Part Three
The kitchen was a disaster zone of the highest order -- even Voldemort would be hard put to replicate the chaos that was the evidence of their combined lack of culinary finesse, which was conspicuous at every glance. Even the bagged salad had gone awry, as had the garlic bread they'd only had to stick in the oven on a medium heat setting for ten minutes. If it had happened to anyone else, Remus would be back at Grimmauld Place with Sirius, keeping an eye on the score sheet and laughing his socks off. But it hadn't happened to anyone else, it had happened to him, and to Tonks, who sat across the kitchen table, pale and dazed and vaguely ill-looking, as if she'd just had a bad run-in with Dementors, and it wasn't the least bit funny.
Failure, Remus thought as the edge of the table dug into his elbow and his chin bore into the heel of his hand, was felt all the more keenly when you'd so recently been on top of the world. He couldn't have imagined Tonks' clear indication that she found the prospect of kissing him -- as the foolish apron he'd hung over the back of his chair had put into their minds -- appealing. She had been keen to succeed in the cookery portion of the mission for reasons other than scoring points or sating pangs of hunger.
He knew, of course, that he would be doing Tonks a disservice if he thought his recent display of ineptitude would sway any desire she might have to kiss him. When you came right down to it, his disappointment lay in the fact that he'd thoroughly botched a gift of an opportunity to kiss her, or let her kiss him, with an escape route around embarrassment for both of them, should he have misread the situation or she decide she wasn't interested after all.
When did things get so complicated? Or was he simply complicating matters for himself, as usual? Was it really, in fact, quite as simple as just kissing her?
Chancing a glance at Tonks, Remus realised with a guilty jolt that she looked just as upset, just as disappointed and deflated as he felt. If he was to pass muster as a potential suitor, he'd better stop deliberating on his own feelings and start attending to hers -- especially since he'd already proven he did not pass muster as cook. If he was collecting suitor points as well as Muggle living points, successfully cheering her up must be worth at least two -- and one of those special smiles of hers.
Before he could talk himself out of it, Remus reached across the table and took her hand.
"We tried," he said. "And had we not been on a mission and trying to earn points, or rather, trying not to lose them, we'd both probably have found this as funny as Lewis Jordon's comedy slot on the WWN." In fact, without his bidding, a grin tugged at the corner of his mouth. "You've got to admit that me turning 'round the moment you stepped out the way and the sauce exploded was perfect comic timing."
He gave her hand an encouraging squeeze, but Tonks' reply was quiet, and her gaze remained fixed on the table.
"I'm not sure I could ever find humiliating myself in front of someone I'm desperately trying to impress funny."
Her tone was not one he was accustomed to hearing in her, but for an instant, Remus' mind fixed on the words 'desperately trying to impress,' and his heart soared for a moment longer before he registered the misery on her face. He dropped her hand briefly while he moved quickly around the table to kneel before her, sitting back on his heels and taking both her hands in his.
"You've never humiliated yourself in front of me, Tonks, and you never could. No one can humiliate themselves in front of someone who cares, and I do care for you. A lot." She didn't meet his eyes, but hers seemed to be fixed on their hands in her lap. "And as for impressing me, you've done that since the moment we met, and it's been a long time since I've thought you could do no wrong."
He held his breath for a moment, wondering if he'd said too much, exposed himself and his feelings to the point of no return. But then a quiet smile crept to the corners of her mouth, in an expression he thought was gratitude mixed with tenderness. It made his heart leap with hope, and filled him just a little bit more with the affection that had been gradually deepening into a much stronger emotion.
"Thank you," she said softly. "And it's mutual, you know -- caring."
In that moment, as he met her eyes and they gazed at each other in silence, Remus knew that everything had changed. He felt understanding pass between them, and while he knew that this scene wouldn't dissolve into a frenzy of passionate kisses -- not yet, anyway, it was enough to know that this thing between them was acknowledged and real. At their own pace they would explore the path that had opened up before them. It was a thrilling thought, but it also brought a measure of relief that calmed him.
