A/N: Dost your eyes deceive you? An update? Why yes, it is! It must be a Giftmas miracle!

Strangeways, Here We Come

Under pressure… - a Christmas interlude

He entered the dreary foyer of Grimmauld Place, but instead of the usual dank smell he had been expecting, his nose was pleasantly surprised with the scent of cinnamon and molasses. His first thought was that Molly had sent over some of her delicious buns, and so he followed the scent to the kitchen in anticipation of a treat.

That wasn't what he found when he got there. The only accurate descriptor would be disaster. There was flour covering the floor, cracked eggs littering the counter, and even some dough splattered on to the ceiling. He didn't have to see the sheet of burnt crisps on the window sill, the batch of uncooked dough in the sink, or the frustrated Metamorphmagus standing in the middle of it all (with batter in her pink tresses, on top of all that) to deduce what was going on – Nymphadora was attempting to bake again.

"Oh, Dora, what are you doing?" he asked gently, trying to control his amusement. He obviously knew the answer to the question, but he certainly could use an explanation as to why she was still testing her culinary capabilities (or lack thereof) after all of her previous catastrophes.

"I was trying to make gingerbread!" she wailed, clearly at her wit's end. "I know I'm useless in the kitchen, but I was craving them and Molly wrote me out a fool-proof recipe, and even promised to teach me a charm to make the gingerbread men march around throwing gumdrop buttons at each other, and it sounded lovely so I thought I could do it..."

As she ranted on without a breath, Remus glanced over to the counter where the recipe rested, the parchment singed and splattered with Merlin-knew-what. He wondered what Molly could had been thinking, encouraging Tonks at baking (especially after the infamous Brownie Incident at the Burrow last summer!), but knew that the Auror must have bullied her into it.

But none of that really mattered. It appeared nothing irreplaceable had been broken or flambéed or minced, and the main thing was that Tonks was upset, so he strode over and embraced her.

"It's not important," he insisted soothingly, wrapping his arms around her waist (trying to ignore the sticky substance that his sleeve made contact with). "I didn't fall in love with you because of your talents in the kitchen, you know that."

"No, it was my talents in the bedroom that won you over, right?" she winked cheekily at him, and he blushed. But the next second the mischief was wiped off her face and she was upset once more. "I just don't understand it, Remus. I'm good at Potions, so why can't I cook? Theoretically, it's all the same – you measure things, you put them in a cauldron in the correct order, you mix them and all that… So why can I brew your Wolfsbane, and Polyjuice Potion, and Calming Draughts, but I can't bake bloody biscuits?"

"Maybe brewing yourself a Calming Draught before you started baking would help…"

"What was that?" she glared.

"Nothing, nothing at all," he smirked, before deflecting attention away from his ill-timed teasing by maintaining, "It doesn't matter. What you can do is more important than what you can't – I would much prefer proper Wolfsbane over biscuits. Although not taste-wise, of course." Then, as he turned those words over in his head, a silly thought came to mind. "You know… Maybe you just work better under pressure?"

"What do you mean?"

He hadn't been too serious at first, but the more he thought about it, the more sense it made. "Well, you've never made a mistake with my Wolfsbane, and we both know what the consequences of that could be… The same can be said for you brewing potions for work – it's much too important a cause to make errors. Maybe there need to be dire consequences to shape up your culinary abilities?"

She looked thoughtful at his suggestion. "There may be something to that – but what sort of dire consequences could my food failures have? …Er, aside from me almost burning down the house, of course."

That was a good question – and suddenly, his inner Marauder came up with the reply. Releasing her and taking a step back, Professor Lupin valiantly fought a smirk as he told her, "Well, the gravest thing I can think of is to deprive you of... me."

"What?" she blinked, before his words sunk in. "You wouldn't."

"Wouldn't I?" he challenged her, raising a brow. "It's a shame, really – now that you've mentioned it, I was rather looking forward to some gingerbread. But I don't think I'll lay a hand on you until you manage them!"

Tonks narrowed her eyes at him. "Oh really…"

"Really."

Forty minutes later Remus was nibbling the limbs off of the most delicious gingerbread men he had ever tasted, fresh from the oven.

I know, I know, you don't even have to say it. Shame, shame, shame on me for leaving this fic to fester. I hadn't even realized it'd been almost 2 years until I got a review recently that pointed it out. However! That, and the accompanying guilt, made me trot out this little piece – I figured even though it doesn't necessarily fit in with the order of the drabbles as well as I'd like, you all deserve a holiday treat for sticking around.

Many thanks to all those who have discovered this fic and left me reviews over the past almost-2 years, and to those who have stuck around since the very beginning! I do have a few other plot outlines sitting on my laptop, so this is by no means over and done with. Hopefully a few reviews to let me know how you enjoyed this will act as motivation, eh? So happy holidays to all, and hopefully you'll hear from me again soon!

Toodles,

- ish -