A/N: Right well, same as other chapters anything that you recognise isn't mine and this fic was greatly inspired by When did you fall by Chris Rice.


Coffee Shop

The events that followed in the next year or so were hectic but still in some ways joyful. I got my best friend, my brother, back. I knew he was innocent as did Harry, Ron and Hermione. The rest of the wizarding world however didn't seem to want to believe it, and even though Dumbledore warned me that Aurors would inevitably come to question me about Sirius' whereabouts, when they did, the resulting interview wasn't exactly what I was expecting.

"That will be £1.94"

Remus snapped out of his daydream with a jerk and looked at the waitress in confusion.

"Erm… pardon?" he enquired.

The waitress sighed, obviously used to customers who weren't paying attention and in bored tone replied.

"£1.94, for the tea" she gestured to his now empty cup.

Remus, startled, realising that he had indeed finished his tea and had just been staring into space for the better part of at least half an hour.

"Oh right" Remus said digging into his pockets for change. He found the right amount and handed it to the impatient waitress. She briefly counted it then headed back to the counter and deposited it in the till.

As Remus went about collecting his coat while a friendlier waitress gave him a smile as she began to collect rubbish and wipe down the table, something caught his attention out of the corner of his eye. At the front of the coffee shop a black-haired woman was ordering a coffee to go. The oddest thing though was that her hair seemed to be more midnight blue then black. He shook his head amused at the thought, as it was quite impossible, especially as this was a muggle coffee shop.

However as he was leaving he took one last look back into the shop and the woman's eyes meet his. She gazed at him a while before her eyes widened in surprise and she turned back to ordering her coffee. Remus left the shop slightly bemused, he wondered where the woman recognised him from, he assumed that she had recognised him anyway. Shaking his head he continue on his way putting it to the back of his mind.

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As the weeks progressed Remus kept going to the coffee shop, he would order a cup of tea or if he was feeling slightly indulgent, a hot chocolate. In these trips he noticed something. Everytime he went in there the girl with 'blue' hair was there. Now nothing was too odd with a regular customer, heaven knows he went there enough; no the odd thing was that she would try to nonchalantly stare at him. It wasn't very subtle.

It was on one of his many early morning visits to the coffee shop on a particularly cold morning that he saw the young woman running along the pavement muttering about being late. As she ran though Remus noticed that she was pulling a pair of blood red robes out of her bag.

'An Auror' thought Remus 'That explains the staring; they must want to finally approach me about Sirius'

As he walked into the coffee shop while counting change to see if he had enough for a hot chocolate he wondered how many Aurors had midnight blue hair. It clicked. Remus grinned.

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About two days later and Remus was sitting at a table in the coffee shop wondering if he should test his theory or not.

'Well no time like the present' he thought as the blue-haired woman walked in.

Summoning courage he wasn't sure that he had he took a breath and yelled.

"Tonks"

She turned.

'Well that settles that' he thought as he watched her grin, gather her drink and walk over to join him at his table.

"Wotcher" she smiled as she sat down. Remus sighed and gave a slight half-hearted smile.

The gin slowly fell off her face and compression dawned on her features. She leaned forward slightly to whisper across the table.

"You know why I'm here then?" she asked.

"Yes" Remus replied "you are here, as an Auror, to question me on Sirius' whereabouts. Well let me save you the time and effort. I don't know where he is." He stood to leave but noticed that Tonks was chuckling slightly.

"What?" he asked confused.

Tonks looked up wiping away a stray tear from repressed laughter that leaked from her eye.

"I'm afraid not, see although I am now an Auror, the office won't let me near Sirius' case file"

Remus looked at the girl still a little lost.

"Then…what are you doing here?" he asked.

"Well" she said apparently choosing her words carefully "I am here about Sirius. Ever since he escaped last year I've done some thinking and something doesn't quite fit, so I was wondering whether you could tell me the story. Tell me why you trust him, why you think he's innocent" She stopped looking at him intently.

Remus sat slightly amazed; she was in a way risking her very job to ask this. To go against the ministry could be considered treason. Furthermore she was seeking the opinion of him, a Dark Creature. He respected her for that. He looked at her hopeful face and took a breath.

"Miss Tonks, get comfortable, it's a long story"

So Remus told Tonks, amid various cup of tea and coffee about how Sirius had escaped not to kill Harry as everyone thought, but Peter Pettigrew. To perform the murder that he was imprisoned for. He told about how everyone was sure that Sirius was after Harry, about the dementors at school, about his teaching and finally how he came to be at the shrieking shack with Harry, Ron and Hermione. However here he faltered.

"What? Carry on" Tonks prompted.

"Well you see" Remus tried to explain, but how do you explain how you are a werewolf and because of this nearly killed three students and two adults, however Tonks suddenly nodded in understanding.

"Its ok Moony, I know" she said gently "Carry on"

Remus looked up at the mention of his old nickname and seeing no hostility, nodded. He took another breath to re-assure himself and after another look at Tonks' attentive face dived back into his story.

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"So basically" Tonks summarised ignoring the coffee shop owner gesturing for them to leave, as it was closing time. "You trust him because he is your friend, almost your brother and you believe his story?"

"Yes" Remus said slowly watching her out of the corner of his eye. Everything really banked on what she said next.

"Well then" Tonks said cheerfully standing up and throwing down a tip. "That's good enough for me"

"What?" Remus asked bemused joining her in leaving the coffee shop; "You believe me? Just like that?"

"Remus" She said placing her hand on his arm "I've always trusted my cousin, probably one of the reasons they won't let me near his case, but I just wanted to hear why you believed in him, OK?"

Remus nodded trying to quell the swooping sensation in his stomach from when she touched his arm.

"Was nice seeing you again Remus" she said putting on her gloves and turning to leave "Keep well"

"And you" Remus replied watching her walk away.

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Five months later and Remus' house was playing host to an impromptu Order meeting.

To say that Remus was surprised when Sirius turned up on his doorstep ranting about Harry, a graveyard and Voldemort was an understatement. However after a shot or two of firewhiskey Sirius was in a well enough state to tell the entire story. So for the next two hours Sirius and Remus had notified the 'Old Group' and now Dumbledore was giving them their instructions.

"Now, one last thing" Dumbledore said stopping the large group from leaving. "We need new members. So if you know of anyone that could be sympathetic to our cause talk to them in private and see if they could make it to our next meting at headquarters. Which is I believe at Sirius' house, correct?" Dumbledore looked over to Sirius who nodded. "Right that's all then, off you go"

As the last person left shutting the door behind them Remus looked over at Sirius grinning and Sirius evidently having the same thought grinned back.

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And that's how two weeks later Remus Lupin and Nymphadora Tonks came to be standing in front of a row of houses on Grimmuald Place.

"Right, well, Sirius lent his house to Dumbledore for meetings, hence why we are here."

Tonks looked at Remus a little confused, and then as something seemed to click into place comprehension crossed her face. She grinned.

Remus grinned back and gave her some last minute instructions.

"Now if you just read this we can head inside and stop Sirius from thrashing the place"

With this statement he handed her a piece of parchment with familiar loopy handwriting covering the surface. As she read it she felt a sense of achievement wash over her and with one more glance at Remus she watched a house appear as she thought about what she had just read.

'The Headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix can be found at Number 12 Grimmuald place, London.'

A/N: Right well the last bit is obviously from Order of the Phoenix by JK Rowling. Please review.

A/N2: Right just did some simple editing and looking at my schedule for the next few weeks I don't think I'll be able to update until after Christmas. I'll try but I have exams, classes to help teach and on top of that writers block. I will try to get it up though I promise.
So please review, it helps you know?