Chapter 3: Like Powdered Chocolate Flakes

"Hey, Tonksie!"

Tonks looked up to see Sirius in the doorway, a grin on his face.

"Hey, Sirius! What's been up?"

"I'm surprised, you know," he informed her. "I didn't even hear you come in. Normally you ring the doorbell, then trip over the umbrella stand, and then curse so loudly you wake up my mother's portrait. But today I see you've managed to avoid falling!"

"Shut up," she said, rolling her eyes. "I do have the ability to walk down a hall, thank you very much."

"Yeah, sure," he said, still grinning. "Whatever you say. How long are you staying?"

"The entire evening, I guess? I'm free."

"Great. Listen, Buckbeak took my hairbrush and I really need to get it back. I've been battling him all morning, but he hasn't given it back. I'll be a couple minutes, okay? Moony's in the library, as usual." Sirius rolled his eyes. "Why he still reads is beyond me…"

Tonks snorted. "Okay, Sirius. Go get your hairbrush back. I'll be in the library, okay?"

"Okay." Sirius gave her a thumbs up and disappeared.

She smiled to herself and headed up the stairs to the library. She was looking forward to some time with her best friend and favorite cousin, after a long week at the Ministry. The war was raging on, and more and more disappearances were adding up every day. Tonks didn't know how long it would take for Fudge and Scrimgeour and the whole useless bunch at the Ministry to get it into their thick skulls that Dumbledore was right, and Harry was right, and You-Know-Who was back. A bunch of egotistical idiots, they were. Except Kingsley. And Arthur. And…

"Tonks?"

She walked promptly into the doorjamb. Remus flinched.

"Oh, hi, Remus," she said, walking properly into the library this time and sitting down in the armchair across from him. "What's up?"

"Nothing much. Are you sure you're okay?"

She waved her hand impatiently. "Yeah, I'm fine. It happens all the time. Hey, did you hear the news?"

"Which news?" he asked, leaning back in his armchair comfortably. "There's been a lot recently."

"The Mundungus news."

He snorted. "Oh, yes. Is it true?"

"Well, Hestia told me that Emmeline got a love letter the other day by owl post. Apparently it said 'dear emline, we should totaly go out. luv dung' and it had a bunch of hearts on it."

He flinched. "That's just weird. Why is he like that?"

She shrugged. "I have no idea. And according to Hestia, he tried selling her juice the other day, only it turned out to be dung beetle juice."

Remus snorted again. "What does he think that makes him? Amusing?"

"I guess so. He's mental, honestly. We only keep him in the Order since he has connections to all the smugglers out there."

"Honestly. I've heard Emmeline's planning to skip the Order meeting tomorrow."

She laughed. "To avoid Dung or the embarrassment?"

"Both, I'm sure," he said. "They're both equally bad, if I'm being honest. How's work? Busy?"

"As busy as could be expected," she sighed. "Thanks to Kingsley, though, I've been able to catch a little break. He keeps giving all the paperwork to the idiots instead. That way, I can focus on the important stuff and Order work."

"That's nice," he said. "Kingsley seems like a nice guy. I haven't talked to him too much, but he seems friendly."

"And smart," Tonks added. "And a decent human being. Not like some people who like to pile up work on the Aurors just because they're there."

"Scrimgeour?"

"You got it. I hate him."

Remus laughed. "He seems like an idiot. Head of Auror Office, right?"

"Yeah," Tonks said with a grimace. "He and Dolores are best buds, and that's, like, the worst thing. She's always simpering over him and making announcements of how good he is, and he's such a suck-up to her."

"Dolores?" His face was guarded now.

"Yeah. You know, Senior Suck-Up to the Minister? She's at Hogwarts now."

"Dolores Umbridge?"

"Yep, her." She scowled. "She is the worst. Of all of the suck-ups, she's the worst one. She will literally use force to make things go her way. Mad-Eye told me she used the Cruciatus on an Auror once since they were trying to tell people that You-Know-Who was back."

"I know her," Remus said, his voice tight. "She passed the legislation."

"Oh." Right. How could she have been so careless as to forget that? Remus had told her before that the Senior Undersecretary to the Minister had passed several pieces of anti-werewolf legislation that had made it so difficult for him to find employment, but she hadn't made the connection yet. "Sorry."

"No, it's okay," he said. "At least it's good to know that we both hate her."

"Sorry. I didn't mean to bring that up."

"Seriously, it's okay." He gave her a small smile. "It's not your fault at all. But I didn't know that she's used the Cruciatus on an Auror before. I suppose Moody's right. Constant vigilance."

"Yeah, really," Tonks said, stretching her legs out. "Hey, I'm curious. Do you know where Mad-Eye lost his eye? I asked him, but he refused to say."

"Oh. Yeah. Pretty much everyone in the First Order knew the story. It was pretty funny, actually. It was during the First War, and we were all at headquarters, which was this safe house that Dumbledore had designated. Molly and Arthur had brought their kids, as they usually did, since they didn't have anyone to take care of them. So George and Fred, who were two or three at the time, were just hanging out around the house while we were in a meeting. Once the meeting was over, of course, Molly went to go get them, but they had gone missing. She looked through the whole house, but couldn't find them. Molly was starting to get worried, and everything, and so she asked everyone to help her look for the twins. Then we heard a scream, and both the twins had fallen on Moody's head, and they all collapsed to the ground. Apparently, they tried to stick themselves to the ceiling with superglue, and it didn't work so well."