Remus sat up, transferring the weight to his knees, and leaned forward, pressing a kiss to her cheek that lingered slightly longer than to be mistaken as simply platonic -- and, given the way her pale face bloomed with a pink glow that made him miss her customary hair colour, he was sure Tonks hadn't mistaken the meaning behind the gesture.
Drawing reluctantly back from her soft, sweet-smelling skin, he stood, pulling her up with him. "Shall we shut the door on this chaos and see if there are any points to be gained in the art of ordering Muggle takeaway?"
"Oh, yes!" she said eagerly, tripping over to the refrigerator. "There are lots of menus here!"
After a few minutes' perusal of the selection of takeaway menus hung on magnets on the fridge, Tonks took one down.
"How about this one?" She handed him a menu for an establishment called Pizza Hut. "Do you think it's really a hut?"
"It's a bit misleadingly named if it's not," he replied, scanning the article. "But their food sounds tasty."
They relocated to the living room and sat on the couch, knees and thighs touching, while they perused the menu together. Eventually they settled on a Hawaiian pizza (because Tonks thought it was an apt sort of pizza to get from a hut), garlic bread with cheese, and some chicken wings; then Tonks realised that if they ordered potato wedges as well, they'd get a deal that would not only save them three of their Muggle pounds, but give them a free bottle of soft drink, as well -- which she thought might earn them an extra point, at least, for working out the most cost-effective way of ordering food.
The leaflet informed them that they could telephone to arrange delivery, or, alternatively, they could collect their food from their nearest restaurant. Remus had picked up the phone and examined it, to find himself confused when it was not attached to a wire; Tonks concurred that telephones needed a wire to work, and they'd both dropped to their hands and knees to look beneath the telephone table for a wire that might do the job, but the only one to be found was the one that fed into the holder the telephone rested in and they didn't think pulling it out would be a wise move. Puzzled, but keen to avoid another mishap, they seemed to decide with one mind that since the weather was pleasant and they'd time enough on their hands, an evening stroll would be rather nice. And so, without further thought to the mess in the kitchen or the events that had led to it, they stepped out of the front door into a warm, overcast evening -- which was a pleasant change from the long summer of drought -- bound, hand in hand, for Pizza Hut.
"This is a lot of food for two people," said Tonks, eying the spread of open Pizza Hut boxes on the coffee table in the living room of the commandeered Muggle house. "I knew in my head what we were getting, but somehow it doesn't seem like as much in the abstract. In person..." She grinned up at Remus through her fringe, sheepish because the potato wedges had been her idea. "Well, we shouldn't have bought bread and eggs, as cold pizza makes a nice breakfast!"
"Assuming we have any pizza leftover to go cold," said Remus, reaching across the table to hand her a plate. "You seem to be forgetting that one of the two persons present is of the male persuasion. Our kind have a mind-boggling ability to make room in our stomachs for any and all leftover pizza, no matter how many slices or what else we've already eaten."
"True," replied Tonks, who'd watched the Auror department put away what she'd thought were enough pizzas to feed every Wizarding family in Britain. And her dad, on the rare occasions her mum let him bring home pizza from Zabini's, always came home with two large pizzas, which even as a small child had seemed like a good deal more than was strictly necessary for three people. Yet, curiously, there'd never been any leftover...
At Remus' urging, she selected a slice of pizza from the box; the weight of a pineapple at the end caused a cheese avalanche, but miraculously, she managed to keep it off her clothes. Piling the errant cheese and pineapple back on, she asked Remus, "Do you lot have some sort of spell that expands your stomachs for pizza eating?"
Remus was helping himself to four pieces. "I've wondered if it's a form of Metamorphmagery, triggered by the aroma of pizza." One bright blue eye winked at her.
