"Stains of dishonour, filthy half-breeds, blood traitors, children of filth…"
The portrait hangs in the hallway start screaming when Tonks tripped up a troll's leg umbrella stand.
"You're all right?" asked Lupin, while Sirius was struggling to close the heavy curtains that usually hid the portrait.
"Yes" answered Tonks, accepted his help to get up.
"Well" smiled the man, then left her hand and came before her into the kitchen.
The kitchen, a cavernous room with a large fireplace at one end and a large wooden table in the centre, was below the ground floor and accessed through a narrow staircase at the end of the entry hallway. The room was empty except for Mad-Eye who sat at the table "I had no doubt that you'd been the cause of all that noise" said the man, removing his magical eye and dropping it into a tall glass goblet.
"It's disgusting!" exclaimed Tonks observing the eye wheeling in the glass.
The ex-Auror pushed with a spoon the eye on the bottom of the glass "I wonder how you did to become Auror." grumbled.
"It's a good question." replied sarcastically the girl sitting "You should ask this to my mentor."
"Constant vigilance!" remembered her, the man rescuing the eye from the glass "Next time you could lose a piece of you."
Sirius followed his cousin inside the room. "Do not you believe to be exaggerating a bit?" asked ironically, observing Moody drying his eye in a clean towel.
"She's an Auror." replied seriously the other, placing the magical eye in his orbit "During a battle nobody will offer her a helping hand to get up."
"You're melodramatic." answered back with insolence Tonks "None dark wizard has emerged from the corner."
"Constant vigilance!" said again Moody, rose and wearied his cloak "See you on Monday evening." added to Lupin limping out of the room.
"You're planning a date with Mad-eye?" joked Sirius. He sat on the kitchen table after Moody had left the room.
Lupin sat thoughtful "Could you lend me some money?"
"Of course!" answered Sirius, observing with disgust the strange yellow substance floating in the glass used by the ex-Auror "And do you need my money for?" curious lifted the lid of the pan placed on the table " No, don't answer. Let me guess." continued dipping a finger into a thick cream. "You need money to pay for romantic dinner." Licked the cream from his finger "I suppose you didn't resist the charm of his artificial leg."
Lupin sighed, then spoke as if confiding a secret until then had jealously guarded "You have got it. I'm falling in love with Alastor."
Sirius choked. Looked at his friend as if seeing him for the first time, he had a shocked expression on his face, then laughed loudly "You would be a nice couple. Your tastes have improved…" caught the newspaper that Remus, laughing, had launched against him.
"I need a good broomstick" explained to him seriously "Moody asked me to take a part in the Advance Guard that will take Harry from 4 Privet Drive to the 12 Grimmauld Place."
"I'll ask Bill for withdraw the money from my safe vault tomorrow."
"Thanks. I shall pay back you when I can." said embarrassed the other.
"Don't worry." replied Sirius "What do you think I need money if I can not get out of here?" remembered him smiling ironically.
"I shall repay you." repeated Lupin.
"As you want." surrendered Sirius dipping again his finger into the thick cream.
"I wouldn't do this if I were you." warned him Lupin.
"Why not?" asked confused the man bringing the finger to his mouth.
" It's a polish cream." explained to him Remus " Molly has prepared it to clean up the living room table ." continued amused, watching him run to the sink and rinse his mouth.
"Why you don't tell me before?" exclaimed making weird faces in trying to take off that ugly feeling from his mouth.
"Because you seemed to enjoy it."
"But therefore, why didn't stop me?" cried rinsing again his mouth before taking a bottle of butter beer "And if it were a poison?"
"You'd learned to ask before touch something." Replied Lupin tranquilly, with a gesture of indifference. "Stop making such a scene, Padfoot, you're still alive" Took two more bottles "Do you stay to dinner with us?" invited Tonks courteously and no receiving answer he turned around. "She's sleeping." noticed astonished.
"She's asleep?" replied in a low voice incredulous Sirius looking at her who had rested her arms on the table and her head over these.
"Scccc!" whispered Lupin motioning with his hand to follow him out of the room.
"But she can't sleep now." replied Sirius catching up him on the stairs "Hestia will be here in less than half an hour."
"Let her sleep." proposed Lupin "I'm free I will replace her."
