Remus learned one thing during the long day working with Tonks: when her team of Aurors struck, they struck fast, and they struck well. As soon as Remus and Tonks reported that they had the Selkie skins, a group of Aurors and Aurors-in-training went to the country schoolhouse and gathered the children, arresting Katarina Benassi as they did so. Another team simultaneously arrested the Benassi brothers at a Dublin pub. Remus took comfort in the Aurors' swiftness and teamwork. During the first Voldemort war, Aurors often had been forced to work quickly out of desperation, which occasionally led to sloppiness. He was glad this group, and Tonks, in particular, were able to keep calm during assignments. Hopefully that skill would carry over into situations of heightened emotion and higher stakes. Remus would be glad to report to Dumbledore a job well done when he returned.
Now he and Tonks had arrived at the Dublin Ministry of Magic headquarters, where the children were being "debriefed" about what had happened to them. Because being separated from their skins causes amnesia in Selkies, memory restoration spells were used to assist the children's recollection. Once they saw their memories, most of the girls were old enough to remember the trauma of having been taken from their parents. Several of them held their pelts in their laps in shock. Some cried. A few begged to be taken to the sea immediately, where, upon contact with the salty water, their pelts would magically meld to their bodies and transform them back to the beings they had been before.
The next day and a half would be important, not only for the Ministry's intelligence, but for the children's state of mind before being returned to the sea and their parents. Each Auror would choose a girl to interview. Histories needed to be taken, and evidence gathered. Paperwork had to be filled out. And counseling had to be completed. Tonks rolled her eyes at Remus when she informed him of this duty. "How can any of us make these little girls feel any better in a day and a half? It may take years to get over what's happened to them."
Remus had to agree. He watched Tonks as her gaze roved over the group of eight children, choosing which one she would interview and counsel. It was a pathetic sight; most of the girls were now crying in earnest, or talking with each other and trying to make sense of their fate. After a moment, Tonks strode over to a little brown-haired girl who sat alone at the edge of the group. The girl's jaw was set, her blue eyes calm and staring straight ahead. Her fingers gripped her pelt so hard that her knuckles were white. She couldn't have been more than seven years old.
Tonks sat next to the girl on the wooden bench. She looked at what the girl was staring at on the opposite wall. Posted there were new and revised decrees, notices of workers' rights, and, of course, photographs of wanted criminals: the Benassi brothers were there, and Sirius would no doubt find it interesting that he was tacked up in three places. Tonks started by ridiculing the pictures of the criminals in the photographs on the wall. The girl nodded or shrugged in response to Tonks' jokes. When the girl finally looked up at her, Tonks introduced herself and asked the girl's name.
"Mary," the girl replied softly in an Irish lilt.
"That's pretty," Tonks smiled. "What was your name before?"
The girl looked down at her pelt and was silent.
Tonks regarded Mary for a few moments, then glanced quickly at Remus and looked away. Her look told him that this was going to be tough.
Later that evening, Remus waited for Tonks in the corner booth of a little Muggle pub a few streets away from Ministry headquarters. She had sent him on his way while she and the other Aurors finished talking with the children, eating dinner with them, and settling them into their quarters for the night. More interviews would take place all day tomorrow, and finally the children would be escorted back to the sea tomorrow evening.
As he nursed a beer, Remus thought about his new – what should he call her? – acquaintance? Colleague? Friend? He wanted to imagine her as something more, even though every rational part of him was ready to put a stop to that. But he couldn't seem to help himself. Everything about her enticed him: her humor, her humility, her strength, her talents … and yes, her looks. He hated to admit it, but he had spent a fair bit of the afternoon in the Ministry memorizing the profile of her nose.
He felt a rather pleasant but unwanted stirring within him, so he looked around the pub to try to distract himself. There sat The Usual Suspects, as Sirius would call them: old blokes who had never married, or whose wives had died or gotten sick of their shenanigans. The men elbowed each other at the bar and regaled one another with the same stories night after night. Would he and Sirius end up like that one day? Remus felt a heaviness in his chest as he realized that it wouldn't be out of the question. Even if his innocence were proven, Sirius wouldn't likely settle down with a woman. And Remus … well, he had decided long ago that he couldn't.
