Author's Note: Enjoy!

Disclaimer: The following characters belong to J.K. Rowling, and this story derives from her original works, storylines, and world. Please do not sue me, I can barely pay tuition.

Hogwarts: Assignment #4, Muggle Cultures Task #2 Write about someone with a sweet tooth

Warnings: NA

This week's AU: Bakery!AU

The Sweetest Tooth

She was leaning against the counter by the cash register, pretending to review some bills to take a break from cleaning up the kitchen, when the bell on the front door jingled. In came a man bundled up in handmade sweaters and ill-fitting jeans. He was looking around at the abundance of bread loaves stacked on the shelves, the baskets of bagels, and the neat lines of pastries in the glass case with the kind of curiosity and wonder that Tonks loved. It marked him quite transparently as a first-time customer.

"Wotcher," she called. "Let me know if there's anything I can help you with."

"Actually, yes," the man said, approaching the cash. He looked at a loss for a second before shaking his head to refocus. "Sorry, it just smells great in here…"

"We try," Tonks said. The smells of fresh bread, challah peppered with sesame seeds, freshly baked cake, honey, sweet icing, cinnamon, chocolate, coconut, caramel, nutmeg, cloves, almond extract, baked apples, poppy seeds, and whatever else she was using on any given day could definitely be dreamy and distracting. A fresh batch of sufganiyot had come out of the oven, and the rugelach she'd made this morning had made their odorous mark on the bakery hours ago, in the form of apricot jam, cherries, and hazelnut.

"Right," the man said shyly. "Umm, listen, this is a weird question, but does an incredibly pregnant red-haired woman with big, emerald green eyes ever come in here? Or alternatively a bespectacled man who looks like he's unfamiliar with the function of a hairbrush?"

She couldn't help but burst out laughing at the vivid, and frankly accurate, descriptions.

"Yes, I've seen them," she said. "Usually together."

"Okay, good, I'm at the right place," the man said, nodding along as if encouraging himself. "Right, so, we've all been friends since school, and now James was called away for work because he's in law enforcement. And while he's gone, a few of us are staying with Lily because she's never been more pregnant, but we have no idea what we're doing."

"Right," Tonks nodded along.

"Anyways, she's been craving sweets for her whole pregnancy and I know this bakery's along her usual walk and I'm wondering what…"

"What her usual order is?" Tonks finished, smiling at the sweetness of it all.

"Yes," the man sighed, as if relieved that he'd managed to get his whole story out.

"Chocolate croissant," Tonks said, reaching for the pair of tongs she used to package orders. "Her husband, James you called him, sometimes got an almond croissant—want me to throw one in in case she's used to sneaking bites from him?"

"That would be incredible," he nodded.

"Right," Tonks said, slipping the pastries in question into a paper box stamped with her bakery's logo. She added a few pieces of chocolate babka since it was nice and fresh, and some neatly folded hamantaschen since she vaguely remembered the couple giggling at how much they looked like little hats during one of their past visits—which, to be fair, they were supposed to.

She turned back to her customer.

"And what would you like?"

"Me?" the man asked shyly. His cheeks flushed a nice blush pink she quite liked.

"Yes, you," she said. "I know a sweet tooth when I see one—industry skill, you might call it."

"What gave me away?" he said with a grin.

"Your face when you walked in, the way your eyes were going over the display case while we were talking, and a certain je ne sais quoi," she said, crossing her arms and leaning against the counter.

He blushed even more and looked away, biting back a smile.

He turned to look at the display case again, letting himself be tempted by the mixture of French, Jewish, and British desserts.

"It'll be on the house," Tonks said. "On account of how sweet you're being to your friends."

"Are you allowed to do that?" he inquired.

"It's my shop," she shrugged.

"Oh," he said. "Oh, well… thank you… what do you like the most, out of the things you make?"

"That's a trick question," Tonks said. The man smiled back but held her gaze, and something about his shy little smile and his warm eyes broke her resolution. "I like the éclairs—I spend the whole day hoping they don't sell out so I can sneak one home. They've got a chocolate ganache on top with a dash of espresso in it, so really deepen that chocolate flavour, and on good days I toss chocolate chips into the pastry cream."

"Is today a good day?" the man inquired.

She nodded.

"That sounds incredible," he said. "I'd love to try one."

Tonks packed one up in a little white cardboard box so that it would stay pristine on his walk home. She hesitated for a moment but eventually decided to scribble her phone number on the box's inside in black Sharpie, adding a note specifying: (mine, not the bakery's).

She turned back to him and handed him his purchases in a little paper bag.

"You should come by again tomorrow," Tonks said. "Tuesday is Macaron Day. Your friend really likes lemony things, and I make a wicked lemon macaron"

It wasn't, but she could make it Macaron Day.

"Right," he said. "Well, I better go feed her now but I'll see you again tomorrow, then."

"See you tomorrow," she said.

As she watched him leave the shop, she made a mental note for herself to make an extra batch of those chocolate raspberry macarons. Something told her she'd be giving out a lot of free baked goods from now on.

Stacked with: MC4A; Shipping Wars; Hogwarts

Challenge(s): Gryffindor MC; Hufflepuff MC; Seeds; Ways to the Heart; Old Shoes; Ethnic & Present; True Colours; Rian-Russo Inversion; In a Flash; Yellow Ribbon; Yellow Ribbon Redux

Word Count: 944

Shipping Wars

Ship (Team): Remus Lupin/Nymphadora Tonks (Technicolour Moon)

List (Prompt): Winter Medium 2 (Almonds)