was no need for him to complain about having no money when she was so willing to share the wealth, aside from his pride, which she was quite willing to ignore.

The final hurdle, on the other hand…

Tonks could change her form to appear whatever age she chose, but she could never change her actual age. Only the natural passage of time could do that, and Remus probably knew it. While she had absolutely no problem dating older men, she was afraid that Remus might have an issue with younger women. Most men would never have that problem, Tonks knew, but Remus wasn't most men, which was why she figured that he would prefer someone his own age. And even if she was willing to wait a few years…What if Remus always saw her as a little girl playing dress-up? Her constant morphing had a lot to do with that perception, she knew…Maybe if she gave it up for a bit? Would she be able to convince him of her maturity then?

Of course, he could be exactly like other men and Tonks had just spent the last part of her walk worried about nothing. Or, even better, he might not fancy her at all and she just wasted the entire day over what might well turn out to be a pointless dream.

There was only one way to find out.

Taking a deep breath, Tonks squared her shoulders, walked up the steps to Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place, and rang the doorbell.

A/N: She entered the house to find Remus and Sirius shagging furiously in the drawing room, crushing all her hopes until after Sirius died—Okay, that's totally not what I had in mind. XD But if you wanna think that way, more power to ya. I'm probably not gonna do a second chapter so think whatever you want, this is really all I had in me for this particular moment in canon.

Review or Remus won't give you any chocolate.