But then he thought of the dimple that appeared in Tonks' right cheek when she smiled. It made him feel better, so he allowed his thoughts to wander over her other features. He felt the curve of a smile beginning on his own face when he considered her delicately pointing chin; her straight, black eyebrows; the high cheekbones; her small, voluptuous mouth; the dark eyes that never seemed to stay dark when he was around …
The tinkle of the bell over the front door brought him out of his reverie, and in strolled Tonks, having changed clothes and looking rather striking indeed in low-cut, boyish blue jeans and cowboy boots, a burgundy velvet jacket, and an old green T-shirt that had tattered lace stitched along the plunging neckline. Remus told himself not to ogle and forced his gaze up to her face. As she crossed the room, her eyes once again shifted from black to blue, as if her eye color were an outfit she chose to wear around him. He stood as she approached and fought the impulse to catch her elbow and kiss her cheek in greeting.
"Wotcher, Remus?" she smiled as she plunked down into the seat across from him. He sat down with her and noticed that she looked tired. "Did you already eat?"
"Back at my room." The Order had rented a small room for him a short distance from Tonks' flat; he wasn't particularly looking forward to saying there tonight.
"We ate at the Ministry," she said, rubbing the back of her neck. "I could use one of those, though."
Remus signaled the barman to bring two more beers. "How did it go?"
Tonks sighed and cupped her face in her hands, elbows on the table. She roughly rubbed her face for a moment, then ran her hands through her fuchsia hair and flopped back against the seat again.
"It went that well?" asked Remus.
"Oh, it went fine. I got the information I needed. That's not the point."
The barman set the beers down with a thunk. Tonks took a long sip and wiped her mouth thoughtfully with the back of her hand. Remus took a swig of his and waited for her to continue. She leaned her head against the back of the booth and regarded Remus for a moment.
"It's always the ones who seem like they've got it together who are the hardest to crack."
Remus' heart thumped inside his chest. This was exactly like something Sirius would say – had said, in fact, on many occasions – about him. But he reminded himself that Tonks was talking about the little girl, the Selkie.
"She's very mature for her age, Mary is – or Mairead, that's her Selkie name. But who is she now? Now that she's spent two years as a human? And … ah, hell …"
Tonks sighed and traced little designs into the frost on her beer glass, creating amber curlicues all along one side. She spoke quietly.
"That's the only thing I don't like about this job. There's so much you have to leave undone. She's not all right. She won't be all right tomorrow night when we take her home." She crossed her arms and her eyes focused far away as she turned her gaze toward the darkened window for a moment. Remus watched her blink slowly. Three blinks. Then her gaze returned to Remus and she spoke briskly. "But she's going home to her parents, and I suppose that's the best we could do for her anyhow."
Remus nodded in understanding, somehow feeling that no comment was necessary. Their eyes remained locked for several seconds, and for some reason the silence didn't seem awkward. Remus dropped his gaze first and reached for his beer, wondering if perhaps a change of subject was in order.
"So I stumbled upon you dancing in your living room," he smiled.
"Oh, that, yeah," Tonks blushed. "I was hoping you'd forget that little incident."
"Why?"
"It's – oh, it's nothing." Her cheeks were flushed.
"What?" Suddenly Remus was intrigued.
"It's really nothing."
"No, you have to tell me now."
"I promise you you'd rather not know."
"I promise you I'll die of curiosity if you don't tell me."
"I assure you it's not very interesting."
"And I assure you that your blushing face tells me otherwise."
Tonks inhaled to negate him again, but instead ended up grinning. Remus smiled back, knowing that he'd won. He innocently took a sip of his beer, peering up at her over the rim of the glass.
"Moody made me do it."
Remus sputtered mid-swallow and coughed. "Alastor Moody?"