He looked back at the kitchen. One of her arms had slipped off the table and now hanging helpless but she continued to sleep. "She can sleep in your bed. You'll out all the night." Said and, pity to see her in that position so uncomfortable, he came back in the kitchen and picked her up.
Tonks stirred briefly, murmured something seeking the position more comfortable against the chest of her cousin, but she didn't wake up even when they climbed the stairs or when he made her lie down on Lupin's bed.
"She looks very much like Andromeda, is not it?" murmured Sirius.
Lupin rested at the foot of the bed one of her amphibian and looked at her who, motionless, seemed under the influence of a spell. Her pale, heart-shaped, face was framed by unruly violet hair. "She's very nice." answered absentmindedly then, noticing the way Sirius was watching him, Lupin seemed back to himself " She inherited the beauty common to the Black family."added, as if explain his statement , removing her other shoe.
When Tonks awoke it was just past dawn and the first daylight through the windows.
As soon as she opened her eyes, she was caught by a little afraid to see the silvery-green canopy of the bed.
She got out of bed and looked better at the room as the light increased.
The room was not very large carpeted with the colour of Slytherin; a large wardrobe, a wooden desk, an armchair and two chairs. On one of which her jacket, folded, was placed. Took her jacket and felt that her wand was in the pocket where she had put.
The bedsprings creaked grimly when she sat to wear her shoes. She doesn't remember being there for the night; her memories of the previous evening were confused.
She opened cautiously the door and saw a severed head of an old house-elf made a show of himself from the wall opposite the room. Tonks recognized the dark corridor of 12 Grimmauld Place.
The whole house seemed to sleep and the snoring of the paintings mingled with the snoring coming from the rooms.
The girl came down the stairs, trying to make as little noise as possible despite the steps creaking, passed near the picture of the mother of Sirius, being careful to avoid the troll's leg umbrella stand, and had just put her hand on the handle of the door when it opened.
"Good morning!" whispered Lupin, surprised to see someone already awake. "I hope you slept well even the mattress is a little lumpy."
"Hi! " It was clear that he had replaced her.
Among all members of the Order Tonks would have preferred to have been another to replace her.
She always felt slightly uncomfortable in the presence of that man, although he was generally polite and a helpful person.
Lupin seemed the only one capable of controlling the fits of Sirius and all members of the Order, the same Dumbledore and Moody also, took very seriously what he said.
However, no one seemed willing to talk about him and she was not able to find information about him even in the Archives of the Ministry.
Perhaps it was precisely this inability to know what secret he was hiding that put her, used to having answers, in troubles when she was in his presence.
"What happened yesterday?" asked, watching him hang his cloak and pointed his wand against, drying it .
He turned his head toward her, looked at her surprised for a moment then he returned to concentrate on his mantle until it was completely dry. "You don't remember?"
Tonks give him a withering glance, but she restrained herself from giving any answer. He thought really she had nothing more important to do than waste her time making him stupid questions?
"You fell into a sound sleep on the kitchen table." said in a low voice Lupin and seeing her ready to make a second question "Do you mind if we continue the conversation near the fireplace?" continued shivering. He didn't seem to want to accuse her of the fact that she had made him lose a night's sleep "It rained all night."
Tonks nodded, despite his way of doing nettled her, and walked to the living room but Lupin continued along the hallway forcing her to follow him in the kitchen.
"Here we can talk without the risk of waking up all the other." explained lighting the fire "Do you want a cup of hot tea?" asked, filling the kettle.
"No." answered Tonks, a little angry, watching him toast a few slices of bread "Why you don't wake me?"
"Cause seems you'd really need to sleep." said the man taking the jam from the shelves. "You were so tired that neither our voices nor the items being moved you haven't woken you."
She had to admit that he was right. The day before she was really tired, she probably would have asked to be replaced, but she would not have ever admitted this, especially after he had looked at her in that way, comprehensive, compliant, that her father had used frequently when she, as a child, had done something wrong. "If you had called me I would have woken." replied proudly "No matter how tired I was, I never missed a day of work."
"Yeah, I know this." said Lupin, sitting at the table "Moody gave us all the information we needed about your life."
"You have spied on me?" exclaimed shocked by the news.
"We did some research." answered Lupin "We needed to know if we could trust you before asking you to join us." the kettle began to whistle "Could you pass me the kettle?"
