A/N: I hope I didn't make Severus too out of character here, but I wanted to explore a different side of him that shows that, in his own way, he's not so bad, and...well, I don't want to spoil too much. You'll have to read for yourself and make your own conclusions on Snape!
On with the show!
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Whenever Tonks was around Severus Snape, it was always the same, a crushing pain on one side of her head that came and went in a vicious pattern.
It made her want to pace about, though given her current physical state, she couldn't. Her left eye had started watering with unshed tears on the painful side and she had to sniff to keep her nose from running. Tonks hated it.
A lot.
It was the same as her dad used to get and she remembered just how much empathy she'd had for her old man when she was just a little girl. Even today, he still got those bloody damned headaches, and now she did.
It was embarrassing, Dad staggering through their house, a hand clamped to his tuft of dark brown hair, crying, and wiping snot on his sleeve. Now it was his daughter's turn for these cluster headaches, and it was hard for her to think whenever they struck, though they were worse whenever she was around him.
Snape. Just the thought of her former partner's name was enough to chill her hot blood to ice in her veins, and Tonks shivered, and though Snape scowled at the young woman's lack of response, the Potions Professor made no mention of the young witch's growing discomfort, for which she was grateful.
Tonks flinched and shirked away as the sallow-faced man seated next to her bedside snarled, not out of fear, though, but she hadn't exactly anticipated waking up from sleep this morning to find her partner not present in the room with her, and to find Severus Snape hovered over her, his hand on her throat like that, and was ill-prepared to offer him an apt response to his question, let alone an answer that Tonks knew would satisfy him and get him off her back.
She swallowed nervously, and her throat felt dry and parched. "I…" Tonks stammered, biting the inside wall of her cheek as she attempted to sit up straighter, all the while clutching the edges of the blanket draped over her lap.
But Professor Snape did not give the young Auror a chance to respond with her answer as he promptly held up a hand and cut her off, folding one leg over the other and still continued to keep his arms folded across his broad chest.
"It is clear you do not need to explain yourself to me or justify your stupid actions for your inexcusable behavior last night. You are a foolish woman who has no regard for the meaning of your own life," he growled poisonously. "It was stupid of you to risk your life by going off alone without me after him."
Tonks ceased her nervous fidgeting with the blanket and as her movements stilled, she looked up at Severus in astonishment, as the briefest flickers of fear and anger darted through her steely-cold gray orbs.
She felt her lips part open slightly in shock, but no words immediately came to mind to say.
The young Auror watched as Professor Snape sighed and looked at her with those black eyes of his. So far, in all the years that she had known Snape, she had never seen any other emotion in the man's dark eyes but contempt.
Severus Snape's eyes matched the way he felt towards the world: dark and cold. The whites of the man's eyes contrasted sharply with the pitch-black iris that sunk deep into Severus's sockets.
Their depths resembled that of a black hole in space, an air of eeriness, and unsettling coldness emanating from his gaze. But now, it looked as though they embraced the wind. A brief gust before calming down to something that resembled normalcy. Tonks frowned.
Staring into Severus Snape's eyes, she was shocked to see nothing inside. Nothing. It was as if the man's eyes were a depth of never-ending darkness combined with a large amount of charcoal being thrown at her.
She blinked, attempting to think this was a small side effect of her newfound paranoia, but nothing about them changed. Severus's eyes remained black. Pure black. Dark.
She had expected to see ocean blue irises, but instead, she saw a small portal of Tartarus, just waiting for her to dive in and he'd claim her soul as his.
The man's eyes were a bottomless pool of darkness, she knew this, but still, that did not deter her from trying to find the bottom. There was an unspoken bundle of sorrow swimming in them, and she could not explain it, but she felt the overwhelming desire to learn what could possibly give him such a melancholic look, but there was a fierceness and stubborn pride in them as well, and Tonks knew Severus Snape would never accept any help from her.
Those were the man's eyes, so intense, that Tonks could not avert her gaze. And even now, as Severus's dark piercing gaze glinted at her from his perch on the chair next to her bedside, his voice as he said something to her that she missed because she was so intently focused on the man's eyes, his voice sounded listless, dull in nature, and Tonks decided that she didn't like it at all.
She drew in a breath and held it, pursing her lips into a thin, rigid line as the man leaned back in his chair, concealing his face once more in the shadows, so that all Tonks could see of Snape were those black pinpricks that were his eyes.