Tonks was shaking with laughter.

"While Moody was trying to get the twins to stop laughing and screaming, Mundungus was throwing forks at people. Don't ask me why. He's weird that way, as we've discussed. Anyway, one flew right at Moody's eye and, well, stabbed him. He's been screaming 'Constant Vigilance' at us since."

"Oh my gosh," she said in a hushed voice. "Mundungus threw a fork at him?"

"You bet. Moody turned him into a ferret for a week after that."

Tonks snorted. "Typical Mad-Eye."

Remus laughed. "Yeah. James was hysterical about it. He kept calling Dung the 'Fork Thrower' for weeks after that. Dung basically went into hiding. It was a great time."

Tonks laughed too. "How was James? Like, as a person."

Remus looked at her for a long moment. "He and you would've gotten along great," he said finally. "He was really funny, but very compassionate. We used to joke that if he hadn't been a Gryffindor, he would've been a Hufflepuff." He looked away. "Of course, he was so brave too. You know. Fought Voldemort without a wand and everything. He was so much braver than the rest of us."

Tonks felt tears sting at her eyes at how broken Remus sounded. She slowly stood up and moved closer to him, perching on the armrest of his chair and resting her hand on his shoulder. "I'm sorry, Remus."

"It's okay," he said softly. "Again, not your fault."

"It is my fault. I ask such insensitive questions sometimes. I'm sorry."

"It's not your fault, Tonks. Seriously." He reached for the hand that was on his shoulder and gave it a squeeze. "You know, James was crazy about my love life. Only second to his own. He was always trying to set me up with everyone. Well, except for Lily."

She laughed quietly. "Meant to be?"

"Meant to be."

"What's meant to be?" asked Sirius, startling Tonks into falling onto Remus's lap with a cry.

"James and Lily," Remus answered, carefully extracting Tonks from his lap and setting her down onto the armrest again. She shot him a thankful but embarrassed smile.

"Oh, yeah," Sirius said, sitting down across from their chair. "They were meant to be. Lily could deny it all she wanted, but she always liked him. Thought he was cool. They just got off to a bad start, so she didn't want to bruise her pride."

Tonks smiled. "She seems nice."

Sirius shrugged. "Well, she was, but only if she liked you. She hated us for a while, since we kept playing pranks on everyone, including her darling Snivellus."

"I hate him," Tonks said dryly.

"That makes three of us," Sirius told her. "But yeah, she's really feisty if she doesn't like you. If she did like you, though, she was the sweetest person in the world."

Tonks laughed. Remus gave a small smile.

"I just remembered that I have a report to go over," Remus said, standing up suddenly. "I need to go work on that. See you both later, okay?"

"Are you okay?" she asked him softly. She didn't want him to leave because she had brought up James and Lily. "Did I-"

"No, you didn't," he said gently. "I'm okay, really. I just want to get that report done as soon as possible."

"Okay," she said. "Sorry."

"Don't be." He ruffled her hair. "See you guys."

"Bye, Moony," Sirius called as Remus left the room. Tonks slid down onto the actual chair, looking down at the ground.

"So."

She looked up. "Yeah?"

"You and Moony."

"Yeah…?"

"You're seeing each other?"

Tonks coughed. "What?"

Sirius shrugged. "I said what I said."

"Yeah, but… why? Where did that come from? Remus and I, we… no!"

"You're in heavy denial, I see," Sirius noted. "Okay, so you're not seeing each other. But at least you're flirting."

Tonks shook her head, shocked. "No, we're not. I can't believe you'd think that! Sirius, you know the two of us are friends!"

"Friends with benefits?"

She buried her head in her hands. "No! Friends, and just friends. Come on, Sirius, how could you think that?"

"Well, you two are always hanging out with each other all alone. You know, talking for hours. Not to mention when I came in here, you were practically sitting in his lap!"

Tonks made a face. "I fell, okay?"

"You fell from a chair a couple of meters away, and you managed to fall right onto his lap?"

"No! I was sitting on the armrest."

"And why were you doing that?" he asked with a smirk.

"Because… I… ergh! We were talking about a sensitive subject, and I wanted to-"

"Sidle up next to him and make it all feel better?" Sirius suggested.

Tonks groaned. "You are insufferable. I have no idea why I came here to entertain you."

"Well, maybe you weren't here for me at all," he offered. "Maybe you were here for a certain other bachelor instead."

Tonks frowned. "Don't say that. It's not true. I came here for both of you. You're my cousin, and Remus is my friend. I like hanging out with both of you."

"Okay, okay." But Sirius was still grinning. "Don't you think he's handsome, though?"

"Sirius, this is really weird. Let's stop this conversation right here and pretend we never had it, shall we?"

"I'm sure he thinks you're pretty cute," Sirius continued, making no indication that he had heard her. "I mean, what's not to like? You got all the good Black features. And you're a Metamorphma-thingy. You can change your appearance."

She sighed. "Remus doesn't like me. He doesn't think I'm cute. And he isn't the type that would ask me to morph to his liking. Now, let's end this conversation right here. Did you manage to get your hairbrush back, by the way?"

"I got it back, but half of the bristles were yanked out in the process," Sirius said. "Do you think you could help me fix it?"

"I'll try," she told him. "No guarantees, though. I'm really bad at repairing spells."

"Shame, seeing as you break everything in your path."

She stuck her tongue out at him.

A/N: Relationship development :) Reviews would be lovely!