She took the kettle but, made just two steps, she stumbled in the uneven floor kitchen. The kettle flew a few feet spinning on itself, before he fell with a metal crash on the hard stone floor.
Lupin got up just in time to avoid a hot shower.
"Sorry." Said Tonks embarrassed 'cause that was the second time in less than two days that she fell in front of him. Picked up the kettle from the floor and not daring to lift her eyes filled and put it back on fire.
"Sirius should decide to make us repair the house." said Lupin, wiping the floor and the table, without giving much weight to the accident as if it were something that happened every day "Anyone who might stumble into that hole."
"However" she resumed the discourse vexed "you had to wake up me."
"How was your night?" asked Sirius coming into the kitchen.
"Long, " answered Lupin turning the page of the newspaper " cold, wet and boring. Nothing happened."
"I envy you." sighed, melancholy, Sirius.
"I spent ten hours in the rain, watching a house from which no one came out and nobody came in." Remus pointed out to him "I would have gladly to leave that pleasure to you."
"At least you're able to get out of here." replied the other biting a biscuit.
"I would rather spend the night in my bed." closed the newspaper and put it aside.
"By the way, you think we should wake Tonks?" asked Sirius frying two eggs.
"She's already gone."
"Did you see her?" asked absently, swallowing the bit, "She slept well?"
"Yeah, at least I think. She seems in good shape," answered Lupin re-opening the newspaper "although she would have preferred a cold shower" added in a strange way.
"What do you mean?" asked confused, frowning.
"No" said firmly Molly entering the room and breaking off their speech.
"Why, not?" protested Bill.
"We have enough problems." she answered sharply, putting on the table the heavy shopping bags.
"She would not give you any trouble indeed she would help us." replied her eldest son "We are too few, you know this, Dumbledore himself said that we should accept any help offered to us"
Sirius looked curiously at their "What are you talking about?"
"Nothing" answered Molly implying that for her the speech was concluded.
"Fleur would like to become part of the Order" Bill said at the same time.
"Who is Fleur?"
"A girl who works with him at Gringotts." answered Molly.
"She's very talented…" said the boy, fervent.
"She can't speak well even our language." snorted his mother, obviously upset.
"So that is the problem?" Bill asked darkly irritated.
"She might misunderstand something" replied the woman, visibly in distress. "Lupin, please, tell him."
"I think Bill is right." answered Sirius, earning a wink from the boy. "We are few and one more person can help the Order."
"I did not ask your opinion!" exclaimed Molly giving him a black look.
"I think exactly like them two." Lupin disappointed her hopes "If Dumbledore, and the others, agree I don't see why we shouldn't accept her help. That she doesn't know English well is a problem that can easily be overcome."
Molly left the room muttering to herself, nervously disappointed by not having received any support from anyone.
That was certainly the busiest one of the meetings that she had taken part although many members of the Order were absent.
The main topics had been addressed and now, all that had gone to talk about sub-topics, the attention in the room was much diminished.
Tonks was listening absently, without really hear, what they were talking about and, in the meantime, revised the false information which, together with Kingsley, had agreed to report to Scrimgeour, when she saw Snape leaving his seat and approach, stealthily, to Sirius.
"Make sure he doesn't forget to drink it." he whispered, taking an ampoule from the pocket of his coat "I had to use my personal stocks."
"I'm sure you've collected enough slime, in your life, do you not have to miss this." Replied Sirius, a little reluctant to accept the vial, the contents of which shone for a moment at the light of the fireplace before he put it in his pocket.
"If it were not for Dumbledore, I assure you that neither of you would be here now" murmured the other man with a cruel smile on his thin lips "but, for now, I'm happy to know that even someone like Him is more useful than you ."
"He is a complete idiot." exclaimed annoyed Charlie, shaking his head.
Although Tonks was interested in the conversation between Snape and her cousin, she turned instinctively "Who?"
"Bill." answered the boy glancing at his brother "He can't understand that isn't the time to address the argument."
She noticed that Molly had left the room.
"If only Dad were here now." spoke again her friend rising and following his mother out.
Tonks knew that Charlie would tell her all after so she interested again in the strange conversation between her cousin and Snape but, when she turned, Snape was back to his place as if him had never moved.