"Don't know if it has anything to do with being a Metamorphmagus..." Carefully, with both hands, Tonks lifted her pizza to her mouth. "...but the aroma's definitely triggered something in this one."
She couldn't help giving an mmm as her mouth was filled with the gooey warmth of soft bread, mozzarella cheese, spicy tomato sauce, savoury ham, and sweet pineapple. So many contrasting tastes and textures were surely enough to please a gourmet's palate; though Tonks was just glad to hear an answering moan of food-induced delight from Remus.
When she'd swallowed, she said, "Glad something finally went off without a hitch. Coke?"
"Please, and thank you." Remus finished off his first slice of pizza, and licked his thumb clean as she poured them both glasses of Muggle fizzy drink -- a gesture which made her stomach hitch, causing her to slosh liquid over the coffee table. Almost reflexively, that same long-fingered hand that had so effectively distracted her swooped in with a paper napkin and sopped up the mess.
"Even though Pizza Hut didn't exactly live up to its name?" he teased.
"I'm no businesswitch, but I guarantee you it'd boost their marketing by a hundred percent if they actually operated out of huts!"
"Maybe they do in other parts of the world." Remus tilted his head back and took a long drink of Coke, Tonks' eyes following the roll of his Adam's apple down his pale, slender neck until it disappeared into his collar. "Huts aren't exactly practical shelter in England." He indicated the dark water spots that polka dotted their cardboard food containers. "We did only just beat the rain home. Imagine what would happen to pizzas made under grass roofs!"
The rain was drumming down on their roof, and Tonks found the rhythm of it, along with the occasional rumble of distant thunder, though quite a bit tamer than her usual Weird Sisters fare, the perfect music for a cosy night in with a man with whom...well, there were certainly a lot of possibilities for what might happen with this man tonight! For now, Tonks did her best not to let her heart beat any quicker than the pattering rain and to keep up the companionable banter she so enjoyed with Remus. Were her palms sweaty, or was that pizza grease?
"Who said the huts had to have grass roofs?" she said. "What about those sturdy waddle and daub shelters the ancient Celts lived in? Those must've done a fair job of keeping out the rain."
"Couldn't really serve Hawaiian pizza from an outfit like that, though, could you?"
"Wouldn't matter, the way the male patrons shove it straight into their stomachs. What are you on now, your fourth?"
"Erm, fifth," said Remus, looking a little more stuffed than he ought to have after that impressive speech about male metabolism. He laid a half-eaten slice on his plate and reached for the chicken wings. "Although I should probably save a little room for these, and have a few potato wedges before they get cold."
"Don't forget we've got that yummy-looking chocolate cheesecake, too. And the wine."
Their eyes locked, Remus' blue ones as wide as hers felt.
The wine.
At once their bodies unfolded like pocket knives, and they bolted for the kitchen, both slamming shoulders against the door frame as they tried to go through at the same time. Remus' arms briefly went around Tonks, steadying her as he murmured an apology, but he never broke stride, so his longer legs carried him across the darkened kitchen to the refrigerator before leaving Tonks trailing behind. He jerked open the freezer door and took out a frosted-over bottle of white wine.
The lines of his face tugged downward into an expression so dejected that Tonks forced herself not to look at their score sheet, which no doubt had deducted points from "Refrigeration Techniques." What was more important now than learning how to live like Muggles was learning how to live like people who might one day soon be more than comrades-in-arms, or even friends. They had to learn how to deal with mistakes together.
Resisting the urge to say, once again, 'I thought Muggles did everything slower,' she sauntered up beside him, prised the ice-cold bottle from his slackened fingers, and held it upside-down, by the neck. He didn't look at her, so she chanced slipping one arm around his waist. A shiver that had nothing to do with the frozen wine bottle coursed through her arm as she considered how comfortably her arm fitted around him.
"Winecicles compliment chocolate cheesecake very well, I've heard."
