"Answer me something and I intend this to be as horrible as it sounds: how in the hell did you become friends with James and Sirius? You happen to be the biggest prude I've ever met."
Remus' mouth dropped as his girlfriend of almost four days gave him such an exasperating look that he was eerily reminded of Lily. All he had said that he refused to go out to a bar tonight with her. Okay, he had mentioned that social situations made him uncomfortable and that he wasn't much of drinker, but that wasn't exactly hidden knowledge.
He had been quite content sitting together on his large and fading sofa, his only piece of non-damaged furniture, reading the muggle newspaper and drinking tea (in her case, soda). She had been looking at the society pages when she began mentioning that they should do something sociable. Remus ignored her until she noticed an advertisement for a new bar opening up down the street from his flat. She asked, and he flat out refused. How him refusing a bar led to how he became friends with James and Sirius, he was completely lost. He was starting to question when he had lost his mind when she pulled him from his reverie again.
"Honestly, we're never going to do anything fun," she whined, scrunching her face up and bouncing up and down petulantly in her seat. Remus was reminded of a four-year-old as he raised his eyebrows over the newspaper.
"Dora, we've only been dating officially for four days. I strongly doubt that us never doing anything fun applies to this situation," he chastised and returned back to the paper.
"And I return to my first question. How the hell did James and Sirius let you be their friend?" she retorted, stealing away the gardening and comics sections.
"I think me being a dangerous creature had something to do with it," he muttered, becoming irritated at the constant interruption. "Although, I must ask you, if I'm such a boring, pain-in-the-ass, why do you insist on dating me?"
"You were my first kiss or are you that forgetful in your old age? I never quite got over you," Dora laughed quietly and took a sip of her soda.
"So I'm old now?"
"Sure acting like it. Seems like you were right; you can't keep up with pretty vivacious me."
"It's a wonder you survived under your mother's roof," he muttered again, but couldn't help smiling to himself.
"Come on, you old fogie. We've spent the past four days doing things you like. I'm just asking you to go out in public with me for a couple hours tonight," Dora pleaded, pulling the newspaper down so he was forced to look at her. Sirius must have taught her the pitiful puppy look, the resemblance was so similar.
"You know," Remus replied, attempting to avoid answering her, "You're the one who insists on spending twenty-four hours a day with me. Don't you have girlfriends you can go out with?" He returned to the paper.
She glared briefly, then stood up and began to walk past him to grab her cloak. "Fine, if you don't want to spend time with me then I'll go out by myself."
As if a reflex, he reached out and pulled her onto his lap with a mischievous smile. "Perhaps because it's I am an old fogie, but I refuse to let you go to a bar alone, occupational training or no. We'll go, but I'm picking the bar."
Dora laughed and flashed a winning smile as she wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him. "I knew you loved me and couldn't resist me."
Remus smiled back and leaned his forehead against hers. "Well, I still remain convinced you have some power that affects only me. However, falling in love with you, that was quite voluntary."
And with that, Remus stood up and twirled a squealing Dora around the room.
Several hours later, Remus stood rather cockily against Dora's flat's doorframe, waiting for her to answer. He had purposely not told her where they were going, only suggested that she needed to wear something light and comfortable. Her look of confusion and irritation was amusing, since her hair also changed from its mouse brown to black. Her "angry face" was pretty amusing, especially when he knew she was simply putting it on for show.
It was taking her some time to answer the door; he figured she either wanted to make an impression or had tripped over something. Why one of the clumsiest people on earth would want to become inebriated and then dance was beyond him. Sometime ago, Sirius had gotten him drunk enough to ask her and she nearly fell over laughing. All Remus remembered was her saying something about living a little. Back in the present, however, he was starting to become a little uncomfortable.
Dora finally opened the door, smiling apologetically as she did so. Her hair was still semi-wet and she was wrapped in her bathrobe. The fashionably late rule, Remus decided, did not extend to answering the door unprepared. Slightly irritated, he sat down on her garishly yellow sofa and attempted reading some of the magazines strewn nearby.
"You're chuffed, but I was called into work, so deal with it," she called from her bathroom, her hairdryer going.