The young witch let out a barely audible whimper of frustration, closing her eyes. And though Tonks could no longer read the emotions in Snape's face since he was effectively hiding from her, more or less, she could sense that he was not angry with her, but strangely bitter.
But why? He had no place in her life. This man was merely an acquaintance, given they were both Order members, as she was to him. They were not emotionally invested in each other.
He should not be here. Though the fact that Snape did show up suggested to Tonks that, in his own small way, perhaps there wasa part of the man that had managed to find it within himself to care for her own well-being.
She snorted and found it incredibly difficult not to roll her eyes at that.
Tonks did not have enough time to process why the Potions Master was behaving so strangely, why the man had stayed with her like this, seemingly watching her while she slept, with no one else in the room, which raised a red flag.
Just that fact alone was enough to disturb her, and she swallowed hard.
"Where are my parents? Where's Remus?" Tonks demanded hotly. She breathed in a slightly shaking breath as she felt her fingers' grip loosen upon the blanket and she let her hands fall to her lap as she cast her gaze downward to her lap, not wanting to meet the Potion's Master's cold, listless, black eyes.
"Is that…a flicker of affection that I hear in your voice for Lupin, Nymphadora?" he jeered, ignoring Tonks's growing look of anger.
To that, Tonks had no response prepared, which only goaded Snape even further.
"Why, just last night, you were ready to rip the man's throat out like the savage dog I know you to be. Quite a disappointment that you did not succeed and do the world a favor and rid us all of that man's boorishness and brazen attitude. Yes, there it is," he taunted, folding his arms across his chest. "There's that look. Affection. Caring," he spat the word as though it were poison on his tongue. "I do believe that it is. Good. As long as it isn't me, then fawn away over your precious wolf like a dog in heat for all I care, because I don't. You must be…truly desperate, to seek that man's attention. Your parents are at home. Your…new partner," he sneered, the edges of his lips curling upwards into something that she could only describe as a twisted smirk. "Is patiently waiting just outside to see you, though he does not know that I am here. It stays that way unless you value the loss of that tongue of yours that must be hung in the middle so that it can wag at both ends, witch," he growled, and Tonks did not bother protesting.
She bit the inside wall of her cheek, frowning. Tonks responded in kind by biting her bottom lip and sticking it out in a slight pout.
She could not explain it, but the longer she stayed in this insufferable git's company, the more nervous she became and apprehensive.
Which she thought was most peculiar given how his strange behavior was not at all like the Potions Master that she had known during her time at Hogwarts.
Creasing her brows into a frown, she placed a hand on her forehead. Still warm and kind of feverish, and her stomach rolled and churned.
Snape furrowed his dark brows in a frown at her peckish state, glaring at the darkened circles underneath her eyes and the beads of sweat forming along her browbone and rolled his eyes, scoffing at the young Auror's physical state.
He did not immediately answer, which made her nostrils flare in antagonism at his lack of response.
"As soon as we're done talking, I'll pass along the word to your charming parents that you're up. And Lupin will know," he snapped, his tone sounding impatient. "No doubt the dog wants time to play with his new plaything," he snarled, bitterness in his voice evident.
Tonks sat rigidly against the barred headboard of her room's bed's headrest, propped up against the two thick pillows as best as she possibly could.
She watched, momentarily interested, as the man's foot began to tap restlessly. The young pink-haired witch swallowed back her fear and swells of nausea and tried not to shiver while all the while waiting with gritted teeth.
Whatever it was that Severus Snape wanted of her, whatever 'this' happened to be, Tonks wanted nothing more for than their conversation to come to an end and be left alone in peace.
If the man had scornful words to present to her and for she to have no other choice but to accept them and take his 'chastising advice' to heart, then so be it, and she wanted nothing more than to leave St. Mungo's, this accursed damned white room that smelled like bleach and Clorox and sleep on a couch or a soft, warm bed at Grimmauld Place.
However, their exchange thus far, Tonks had to admit it, had been a rather odd one, especially for Snape.
Thus far, the words he had spoken to her that had spilled from his thin, wormy lips had been nothing but hostile, full of animosity and contempt and the most creative insults he could think for her.
Tonks felt her heart sink to the pit of her churning stomach as Snape continued to glare at his former partner and fellow Order member, which in turn, not only made her feel quite helpless given the nature of her predicament, but also, she felt the beginnings surges of anger swell within that pit of her stomach, and the young pink-haired woman could swear she felt her blood pressure spike as she silently bristled in growing anger, her jaw muscle twitched.