"The same."
He coughed again. When he gathered himself, he spoke in a hush. "Mad Eye Moody asked you to –"
"Dance in my living room, yes."
Remus was utterly flummoxed. Now Tonks was grinning, although her blush hadn't entirely faded.
"May I ask why?" he finally managed.
Tonks raised her eyebrows and hissed an inhalation as she gazed into her drink. "I'm trigger happy."
He wasn't following. "You're what?"
"I'm a little too quick on the uptake, too much of a cowboy, as Moody says."
"Translate."
Tonks sighed. "Look, I get kind of wired before my assignments. There have been a few … instances … when I've hurled a spell when it wasn't necessary. Moody calls me 'Quick-Draw,' and as you can well imagine, I'm not proud of it."
"And the dancing helps by … "
"Blowing off steam. He recommended another remedy, too, although – " She stopped speaking abruptly and blushed again, a deeper crimson this time.
"Do I want to know what this other remedy is?" Remus leaned forward with his elbows on the table, grinning from ear to ear as she squirmed.
Tonks cleared her throat. "Just imagine the very last thing you'd want to discuss with Alastor Moody and that would be it."
"For blowing off steam," Remus clarified.
Now Tonks leaned forward on her elbows. "To avoid impulsivity on the mission."
Pre-mission missionary position, Remus thought, enjoying the images that were conjured at the thought of Tonks needing help in that regard. But what he said was, "Ah."
"And since option number two was, er, not an option, I opted for option number one."
"Dancing."
"You're swift."
They smiled at each other and Remus reveled in the opportunity to study her eyes again. What was it about them? Blue-green, of course, as they always seemed to be; but now the pupils were encircled with a wreath of brown, and the brown was ringed with a sunburst of gold, and then there were the little flecks, the freckles of brown in each iris, more in the left than the right. Realization began to settle on him like a warm, damp ocean wind and he blinked several times, feeling his smile falter.
After quickly downing his beer he stood up. "Excuse me."
He felt Tonks' eyes on him as he made his way as casually as possible to the men's toilets. Once inside he practically ran to the mirror where he leaned in as close as he could and looked at his eyes. The blue-green, the brown, the gold – even the freckles. Her eyes were mimicking his eyes. He stood back and stared at himself. Then he leaned forward again, both hands on the mirror, staring into his own eyes, just to make sure he wasn't deluding himself. No, there was no doubt about it. She was involuntarily morphing to match his eyes. And what had Sirius said? Whenever Tonks was taken with someone …
His heart began to pound furiously. He felt a sweat break out on his lower back. He paced. He talked to himself. He approached the mirror again and gawked at his eyes once more for good measure. There was no denying it; her eyes were a perfect imitation of his. He rumpled his hair. He straightened his jumper. He looked in the mirror and fixed his hair. He stood back and stared at himself.
"Settle down, you idiot," he ordered his reflection, pointing a finger for emphasis.
But his hands went to his hair again as he tried to get the fringe out of his eyes. Merlin, was it true? Could she really fancy him? She had only just met him, for heaven's sake, and he wasn't exactly handsome, had never been handsome. His hair sported streaks of gray; his face wore more than a few early wrinkles; he was, as she had pointed out, wiry – too thin, he thought; and then there were the scars, right there on his face and on the backs of his hands, in plain sight, not to mention the hundreds under his clothes. He wondered for the first time if she knew he was a werewolf. His departure from Hogwarts hadn't been a secret, and he would be surprised if she didn't know, hadn't known the first night they met. So if she knew … then what?
Just tell her you're tired and you need to turn in, he thought. Long day tomorrow. He steeled himself as he left the bathroom. As he approached her, he noticed that she looked different. But this time it wasn't because of accidental morphing. It was his own eyes taking her in, registering her beauty in a new way. She fancied him. She fancied him. And now her entire being embodied a new possibility to him. Did he dare imagine?
Tonks stood up, rooting in her pocket for some Muggle money. "I'm really tired, Remus. Walk me home?"
