AN: I will give 10 points to whoever is first to tell me what comic I reference in this chapter. Whoever has the most points by the second to last chapter will get a cameo in the last chapter. And sorry this took so long, it was just one of those weeks. XD Enjoy!

Chapter 7

New Family

"I feel like this would be really boring alone," Tonks whispered to Remus. They were huddled under an invisibility cloak borrowed from Mad Eye in the Hall of Prophesies. The long, echo-y halls were cold and unlit except for the glowing spheres lining row after row of shelves.

"For the third time, you don't need to whisper. You put the silencing charm on the cloak yourself," Remus Lupin said with a chuckle.

"Yeah, I know, but even if I wasn't under the cloak, this place always sort of intimidates me," she said, looking around.

The pair was four hours in to their six hour shift, and they had been talking most of the time. It had started with Tonks questioning Lupin about the first Order of the Phoenix, what Harry had seen in the graveyard, what the plan was to combat the Death Eaters, and anything else she could think of to catch herself up on the fight. After this, Tonks had started asking questions about Sirius.

"I grew up sort of isolated from my mom's family because they had disowned her, and isolated from my dad's family because they were Muggles," Tonks said, poking at the invisibility cloak's shiny fabric. "It's sort of weird, having a cousin all of the sudden."

"Well, he could use some family right now," Remus said. "He isn't happy, shut up in that house. If you could have seen him before all this, I bet you two would have been fast friends."

This, of course, had lead to the two of them discussing their Hogwarts days.

"Oh no," Tonks said, laughing, "Now I'm scared of you."

"What, because I was a prefect?" Lupin asked.

"Yes! Even years afterwards, that paranoid fear of getting caught doing something wrong by a prefect doesn't go away."

"Well, I promise not to report you to the headmaster unless you do something really horrible."

They talked about Quidditch, they compared worst job experience stories (Lupin won with his tale of working in a bookstore that had Gilderoy Lockhart signing books that day and getting mobbed by his fans), and eventually lapsed into silence for a while.

"So, have I ever arrested you?" Tonks asked.

"That was out of the blue…" Remus said, turning to look at Tonks. He determined either she was trying to make a joke that he didn't get and was very good at a deadpan face, or she seriously was wondering if she had arrested him before.

"Yes or no? I won't care if I have," she said.

"No. No, I can't say I've ever been arrested at all." He then muttered under his breath, "Of course, there was the Noodle Incident." He looked at Tonks. "But you were probably, like, five then."

"Well, I doubt I arrested you then, seeing as my ambition at that age was to be the best artist-ballerina-Minister for Magic-dragon tamer ever."

"And what happened? You gave up on your dreams so young?" Lupin asked jokingly.

"Well, it would have all worked, but dragons just don't seem to like me," Tonks replied.

"Of course."

After another pause, Lupin asked, "So, why did you think you had arrested me?"

"Oh, well, you look familiar. I see a million faces every day, and people are always coming in and out of our department, so I figured I had seen you at work at some point."

"You thought you had seen me at your work, so your first assumption is that you arrested me? What if I was consulting for Scrimgeour? Or had valuable information? Or maybe I'm a traveling salesman, and I came to your desk to sell you some useless trinket?" Lupin said. He had suddenly remembered where she had seen him before, and wanted to redirect the conversation before she figured it out. Thankfully for him, Tonks laughed and dropped that line of conversation.

"Fair enough. So what's the Noodle Incident?" Tonks asked.

"They can't prove I did that," Lupin said calmly.

A low whistling could be heard from the entryway to the Hall of Prophesies, and Lupin informed Tonks that this was the signal that their replacement had arrived for their shift. They stood, walked to the doorway and passed off the invisibility cloak to Hestia Jones.

"Well, see you Tuesday evening for Harry-sitting?" Tonks asked Lupin as they walked up the steps of headquarters.

"Sure, I'll meet you here fifteen minutes early, same as before," he said.

"Thanks. I know Sirius sort of volunteered you for this, but I do appreciate it. See you Tuesday," she said.

Tonks disapparated home, and Lupin went in to keep his best friend company.

"So, how's my little cousin?" Sirius asked, looking up from the book he was reading.

"She asked a lot of questions about you," Lupin said, sitting down next to Sirius.

"Really? Why? What sort of questions?"

"She said she didn't have much contact with her family growing up, and wants to get to know her cousin. You should talk to her more, get to know her."

"Yeah, sure," Sirius said.

"The Noodle Incident also came up at one point," Lupin said, watching his friend's reaction closely.

"No one can prove we did that," Sirius said calmly.