She could feel the bile creep its way at its petty pace up her throat, though she swallowed it back, knowing if she vomited all over the man's black robes, then he would undoubtedly give her even more than seven shades of holy hell.
Tonks fell silent and waited for Snape to say something—anything—just to break the thick, uncomfortable tension that lingered in the room's air.
The young Auror had fully been expecting and prepared to receive more than a few harsh, choice words from her parents, and maybe even to a lesser extent, from Professor Dumbledore even her new partner, Remus, for abandoning Snape and attempting to confront the Death Eater all on her own.
But not from Snape. Not from the very man whom she knew hated her, who, by all accounts and purposes, as her former partner, should want nothing further to do with her.
So why then, was Severus here now, conversing with her? This puzzled her more than anything else, the one question she couldn't answer.
Tonks felt herself frown as she lifted her chin slightly, jutting it out in defiance to meet the sallow-faced, greasy-haired git's wrathfully, icy glower.
Finally, after several long excruciating moments spent in this uncomfortable silence, Snape spoke to Tonks, effectively shattering the silence.
"You are an Auror, Nymphadora. The Auror Office takes only the brightest and best, and therefore, I am having difficulty believing why your actions last night seemed to make sense to you. You should be intelligent enough to know why going after Crouch alone was an extremely foolish thing to do," he began, wrath and insurmountable anger dripping in his voice as he shifted in his chair and crossed one leg over the other, his foot still tapping.
Severus Snape's irritable expression with the fiery young witch still very much intact, much to Tonks's dismay.
No longer was his deep baritone voice listless and droll-sounding, possessing the qualities to effectively put her to sleep.
Now, Professor Snape's tone was rough and coarse, which, in a strange way, put Tonks's panicked and frazzled mind at ease. In her mind, it gave Snape a sense of vulnerability, which up until this point in their very much one-sided conversation, with Snape taking the lead, had been startlingly absent.
Snape sighed and leaned forward in his chair, peeking at her precariously through the dim light that streamed in through the window of her private room in St. Mungo's.
It looked like it was going to rain judging by the clouds outside.
Tonks blinked owlishly and shoved mindless thoughts of the weather of London aside for now and forced her attention to return back to Severus, who didn't look too pleased with the young witch blatantly ignoring his chastising.
The Potions Master looked exhausted. The skin under Severus's eyes darker, and sallow-looking, as if Snape hadn't slept well the last few hours.
This at the very least, if nothing else, he had in common with Tonks, whether he knew it or not. Severus Snape cocked his head to the side and regarded the young pink-haired witch precariously through the shadows as though she were some exotic, unstable creature, and he merely the spectator.
Like she was some…creature, kept under a microscope for observation.
The irony of which, Tonks thought, was not at all missed by the sharp-witted witch.
She had excelled in Potions during her time at Hogwarts as a student. A fact which she had always believed had caused great resentment from Snape, who did not like her and had sought after every excuse to see her suffer.
Tonks blinked owlishly at her former partner as Severus Snape's scathing voice dripping with hatred brought her back to her present conflict at hand.
Ending their conversation promptly so he would kindly remove his presence from her room. He should consider himself fortunate that I can't use my wand hand right now, or I'd aim a Bat-Bogey Hex right at his chest…
Their unexpected little 'meeting' this morning, if she could even call it that, was not exactly what Tonks had been expecting, honestly.
Tonks had fully been expecting Snape to call her some sort of name meant to insult her, really.
'Witch,' or 'succubus' or 'banshee' were among his favorite terms to use, or any number of horrible, brutally cutting things that Severus Snape could think of to cut her down in this moment, when she was physically weak and vulnerable.
His insults would most assuredly not help her temper, nor how she felt about matters, and as such, provoking her patience in this manner would surely only succeed in sending her blood pressure spiking and her heart into tremors.
She couldn't endure this right bloody now, not when she was still feeling ill and miserable if she were being honest with herself in the moment.
"I found him. Brennan, Snape, b—but it's not him, it's Crouch Sr.'s son, Severus, and he tried to…he—he called me Alice," Tonks whispered hoarsely, hearing and feeling her voice trail off as she bit the inside wall of her cheek and she pointedly watched Professor Snape's face, whose expression remained dull.
If he was surprised at her confession as to the true identity of the Death Eater they'd been keeping tabs on his movements for the last six months, the man gave no indication as such, but then, Snape was a master Legilimens.