Remus sighed rather dramatically and said, "At least it didn't explode, I suppose. Do you think we could risk popping it in the microwave to thaw it out?"
"I think that would be well and truly pushing the boundaries of our luck," Tonks replied, but, before Remus' shoulders could drop another inch in defeat, she hastily added, "but I reckon we'd be safe boiling the kettle and popping the bottle in some hot water for a few minutes."
Remus looked slightly abashed that he'd not thought of that himself, and flashed her the ghost of a wry grin. "That's a much better plan. I'm so glad you're around to point these obvious things out."
When he slipped his arm around her shoulders and warmth suffused her, Tonks suddenly realised just how cold her fingers had become, holding the frozen bottle, so she set it gingerly on the counter in front of them.
"And then perhaps if we're successful at kettle boiling and wine thawing," Remus added, "we could have a go at the TV while we eat dessert."
"TV shouldn't be too difficult. I don't think they explode or overheat or anything like that, do they?"
"Not that I'm aware of, but I think we've already established that when it comes to the Muggle world, there's a lot I'm not aware of."
Despite their utter lack of skill when it came to boiling water to cook bow-tie pasta, they managed to boil the kettle and thaw the wine in a few minutes without incident. Continuing on their own mission of crockery economy, they cut one large slice of chocolate cheesecake to share between them, grabbed forks and glasses, and headed, wine and dessert in hand, into the living room, where they settled on the settee.
Remus poured them each a glass of wine, though a quick sip told Tonks it was still a little on the chilly side. Remus assured her that it wouldn't take long, in the warm sitting room, for it to rise to the perfect sipping temperature. Her glass carefully placed out of the way on the floor, Tonks clambered onto the sofa and sat cross-legged, her back square to the arm of the seat. When Remus positioned himself in a mirror of her position, it gave her a quiet thrill to see him so relaxed, with his feet clad only in a pair of grey woollen socks, his collar undone and shirt sleeves rolled up. It was, so much more intimate than evenings spent at Grimmauld Place, and, sitting so close, facing him as she was, there was so much more to observe about him: the smile lines that ever so slightly creased at the corners of his eyes, giving his face a character that seemed to be ever ready for amusement; a day's growth of stubble peppering his cheeks; and a hundred other minute details that brought him closer, made him more real than just a perfect character etched in her imagination.
"Ladies first," he said, lifting the plate he held between them just slightly to indicate he meant for her to take the first taste.
"Is that chivalry," Tonks asked, "or are you borrowing Mad Eye's tactic of making sure food isn't poisoned by offering it to someone else first?" She cut her fork into the cheesecake, anyway, and scooped up a mouthful.
"I solemnly swear that if I suspected poisoned food, I would offer myself as a guinea pig for you."
A reply was impossible for Tonks, because she'd already popped the cheesecake in her mouth and closed her eyes in delight.
"How is it?" Remus asked, eagerly.
"So good," she answered thickly as she let the chocolate melt on her tongue. "Try some."
He did. "Mmm. Purchasing this was the best decision we made all day." He paused and looked at her, cocking his head slightly and looking at her intently. "Well, almost."
Tonks' heart almost stopped as she considered that he was referring to the moment that had passed between them earlier in the kitchen, when their relationship had shifted by degrees into something that promised so much more. To distract herself from saying anything that might break this moment, she hurried to load her fork with another piece of cake, and shovelled it into her mouth. Remus did the same, albeit, Tonks felt, with slightly more dignity -- which, when he reached over and, with his thumb, wiped what she assumed was some stray chocolate from the corner of her mouth, was something she might have worried about a little bit more had his touch not been so very gentle, his skin so very soft, and had his thumb not continued its path to skim across her lips in the barest tickle.
Her breathing had become shallow, and she could still feel his touch on her lips when she looked up and met Remus' eyes, which were fixed on hers, as he raised his hand to his own mouth and licked the chocolate clean from his thumb.