"Nymphadora, you left my flat at one; it is now eight. Explain to me what you could have done at work that would require seven hours of your time," Remus called back. His eyes widened and his hand flew to his mouth. SHIT, he used her full name!
"Well, if you have such a problem with it," she hissed, appearing in the doorway, "then leave. I am quite capable of entertaining myself."
To put it mildly, the evening was becoming a disaster. He hadn't even wanted to go out in the first place, she had been late and/or at work, and now he had used her full name. To make things worse, they had only been dating for four days. Remus was beginning to dread marriage if dating her was going to be this difficult.
However much he wanted to go, something she had said earlier had touched a nerve. He was always the prude; Sirius used to fondly call him Grandma whenever Remus got too fussy. He felt such a compulsion to prove her wrong, to make her see him as someone fun, that it scared him. He had felt this way about beautiful Isabella Zambini, née Burke, and that hadn't ended well. Well, maybe it had- he did give Dora her first kiss that night.
During this debate, Remus had barely noticed that the sounds of Dora getting ready had ceased. It was when his gaze was caught on a picture of him and her at Grimmauld two years ago that the silence registered. Wolf senses tingling (as tacky as that is), Remus tried to discern her location and what stage of preparation she was in.
"I've been watching you for the past five minutes. Now who's the one making us late?"
His head whipped to the side and he could barely contain a gasp. Her hair was long, golden brown, and curly. Her face remained unaltered, but the hint of makeup visible made her seem more grown up. She wore a simple, thin-strapped sundress that ended at her gorgeous calves. This wasn't his normal Dora and it hampered his speech abilities. Finally, after having goldfish-face for nearly five minutes, speech returned.
"You look amazing…" he breathed, unable to come out with anything else more sensible.
She blushed, something quite unusual for her. Wait, Dora was blushing? Unabashed, This-is-what-I-want-I'm-gonna-get-it Dora? Now this was an opportunity the Marauder in him couldn't pass up.
"Ms. Tonks, you wouldn't happen to be uncomfortable in that, now would you?" he teased as he sidled up to her and wrapped his arms around her waist.
"Not at all. You're being… demonstrative tonight," she murmured, distracted by his closeness; she knew something had changed, Remus never behaved like this.
He laughed softly and, taking her arm, led her towards the door. She tried to protest, but he wouldn't listen and continued to pull her out the door, refusing to pause for her to grab her purse. A slow grin appeared on his face as she gave in and allowed him to lead her wherever it was that they were headed. After all, it was Remus that she was with; what could possibly happen?
They walked for almost ten minutes down the neighborhood roads, through semi-light streets lined with flats and tiny shops. Dora attempted to surprise Remus into telling her where they were going, but he would only grin wider and shake his head. He was naturally quiet, but to hide a secret in this manner was so unlike him that she couldn't stop following.
Finally they stopped in front of a tiny, run-down looking storefront, with shuttered windows and a loosely hanging wooden door with chipped blue paint. There was no sign, but light shone brightly through the slits in the shutters and underneath the door. If alone, she would have passed it, thinking it was just another run-down flat. Remus squeezed her hand for a second, then pushed the door open and led her inside.
The walls were painted a deep yellow and had a painted red border running along the top. High tables were sprawled everywhere and no chairs were in sight. To their right was a darkened coffee bar. Towards the left corner were a few occupied sofas. Jazzy, eclectic music was playing loudly enough to move a body to dance, which many couples were. The little shop was fairly crowded. Dora was delighted and Remus was pleased.
"You wait here," he insisted, guiding her over to an unoccupied table, "and I'll be back with some drinks."
He quickly returned bearing two mugs of something hot and thick. He had to smile as she nervously sniffed at it, then took a tiny, prudish sip. Her eyes widened and the drink was half gone within the next second. As he sipped his drink slowly, he watched her take in the café and look yearningly towards the dance floor. He waited, wanting to make certain she wasn't going to insist upon dancing. She noticed, as usual, him staring at her and she gave him a loving smile.
"This is such the place for you," she teased, "Leave it to you to define 'bar' as an espresso bar."