Severus Snape stared at Tonks, his black eyes that haunting depth of endless ink a muddle of qualm as he stared at her with incredulity on his face.
"You Disapparated straight into the path of Barty Crouch Jr.," he growled flatly. "Let me just take a second to process this, Nymphadora," Snape snapped, the edges of his flat, monotone voice growing cold and hardened, which made Tonks wince as she recognized the signs of his temper worsening.
"You went alone without me, without telling me where you were going, so that you could use yourself as bait for a sadistic Death Eater who's been known to torture and rape young woman to the brink of them losing their sanity, before brutally murdering them and tossing their bodies aside like discarded tissues," he snarled angrily. "That's pretty stupid and foolish of you, Tonks."
The words dripped from his tongue like poisoned honey. Angry at her and full of rage, and yet, there was something else lingering in the Potions Master's tones, an emotion that Tonks wasn't sure she could identify just yet.
Tonks blinked. The moment vanquished almost as soon as it had come as she processed the disgruntled man's words to her and she silently seethed.
"Well, then I guess we're both disappointed in each other, then," Tonks retorted hotly, feeling her face flush red in anger, her fingers curled around her blanket as she struggled to sit up straighter in the bed. "It's not as if you were any different, Snape. For I could ask the same of you. You were there, just as I was. You could have come with me, and we could have taken him together, because that's what partners are supposed to do, Snape, to look out for each other, and you didn't, you weren't, and you never gave a damn about me!"
The young woman jumped and let out a squeak of fear and pain as a white-hot lightning bolt of agony ripped up her wand hand and down her spine, as Severus Snape balled his hand into a fist and slammed it down on the small night table, which was placed precariously next to her bedside, and wobbled dangerously on its thin legs as the sheer force of his blow struck it.
"It is different with me, you blind, bloody fool!" shouted Professor Snape hoarsely, glowering at the young witch from where he sat in his chair, and as he leaned forward in the chair, doing so only revealed the unhinged, slightly deranged look in the deep pools of black listlessness that were the man's eyes.
It freaked her out, though she would not give her former partner and Potions teacher the satisfaction of letting him see just how much he was beginning to scare her with his volatile and unpredictable behavior now.
Tonks felt her own temper bristle within her as the hairs on the back of her neck stood upright at the man's outburst.
"How?" she snapped, curling her one good hand into a fist, wincing only once as her wand hand shook with the pain of her poor fingers attempting to make a fist. "How is different, Snape?"
"Crouch preys on young women such as yourself, and for you to be out roaming the streets of London with no one to watch over you was stupid, and had Alastor and Lupin not shown up when they did, he would have killed you," he shouted, narrowing his flashing, darkened orbs and exhaling slowly through his flaring nostrils, his fists unclenching and clenching in his lap, as if he was unsure of what to do with them. "I am all well too-aware of what you think of me. I know what I am," he snarled bitterly. Snape's frown deepened and he bared his teeth, still keeping his arms folded across his chest. "The world holds no place for someone like me, but I have an advantage that you do not. I can move about freely wherever I wish. But not you, Nymphadora. Not you."
There was an awkward long pause, and Snape fumbled in the interior pocket of his black robes, and Tonks felt her body involuntarily stiffen, and she wasn't aware she'd drawn in abated breath and held it, though she emanated a tense exhale of relief once he procured something long lost and forgotten.
Something that she thought she would never see again in her new life.
"Ptelea," she breathed, her gray eyes widening with shock and delight as Snape wordlessly held out his hand as the tiny male Bowtruckle, perched on top of Professor Snape's palm, turned towards Snape and let out a muffled squeak of dislike and pursed its thin lips and blew a raspberry at the Potions Professor.
Tonks giggled at the Bowtruckle's antics and received the little woodland sprite with a rejuvenated sense of enthusiasm, and upon seeing tiny Ptelea, it seemed to breathe new life into her, and restored a little bit of color to her.
Severus rolled his eyes at the young witch's sentiment as the tiny woodland creature turned back around to face his owner and scoffed, biting his tongue as he heard the Bowtruckle's little squeak of delight at seeing Tonks, and promptly leaped off of the Potions Master's hand and on top her shoulder.