"I'd be honored," he said, heart lurching. Of course he would walk her home; it was after eleven o'clock. Certainly she could take care of herself if she ran into trouble, but not without magic; and it wouldn't do to have an Auror-in-training performing magic among Muggles. Best to keep her record clean. He would say goodbye when they reached her downstairs door and walk back to his tiny rented room. Refusing Tonks' offer of cash, he left money on the table for the three beers and followed her out the door.
They walked slowly across the seven blocks to get to her place, talking amiably along the way. The eye of the silver waning moon cast their shadows in front of them as they walked, although the darkness was obliterated now and then by the occasional streetlamp. Remus watched the silver toe tips of Tonks' pale leather cowboy boots as they glinted with each forward stride. Her hands were thrust deeply into the pockets of her jeans, and now he could see a bit of her hip on the side nearest him. The skin there was pale, and smooth-looking. He looked away and tried not to think about that; but, of course, now that he had seen it, that was all he could think about.
At last they reached her door. Her head tilted as she looked up at him. "Nightcap?"
"Okay," he said, like an ignoramus. One drink, he thought. Then go back to your room.
He resisted the impulse to lean into her and smell her hair as she broke the protections and let them inside.
Strangely, it felt like coming home, even though the flat wasn't even Tonks' permanent place. The scents – her perfume, the soap in her bathtub, the kitchen, her dirty laundry – seemed familiar to him after only one visit. At her request, he poured them each a firewhiskey while she found some low-key folk music on the Wireless. She pulled off her cowboy boots and stretched out on the sofa as he handed her a glass. With a flick of her wand, she conjured an identical sofa directly across from the small coffee table. He followed suit, kicking off his shoes and stretching out facing her. He wondered how it was possible that he felt so comfortable with her so quickly.
As Tonks nestled, reclining, into the sofa with her knees drawn up, he noticed a scar beneath her chin. "What happened there?" he asked, pointing to his own chin.
"What, this?" Tonks fingered the scar as if she had forgotten it was there. "Normal cruelty of children."
"I'm sorry, that was nosy of me," Remus said quickly. "Please ignore me."
"No, it's fine," she smiled. "It's a good story."
Remus smiled, marveling at how easy it was for her to be open with him.
"When I got to Hogwarts, I was scared out of my mind. I was afraid no one would like me. Or that everyone would mistrust me. I didn't have very consistent control of my morphing then, so everyone knew what I was." She took a long swig of the firewhiskey and made a face. She shifted onto her side to face Remus. "And one day during my second year, a group of older Slytherins decided to sock me in the face a few times. To see if I could morph away the damage."
"Oh, no," Remus said, horrified.
"Yes, 'oh, no' for them. I took it for a minute or so. Poor, poor me, whimper, whimper." Tonks chuckled. "But soon I got mad, and I morphed my face and hair into Medusa and turned them all to stone."
Remus stared at her. "You …"
"Turned them all to stone, yes."
"And did you – "
"Get detention? Very much so. But they turned back. After a few days. I mean, I'm not really Medusa, am I?"
Remus began to snicker.
"But the moral of the story is that I didn't let anyone intimidate me about my morphing ever again."
"I can't imagine that anyone would try to after that," Remus commented.
Tonks glanced at the ceiling in thought. "Well, no …"
"Can you still …?"
"Do the Medusa thing?" Tonks shook her head. "I wish I could. It'd be a great weapon, wouldn't it? No, I think it was one of those prepubescent powers that is borne of extreme emotion and excessive hormones."
Remus began to laugh. Tonks darted her eyes at him and began to chuckle with him. They laughed easily for a while.
"Anyway, it's not that I'm not sensitive about it," she went on. He thought of her embarrassment the first time she had accidentally morphed in the club and nodded. "But I won't be made to feel like a freak. Not anymore."
"That seems healthy," he said cautiously. They were dancing around a subject about which he had some rather strong feelings himself, and he didn't want his face to give too much away.