"Your only requirement was that we go out and spend some hours together in a social situation. This fits the description perfectly. No exact definition of a bar was given," he teased back.
He watched her more as he finished his drink; she seemed to enjoy the place, even if it wasn't what she had planned. Yet somehow, she had known not to dress for a regular bar; he had a feeling some of those seven hours spent at work was used to figure out possibilities for their date. Remus decided to surprise her again and grabbed her hand to pull her towards the dance floor.
It was her turn to have a goldfish face as he began to dance with her on the edges of the dance floor where everyone could see. He couldn't figure out what surprised her more, the fact that he could dance quite well or that fact that he wanted to dance at all. For a moment, it looked as if she was going to question him, but she seemed to think the better of it and moved closer so that they were forced to dance intimately. Remus snickered internally- she had wanted to shock him, to gain an upper hand. Obviously that wasn't going to work.
Remus slid his hands from hers and ran them from the tops of her shoulder blades down her back to rest just above her butt. Once she got over that tiny shock and wrapped her arms around his neck, he pushed her close enough that they were practically melded together. Her head rested on his shoulder and she gave an occasional sigh of contentment as they gently swayed to the music. He slid one hand back up her back to play with the ends of her hair, causing her to giggle slightly.
Then, the music changed. Now the bar began to play brassy salsa music. As if on cue, Remus took one of her hands back and began to dance quickly; this would have worked quite well had Dora expected this and not fallen backwards over his feet. The two began laughing, and after a few seconds, began again.
"You planned that music change, didn't you?" she accused as he dipped her almost to the floor. "Stop looking down my dress, you old perv!"
Remus laughed hard enough to throw his head back, but did not stop dancing. "Yes, quite right, I did plan the music change. I'm more surprised that you haven't questioned my dancing ability rather than my actions."
"Oh, I figured you learned how to dance from your mother, like most boys. I'm surprised, though, that you were able to retain this ability so long without someone to dance with."
Remus twirled her, then gave a haughty smile. "Who said I haven't had a partner? That's how I learned to dance, from a girlfriend at Hogwarts." At her incredulous look, he continued, "Yes, I did date before you. If I do say so myself, I was fairly good-looking as a teenager, surely you remember that. Isabella, whom I know you're thinking of, I never dated, but there were others."
"Are you sure they weren't after you because they couldn't get James or Sirius?"
Remus didn't bother to reply, but pulled her into a long and passionate kiss. Adorned with the goldfish face again, Dora could only let out a strangled gasp.
"No, I'm quite sure those young ladies had other reasons for wanting to be in my company," he replied, twirling her. "Explain to me how you are so clumsy but can dance almost perfectly."
It was her turn to give a haughty smile. "Oh, I was taught well," was all she would say as the song ended and Remus led her back to the table.
"Well, I must thank your teacher then. I have to admit, I had feared for my toes earlier in the evening." Even she had to laugh as she smacked his arm.
For what seemed like such a short time but in actuality was almost four hours, they danced and drank until the owners kicked them out at closing. Remus was quite unwilling to head home, and the two walked around the neighborhood, arms tightly around each other for perhaps another hour before Dora suggested heading home so that her feet would be semi-able to function properly the next day. Unwillingly agreeing, he headed them back to her flat.
"What time do you have to be in for work tomorrow?" he murmured to her neck between kisses as thy leaned against her doorframe.
"Whenever I damn well feel like it, but I don't want to arrive late enough to receive taunting from my coworkers, so I must insist you let me go," she protested, trying unsuccessfully to squirm out of his arms.
Remus kissed her deeply again before reluctantly stepping away. "I'll call you tomorrow evening then," he whispered, taking her hand and gently kissing it one last time before heading towards the elevator.
"Remus!" she called; he turned and gave a stupidly haughty grin. "I've changed my mind."
His eyebrows raised. "Do you care to explain?'
"You're not the biggest prude I've ever met. I still don't understand how you were ever friends with James and Sirius though."
And with a final kiss goodbye blown in his direction, she sauntered into her flat and quickly shut the door.