"Yes," Severus drawled, sounding thoroughly unimpressed, watching with a bored listlessness as Tonks allowed the small Bowtruckle to clamber up onto her shoulder, and she could have sworn the Potions Master flinched as he watched the little woodland creature give an affectionate nudge of her cheek with one of its leaves on its head.
"Professor Dumbledore has been caring for it during your…incapacitation, but he thought that, given the nature of your injuries and the amount of time it will take you to recover, that you could use a companion."
There was a long pause, and then the Potions Master snorted through his nose. "Only you, Nymphadora, would name your Bowtruckle after a hamadryad, after the elm tree, correct?" he questioned, and she nodded.
Snape fell silent, though he did not avert his fuming, piercing gaze from Tonks, which was making her feel as though his very stare was burning a hole through her heart.
Something about the way Severus had just said her name gave the young witch pause, and she knitted her brows together in quandary.
Tonks knew she was anxious when she could feel the bitter London breeze that smelled of future rain and thunder to come more keenly in her eyes.
It was that bizarre tear-less stage when her eyes took on a sheen of water and tension built behind them. Tonks knew she needed to shake the feeling off.
Now was not the time nor the right place for her tears. Not in front of him.
And then it hit her, and Tonks felt her frown deepen as she scowled.
"You do care for me." Just a five-letter statement, but the emphasis of her words and their meanings was enough to catch Severus Snape completely off his guarded, reserved manner, and he blinked in shock at the young witch.
Tonks did not know why she found this revelation so surprising, but the simple fact of the matter was, such as the reason for the tinge of melancholia in the man's black eyes.
He had…he had worried for her last night. Yes!
It all made sense now. That was why he had come to her room this morning, why he had thought to deliver Ptelea to her, why he was questioning her like this.
To see her.
Tonks coughed once to quell the lump forming in her throat. She hoped that when Remus came in, he would have brought water.
"That's you're here, isn't it? You wanted to talk to me alone. Because you don't want people to see that there's a side of you that cares. That's why you didn't tell Remus you are here. You knew he wouldn't take it well, but…you wanted to see me. There is a part of you that cares for me, in your own way, whether you choose to acknowledge it or not," she challenged the man softly but defiantly, though she was careful to keep her voice lowered and as un-accusatory as possible.
Snape blinked, startled by the young woman's quiet response, and his already ashen face blanched as he realized that he had inadvertently let something slip.
His posture became even more rigid than before as he bolted from the chair he'd been occupying, practically overturning it to head to the open window. His face was shrouded in shadow and his back to her, and she could not make out the features of his sallow face to see if he were visibly troubled by her question, though Tonks knew better.
She knew that he was.
"Forget that I said anything. For his name and that cretinous betrayer that dares to call himself, your new partner is immaterial to our discussion, and I should be extraordinarily happy never to hear his name uttered again in my presence," Snape growled darkly, his black eyes flashing as he thought of Lupin.
Tonks winced and shirked back against her pillow as far as she could go as she focused on the glint of Severus Snape's eyes, wishing that the man would just step forward into the light.
She thought it strange.
How, with just one cold look from him, the verdict was told. Snape had been reflecting longer than usual, and Tonks felt her face fall, crestfallen, her brief triumphant smile faded.
Snape locked eyes with hers. His dark eyes beheld in them for her a strange, hateful disdain, but with Severus, the young Auror knew it was more than that.
There was a sudden tenseness in Severus's cold, dark eyes that the bitter man who wallowed in his own self-pity was no longer trying to mask.
His wide-open eyes reflected everything and yet saw nothing but her. Behind them was something more intense than normal thought, and the man's clenched jaw wasn't necessarily a good sign.
Tonks swallowed as she recognized the signs of a classic Snape outburst, having spent enough time around the man to know for sure, and she sincerely hoped he wouldn't start shouting at her.
To her great relief, Tonks watched as his shoulders slumped and her former partner regarded the young Auror with something akin to pity intermingled with anger and…something else in his rich black eyes.
Severus sighed and when he regained composure and found his voice again, he spoke as though he were talking to a twelve-year-old child instead of a fully grown adult witch at the age of twenty-four, almost twenty-five.
"Do not repeat a word of what I am about to say to anyone. No one can know, but…I am…grateful that you will make a full recovery," he confessed through gritted teeth, spewing the words with venomous poison, as though just uttering the words themselves were causing him a great deal of pain, and Tonks blinked at him in shock.
The shock must have been evident on her pale features, for Snape smirked and the edges of his lips curled upwards into a twisted little smirk.