Desire was as strong a force of emotion within her as she'd ever felt before, and Tonks wasn't quite sure how it was that she was still sitting on the sofa, dumbstruck, how she hadn't leapt forward to kiss Remus for all she was worth. In fact, with that look on his face, she wasn't quite sure how they weren't wound tightly in each others' arms, showing each other exactly what they were feeling... When suddenly they were doing exactly that.
Well, maybe not exactly. There was no passionate embrace; they had simply leaned in toward each other at the same moment, tilted their heads, and touched their lips, so softly, together. Remus' thumb and forefinger held her chin lightly, lifting her face up toward his. Tonks' breath had caught in her chest as she felt the warmth of his on her skin. It was such a little thing, this kiss, by most people's terms, anyway; and yet to her, it was everything she'd hoped for, and so much more...
And it was over much too soon.
"Well," Remus said, his voice husky -- which eased Tonks' disappointment that the kiss had ended, because it meant she got to hear him breathless, see him looking at her rather hazily, as if he'd just drunk Euphoria Elixir, all because he had kissed her. "Before we get too carried away and have to explain to Mad-Eye why we didn't complete our Muggle training, shall we see what we can do with this television?"
Tonks nodded. "Probably a good idea," she said, grinning at the out of breath quality of her own voice. "I don't fancy breaking the news of...us...quite like that."
They turned from each other, reluctantly, Tonks thought, as if maybe the trade-off of kissing were worth whatever consequences they'd face later, to look at the small television set crammed between the fireplace and the doorway into the front hall. But disappointment didn't last as the sofa cushion shifted and Remus slid nearer to her, so that their thighs just rested against each other; he stretched out his arm across the back of the sofa behind her, and she rested one hand on his leg. For a moment, neither said anything as they stared at their silhouetted reflections, melded into one as if they'd become a two-headed person, in the blank dark grey screen.
Then, afraid Remus would hear her heart hammering in her chest, Tonks broke the silence. "So...how do we turn it on, then?"
"Isn't there supposed to be a dial on front?"
"Hm..." Tonks squinted as she mentally trekked back in time to visits to Gran and Grandpa Tonks' house. "I think maybe back in the old days."
Remus glanced down at her, and Tonks gulped, realising her faux pas.
Quickly, she amended, "I mean, since then they've gone to buttons, I think."
"I don't see any buttons," said Remus, looking at the television again.
"They must be hidden. I don't particularly want to get up and look."
"Neither do I."
Tonks was glad to hear it. "Isn't there another way? Surely Muggles don't get up and down every time they want to watch a different programme?"
"Don't ask me," said Remus. "You're the one with the Muggle-born parent."
"So are you!"
"But my Muggle-born parent rather pre-dates television."
"Didn't you ever watch telly at your Muggle grandparents'?"
"Didn't you?" Remus raised an eyebrow. "Weren't you just telling me this afternoon about morphing to imitate the characters you saw on the programmes?"
"Well, yes, but I wasn't allowed to touch the TV. Grandpa was in charge of the--Duh!"
She smacked herself on the forehead, then twisted sideways and spotted the object she'd suddenly remembered. Long, flat, and covered in rubbery buttons. She aimed it at the television.
"What's that?" Remus asked, with an interest that wasn't a far cry from Arthur Weasley in his tones. "Some kind of Muggle magic wand?"
"It's called a remote."
"A remote what?"
Tonks wavered, suspecting she was still forgetting something crucial, but swallowed the feeling so as not to show it. "Nothing. Just a remote. Watch."
She punched the button marked "Power."
Remus gave a slight jump beside her as the television flickered on. Tonks turned to him, grinning hugely. "Presto."
"Well done," he said, looking mostly impressed -- but his forehead was lined as if he was suffering a slight physical strain. "Although at risk of sounding like a fuddy-duddy, some of us haven't destroyed our eardrums blaring the Weird Sisters. Do you know how to make it play just a little quieter?"
