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He is distracted. And it's so strange an occurrence, that he gets momentarily distracted by his own distraction.

Important as he knows this meeting is, tense as he is at the imminence of the upcoming war, urgent as Mad-Eye Moody's words are, the meaning of it is, inexplicably and suddenly, lost on him.

All because of that hand, slowly twirling a wand between its fingers. Until it falls on the table with a soft clatter that nonetheless sounds hard on the almost silent meeting, and manages to gain a brief glare from Moody. The owner of the hand and wand just blinks at him and now, instead of twirling the wand, she is lightly tapping the tips of her fingers on the table.

And Remus is distracted. The only one in a large table full of members of the Order of the Phoenix.

Small hands, callous, with a couple of scars here and there. And then, the tapping stops and he looks ups at the face, instinctively. From across the table, she looks sheepish, and mouths silently. "Does it bother you?"

Remus shakes his head and smiles at her grin. And with an almighty effort returns his attention to Moody.

ooo

Next time he is distracted by her it's hardly his fault. He registers automatically the tell-tale sound of the umbrella stand falling on the carpet; lately she has learned the task of entering without waking up that wretched portrait and everybody is glad.

Then, the steps on the stairs, and finally she enters, and he almost gasps, but manages to just raise his eyebrows at her. The people around the table keep on looking at the blueprints spread in front of them and fail to see the swollen lip and the nasty cut next to her right eye. Her eyes meet his and she grimaces in a would-be dismissive gesture.

She takes a sit right next to him for the first time ever and he is glad of the opportunity to ask her what happened. She interrupts him, mid-question, and whispers "later".

This time he utterly fails to focus again.

When the meeting is finally over, the wounds are gone, but he's not fooled. He's learned Tonks is proud, in her own way. So he lingers, and finally, after announcing he's going to feed Buckbeack, Sirius leaves him alone with her.

"What happened?" He faces her.

With a grimace and an "ouch", she morphs the wounds back. They seemed to be bigger than before.

"Tosser lost his wand and instead of running away or surrender like a nice lad, he decided to punch me. And stupid as I am, I didn't see it coming. Then, he tried it again, but he'll regret that second one."

Remus is already conjuring a clean towel and putting it under water running from the tap.

"Here."

"Ouch!" she repeats the moment the cloth touches her skin.

"Come on, it's not that bad," he mutters, carefully tracing the contour of her mouth.

"Really? Try keeping wounds morphed and see how you like it."

"Steady now," he says, and for good measure, he holds her chin in one hand while cleaning with the other.

And suddenly he's distracted again by those warm brown eyes, looking straight into his, making him feel some deep emotion he can't really describe.

"Why did you morphed them, then?" he asks, to fill the strange silence, and he's surprised his voice comes out hoarser than usual.

"I just wanted to avoid the fuss."

"Am I fussing?"

"You're all right," she smiles.

He's done cleaning, for how long, he can't tell. So, he takes the towel back to the sink, and he imagines that the tips of his fingers are warm where they touched Tonks' skin.

"And," she adds at his back, "you saw me before I remembered to morph them away."

ooo

Dueling her is very distracting. More than once or twice he manages to block her spells just in time, momentarily lost in the way she holds her wand – loosely and yet with a very precise aim – or how her body seems to dance in one long fluid motion, all traces of clumsiness gone.

This might be practice, and Moody is indeed circling around the room, paying closer attention to the less experienced members of the Order, but for Remus this is turning out to be also an enjoyable experience. Part challenge, part something else.

And that's when his wand jumps out of his grip and flies in a long arch right into Tonks' open palm.

"Come on, you're not even trying!" she says, throwing the wand back at him.

He catches it and smiles at the challenge. Of course he wants to win, but he also wants to keep her moving, so this time he does try not just to defend himself, and it is a mix of frustration and elation to see her duck, and block, and shoot back. The rest of the world is gone, but for the two of them in this intense, magnificent dance.

Finally his jelly-leg course is faster than her shield and she falls on the dusty carpet. He comes nearer and is less than one foot away when a full body-bind hits him and he collapses. His eyes, the only part of his body he can move, search for her. She is laughing so hard she barely manages to mutter Finite, her wand pointing at her own weak legs to stop Remus' course.

Eyes bright, she crouches next to him with a cocky smile.

"Are you all right?"

He can't answer, of course, and all right might be an overstatement, but he's not bad either.