Tonks sat up and poured them each another firewhiskey. Her eyes watched him carefully as she handed him his glass. Her fingers touched his lightly when he took it, sending tingles all the way up his arm. But then Tonks pursed her lips, inhaled, and said, "There's something I know that I think you should know that I know."
Adrenaline pumped into his extremities, suddenly and sickeningly.
She spoke quickly, as if she had to get the words out before she changed her mind. "I should probably tell you I know you're a werewolf."
Well, that's right out in the open now, isn't it? Remus thought wryly. He leaned forward onto his elbows and took a large swig of firewhiskey. His heart thudded heavily in his chest.
"Sirius didn't tell me. I knew it when he told me your name; I'd heard the stories about your leaving Hogwarts, of course. I felt like a big idiot – a big drunk idiot – when I asked you at the club what you did for a living, so of course I had to play it off and pretend I didn't know about your Hogwarts job. I mean, I didn't think I'd necessarily see you again anytime soon, so I figured I should play along. You know, why put you on the spot when we'd only just met? Anyway, I'm sorry I stuck my foot in it the other night. I'm sure it's hard getting work these days, with the decrees and everything."
"I have work now," said Remus, meeting her eyes again. Not much money, but yes, work, he thought.
"Oh, right, sorry," she grimaced. "There I go again. Maybe that's why I'm always tripping. One foot in my mouth at all times makes it difficult to walk." They endured a few moments of silence, during which Remus began to think he should leave. He still couldn't tell her about the Order, and Tonks didn't press him about what work he did, exactly.
She went on. "Anyway, I'm sorry for blurting this out. But I didn't want you to find out from someone else that I've known all along about you. I thought that might actually be more awkward than this." She smiled. "Although now I'm beginning to wonder if perhaps I should have kept my cakehole shut."
"It's all right," Remus said politely. "There's never a good time to talk about it. I always get snarky." Which is why I never talk about this with girls, he thought, trying to will his body to stand up and go back to his rented room.
"I'm sorry, I should have kept it to myself."
"No, no, I was actually wondering in the pub if you knew," he said. "You've saved me the trouble of continual worry."
Tonks cast a sidelong glance at him. "You're far too polite, Remus."
"One of my endearing young charms," he said, raising a glass.
"I've made you uncomfortable."
Was she always this frank about everything? "I'm nearly always uncomfortable."
"Well, you should let me be the one who's uncomfortable," Tonks insisted. "I'm the one with the foot in my mouth."
Tonks raised her glass to his and, if it was possible for one to linger while one clinked glasses, she managed to do it. Her eyes remained on his, and in their blue-green depths there was apology, and understanding, and empathy. But no fear. And better yet, no pity. He felt a little smile insinuating itself into the corners of his lips, which was fully as shocking to him as Tonks' earlier statement had been. Tonks smiled back and sipped her firewhiskey. She then coughed and shuddered as the fiery stuff coursed down her throat. "Well, that's over and done with. Let's get drunk."
Remus laughed. "Are you quite certain you haven't talked with Sirius about this?"
"No, I haven't. Why?"
"That's exactly what he said after he, James, and Peter confronted me about being a werewolf. We were, what, twelve or thirteen? But somehow he had a stash of butterbeer in his trunk."
"Sounds like him."
"And apparently like you, as well," he said, raising an eyebrow.
"The Blacks are generally driven to drink at a young age, what can I say?" Tonks reached for the bottle and refilled their drinks.
The reasonable part of Remus told him that he should say his goodbyes now. But the unreasonable part told the reasonable part that he'd do it in five minutes. Maybe ten.
A/N: Thanks for your patience while I finished this chapter! Sometimes life is so maddening when it interferes with fanfic. ;)
As always, reviewers get their favorite Remus. Among the choices: Flirty Remus, who likes to make you squirm when you talk about dancing in your living room; Chivalrous Remus, who walks you home despite his better judgment; and my personal favorite, Remus-Who-Has-No-Earthly-Idea-How-Shaggable-He-Is.