Sirius, instead, clutched the edge of the table so hard to have the white knuckles. He seemed on the point of wanting to throw away the table.
"Are you ok?" she asked sitting next to him.
"Of course!" answered Sirius, continuing to scowl at the man sitting at the opposite end of the table.
Tonks was certain he was lying. She could almost feel his anger boil. She looked at Snape who glance impassive back at her cousin. "What he wanted from you?"
Sirius was silent for a long time, gnashing his teeth, then stood up furiously, bringing down his chair, and left the room slamming the door behind him.
After a few moments, Tonks heard the screams of the painting of Mrs Black.
Tonks had the sensation of having witnessed a silent battle between the two men and, from Snape's smile, was clear who was the winner of the two.
Although those weren't her business, Tonks was very curious to know what they talked and what was in the ampoule. As the meeting ended, she went in search of her cousin, but she didn't find him in the living room and never in his room.
She had just climbed the first flight of stairs leading to the attic when one of the doors opened. The door of the room where she slept a few days before, Lupin's room.
Sirius stood in the doorway for a moment, with his back to the corridor. He spoke with someone, who was inside the room, but she couldn't hear what he said.
"I thought that he wasn't at home" spoke Tonks, reaching behind him a moment after he had locked the door.
Sirius started whit surprise at the sound of her voice "What are you doing here?" asked more loudly than necessary.
"I'm looking for you." answered the girl, staring at the closed door behind him "You looked very agitated and I wanted to make sure nothing was wrong."
Noting that his cousin's insistent gaze seemed to go beyond the walls, Sirius surrounds her shoulders with his arm, guiding her towards the stairs "I'm fine" assured " it was a small quarrel between old schoolfellows."
"I understand. Things like: dig up the old times" replied the girl.
"Yeah." said Sirius nodding as they descended the stairs.
"I would be sorry to leave you in a bad mood" spoke again the girl, supporting him although she thought he was lying "today that the Weasley do not seem a great company."
"Molly will calm down soon" replied reassuring.
"When Lupin comes back?" asked in a whisper as they passed outside the mother's of Sirius portrait.
Sirius seemed to stiffen "In a few days."
When Tonks left the house, she looked back, at the front of number 12 Grimmauld Place.
All the lights were out except that in the living room. The curtains on the windows of upper floors were closed, she didn't see anyone at the windows but she had the feeling of being watched.
She looked one last time to the third-floor windows before the house disappeared. Sirius said that the room was empty; everyone said that Lupin was on a mission for the Order, but she knew that her cousin had spoken with someone who was inside that room.
-Who was there?-wondered crossing the Atrium of the Ministry- What was in the ampoule that Snape had given to Sirius?- reached the small oval room, in which Scrimgeour and three other Aurors had already taken place, sat in a corner waiting for the other. Wherever she moves her eyes, she saw indication photos of her cousin or maps of possible locations where he was hiding.
Looking at those pictures, thinking at her cousin, she remembered something to which she had previously given little importance.
When Sirius had accompanied her to the door his pocket was empty. He had held her so close to his side, that she would have been impossible not to feel the ampoule through the cloths. He had given it to someone to who Snape couldn't give.
"Tonks, please tell us what you found out."
Scrimgeour's deep voice distracted her from her thoughts. Tonks seemed confused for a moment, she hadn't noticed that the empty seats were occupied and that the six Auror were looking at her perplexed, waiting for her to speak, but she regained her composure quickly.
"As I said this afternoon" began the girl taking from her bag a big folder "I think I have an idea about where Black is hiding. "
"What do you want?"
Sirius's eyes, accustomed to the light, take a moment to distinguish the shapes in the dark room and locate the man sitting on the windowsill. "Now if you want you can come downstairs."
"No!" answered sharply Lupin.
"Are all gone, we were only us and the Weasley"insisted Sirius.
"No." said again the man looking out the window.
"I can't understand you." admitted sitting at the foot of the bed "You spent all day alone, they already know your problem."
"That is the problem."
"So, why do not you say this to Tonks too?" asked confused Sirius "You could make things much easier." Despite the darkness he felt Lupin's eyes on him. Sirius rose with a resigned sigh "I will not say anything to her" said before leaving the room "don't worry."