Tonks looked at the device in her hand and once again, her confidence abandoning her like air from a leaky balloon as she contemplated the myriad buttons.
"What about that one?" Remus pointed to one marked AV. "Or is that Avada Kedavra?"
"I don't know, shall I test it?" Tonks aimed the remote at him, but Remus covered the end of it with his hand and gently pulled it away from her.
"Surely using the Killing Curse on your partner would result in something a little more serious than failing the Muggle Entertainment and Technology portion of our training?"
"I don't think this is about losing points or me going to prison at all," said Tonks. "Gran was always muttering about men and their remotes."
This man was certainly interested in this remote.
"What about these up and down arrow-shaped buttons, marked 'Vol'?" asked Remus, showing her the remote.
"Vol probably stands for volume, doesn't it?" said Tonks, sheepishly.
"I should think so -- ah, yes." The TV was playing a lot more quietly now. "But what does 'Chan' mean? Whatever it is, you can apparently make it go up and down, as well."
"Only one way to find out," said Tonks. "Or aren't you a Gryffindor?"
"Let it never be said that this Gryffindor shrank in fear from a little box called telly."
Tonks watched Remus' thumb purposely press the up 'Chan' button. She jumped when the low sounds of talking switched to squealing tires and a crash. Remus' arm slid down from the back of the sofa and went around her shoulders, hugging her firmly against his side.
"Are you all right?" His eyes had left the TV and now searched her face almost anxiously; if Tonks had been embarrassed by startling, any shred of the feeling was gone when she saw there was no hint of amusement on his face.
"Fine," said Tonks, breathlessly. "Just startled me."
"Only you drew your wand."
Tonks glanced down at her hand and saw that her fingers were, indeed, wrapped around her wand. Quickly, blushing, she pocketed it. "Well, I was trained by Mad-Eye Moody. We didn't get any points off for that, did we?"
Without moving his arm from around her, Remus leaned over to check the score sheet, which they'd relocated from the kitchen to the coffee table after their excursion to Pizza Hut.
"Wand Drawn During Television Watching - Minus Ten Points," he said, frowning.
Tonks stared at him for a moment. "You're taking the piss."
A grin broke Remus' serious mask. "I am."
"Git."
Fist balled, Tonks swiped at him to punch him lightly on his chest, but as he'd caught the remote, his fingers closed around her hand. She held her breath as he raised her hand up to his mouth and brushed his lips across her knuckles. His mouth and breath were so warm, and yet the kiss caused gooseflesh to rise on her arm, the fine hairs standing up to attention.
Thunder rumbled.
Remus' blue eyes flicked up to her. "I'm sorry."
Tonks took a chance. "That was a very mean trick. You're going to have to do better than that if you want me to forgive you."
"Oh, well," he said, tightening his arm around her so that she was pulled tight against his side, "I could propose a toast, but that would mean I'd have to let go of you to top up our glasses and I don't really want to do that."
Tonks' heart hammered wildly in her chest, in contrast to a lazy roll of thunder outside in the distance. In the back of her mind, she'd half-wondered whether the magic between them would fade once they'd broken through that physical barrier of a first kiss; she found herself anticipating the second even more than the elusive first.
"I don't want you to do that, either," she managed to say.
Remus looked at her, a broad smile pulling at the corners of his mouth. It was a very nice mouth, she thought, as she had so many times, and it was especially nice now she knew how his soft lips felt brushing against hers.
"If I had three hands, I'd be pulling your legs up here." Remus indicated his lap with the hand that still held on to hers. "Seeing as I haven't, do you think your legs would mind making their way up here on their own steam?"
Tonks let out a slight giggle, which was a bit of a foreign sound to her own ears: she wasn't the giggling sort. "I reckon they could manage that," she said, and she swung her legs up and settled them in Remus' lap.
