Title: Conversation: Arrangements to Be Made
Author: Utenakun
Book Series: Harry Potter, post-HBP
Summary: Happiness doesn't have to be deferred for a war. Tonks/Lupin.
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: I won't give you my real name, but you can be pretty sure my initials aren't JKR. I have no rights (to HP, anyway), this is all in fun.
Notes: Oh, yes, yes, I shipped Sirius/Remus with the best of them. I never saw the cannon pairing coming—and yet, I can't help loving them. (Still, I'm not the only one who sees the angsty love triangle possibilities, right? Right?)

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"Tonks, are you awake?"

"Hmm?"

"You know that you're a welcome guest—more than welcome—but isn't it a bit silly to keep sleeping here and going home in the morning to change?"

She made a noncommittal noise, partially muffled by the fact that her back was to him. "Can't very well sleep at home though, can I? He—" and in their circles, that heavily accented 'he' no longer indicated Voldemort— "likely knows where it is, dark detectors and all. I'd wake up with a passel of Death Eaters at the door."

"No, no," he agreed, "no, I'm not saying stay there. I'm saying—let them have the apartment for all the good it'll do them. Bring your things here."

He listened to the shocked silence for a second or two, and then her disbelieving, "Remus… are you asking me to… move in with you?"

He pursed his lips, grinned, and gave himself over entirely to his little imp of the perverse. "Nymphadora." The name fell like a sack of rocks.

She gasped, shoulders hunched up almost exactly as if a giant caterpillar had walked across her spine, then slowly turned. "Ooooooh. Remus, you rotter…" Facing him now, her eyes sparkled as mischief battled fury.

Mischief won, in a way. "I wouldn't," she declared as took the flat of her fist and pummeled his upper arm for emphasis, "wouldn't move in with you if you stood on one foot and serenaded me!"

"Ah, but would you agree if I took your hands like so, gazed seriously yet lovingly into your eyes—yes, that will do—and asked, 'Tonks, these last few weeks with you have been happier than I ever dreamed they could be—you were completely right, by the way, and I was completely wrong, of course—now could you please do an old man the kindness of making him even happier by sharing his very humble abode?'"

"I—well, I—that is—you are not old!"

A warm smile. "And as to the rest…?"

"Well. Well, I do need a place to stay, but—well. Hmph. I'll think about it."

"Hm. And if I were to try and press my case some more—"

"I wouldn't listen! Undue influence and all that, pressuring me for an answer when I need to consider carefully—"

"Wouldn't listen? I see. So perhaps my approach should dispense with words…"

"Oh, you… hmmmm."