"But next time you get into a spot of trouble, Nymphadora," he added, almost as an afterthought. "You're on your own. Do not look to me to save your life. That's what he's for," he snarled. "The next time you want to be saved, you'd better pray to Merlin and God for a favor, because that's the only help you'll get," he snapped angrily, before turning back towards the window and Disapparating on the spot, vanishing where he stood with a loud crack!
Tonks blinked owlishly as she stared at the very spot where only seconds ago, Snape had stood.
The young Auror shook her head, unable to comprehend the conversation she had just had with Hogwarts's own Potions Professor.
She silently bristled at his insult for her. Tonks bit the inside wall of her cheek and then her tongue and could almost taste the blood welling as she frowned, thinking over Severus Snape's words.
She blinked and felt something soft tickle her nape. Tonks let out a tiny squeak and looked to her left, sighing.
Ptelea had a look of concern on his face and was stroking her cheek with one of the leaves atop his head, his little beady eyes narrowed in suspicion and he blew a raspberry (a favorite pastime of his at people he met and didn't like), at the spot where Professor Snape had stood only mere moments before.
Tonks chuckled and held out her hand, watching as Ptelea hopped onto it and made a strange high-pitched humming noise of contentment.
"Wotcher. Don't fall off my hand, please, I'm in no condition to pick you back up if you fall," Tonks pleaded, biting her bottom lip in trepidation. "You don't like him, either, huh? I hope that he didn't mistreat you during the trip over here. You'll tell me if he did, and I'll jinx him with a Bat-Bogey Hex first chance I get, Ptelea," she murmured lowly, reaching up a shaking fingertip to allow the pad of her fingertip to ghost over the top of Ptelea's leaves. "He truly frightens all, doesn't he, love?" she sighed and became startled at the ginger knock on the door.
Tonks froze, her posture stiffened, and she wasn't even aware she'd drawn in a breath and held it until she heard his voice. Lupin's.
"Tonks?" Remus's voice sounded from the other side of the door, sounding thoroughly concerned. "I hear voices. Are you…talking to someone in there? Who's in there with you?" he demanded, suddenly sounding agitated.
Though for the life of her, she couldn't think why. Tonks sighed and did not immediately answer her partner.
The young witch did not know if it was the taxation of stress brought out by what had happened to her last night during her unfortunate encounter with Barty Crouch Jr., or the result of her unexpected conversation with Professor Snape just now if she could even call it that, as it mostly involved him belittling her choice to wander the streets of London alone, but she knew she would get sick whenever her stomach gave out, and she swallowed back the urge.
It felt like her innards were being replaced by some kind of horrible black void, though she'd eaten nothing.
Tonks let out another sigh as Remus's voice came again, sounding more urgent this time, demanding to know who she was talking to.
She cast her gaze downward towards Ptelea, still resting on top of her right palm, though the minute he heard the unmistakable noise of another man's voice nearby, he furrowed his little green face into a frown and blew a raspberry at her room's door.
"Oh, hush now, this type of behavior is entirely beneath you, Ptelea. I don't think you have a need to be so hostile towards Remus. I don't think he'll be as bad as Snivellus, and if he is, then we'll jinx him too," Tonks soothed, though she did not bother to stifle her giggle at the creature's behavior as she reached up to her finger and gave the little Bowtruckle an affectionate stroke of its leaves as she heard the doorknob click.
Tonks bit the inside wall of her cheek as Lupin entered the room, looking thoroughly put off and disgruntled as he carried in his hands a tray bearing medical supplies, and a second tray with what looked like food for her.
She wiggled her brows and noticed the stunned expression on Remus Lupin's face as the tiny little Bowtruckle hopped off from his perch, where he'd been idly resting on top of her hair, a vibrant wash of forest green against the pink, and perched himself on top of her shoulder and blew a raspberry at the poor, unsuspecting wizard. Tonks did not bother to stifle her small half-smile.
"Lupin, meet Ptelea," she sighed. "Ptelea, Remus Lupin…" Her voice trailed off as she lifted her chin to meet Remus's gaze, who met hers with a look of trepidation.
Finally, Tonks found her voice after a long, slightly awkward pause that lingered in the air as Lupin made no move to step over the doorway's threshold.
"Meet Remus Lupin. My new partner and your friend," she said at last, and as she allowed the faintest ghost of a smile to flit across her features, Tonks could have sworn she saw him smile the moment she uttered the word friend.