He seemed to have forgotten about the TV for the moment, even though voices were still a low murmur in the background, and, hoping to distract him from it entirely, Tonks asked, "What would you toast to, if you'd say, four hands and a spare to fill our glasses?"
"Oh, all manner of things, I expect: Muggle shopping trolleys and partners with pound coins on hand to be the saviour of my manly pride; to chocolate cheesecake and Pizza Hut and learning new things."
"Have you learnt something today?" Tonks asked, with interest.
"Certainly," Remus answered. "You don't let the water you're cooking pasta in boil dry, or trust that handing over responsibility for cooking the pasta sauce to your usually able and capable friend will necessarily save your pristine white shirt from droplets of pureed tomato -- even if you are wearing an apron."
"Hey!" Tonks poked him admonishingly in the ribs. "Can't you find something nicer to toast?"
"Okay," Remus said, drawing out the word. "I learnt that when I put my arm around you, your shoulder tucks under my arm like a perfect fit." Tonks' heart skipped a beat at the thought of Remus noticing that little fact, too. "And I learnt that when you hold my hand, you wrap your little finger around mine, like this."
He held up their joined fists, that did indeed show their little fingers entwined, but... "I thought it was you that did that."
"Never done it before in my life," Remus said, his eyes met hers and held, seemingly fathomless in depth.
"Nor me," she replied in a low voice.
"Tonks..." He spoke her name like a caress.
Who made the first move, Tonks didn't think she'd ever be able to say, but it felt like they moved as one. His hand cupped her cheek, and his eyes burned into hers from close quarters for just a moment before their lips touched in the gentlest of kisses; she just tasted the moist skin of his bottom lip as it moved over hers. It left her breathless, and aching for more when Remus pulled away --
--but only to say, "I think we've watched enough TV," and punch the power button on the remote, shutting the contraption off.
He kissed her again, pressing slightly more insistently; Tonks wrapped her arms around him, pulling herself into him, into his kiss. In some ways it was everything she'd imagined kissing him like this would be, and so very unexpected in others. Much like him, his kiss was one of opposites. It made her relax into him as the rest of the world washed away, but heat spread through her like a fever, driving deeper a restless desire for more. While he touched her with what felt like respect and a little reverence, he wasn't shy or tentative; his hands twisted in her hair possessively, grazed her arms with purpose, and pulled her further into him at the small of her back; his lips and tongue teased hers with surety, confidence. It felt new and yet strangely familiar at the same time. A little bit like coming home... And it felt brilliant.
At a sudden thought that occurred, Tonks felt the quiver of a laugh at the bottom of her belly. She tried to hold back, because the thought in and of itself really wasn't that funny, but she was so wonderfully happy, so ebullient with joy, that she couldn't help herself. Her lips still on Remus', she giggled.
He drew back just enough to meet her eye, and gave her a look that might have been admonishing, had his eyes not been twinkling. "I know I haven't done much to recommend my skills to you today, but I thought I could at least kiss you without doing something wrong."
"Oh no," said Tonks. "I was just thinking about how very right this feels." Though she felt a little shy, she told him what she'd been thinking, about being home. "Which is completely daft, considering we've commandeered some Muggles' house, don't you think?"
As she'd spoken a tender expression had come over Remus' features, which told her he was deeply touched -- and that he felt the same.
"Do you know what I think?" he asked, sitting up and pulling her up with him. His eyes held that Marauderish gleam.
"I'm sure I couldn't begin to guess."
In a single deft movement, he stood and scooped her up into his arms, her arms going around his neck as he gazed down at her.
"I think we ought to see how many points we can get for going to bed like Muggles."
To be continued...
A/N: Those kind enough to leave a review get an evening with the Remus of their choice: Marauder Remus, who challenges you to a pizza-eating contest; romantic Remus, who just wants to share a slice of chocolate cheesecake; or seductive Remus, who claims not to know anything about going to bed like a Muggle and needs you to help tuck him in...