Tonks sighed happily as she sat down. Oh, it felt good to get off her feet. Sure, it was mostly her own fault because she had ignored Remus' and her mother's entreaties to sit herself down but she had to help with the decorating. It didn't feel like Christmas until you helped with the decorating in her opinion.

"You should be taking it easy," Andromeda said disapprovingly.

"I'm not an invalid, mum."

"No, but you are pregnant."

"Only five months."

"Which is more than halfway along."

"I'm fine. It's not like I have a massive belly or anything."

Tonks looked down at herself at that. She really didn't have a big belly. Which she was, quite frankly, miffed by. For feeling so horrible and out of puff some days, you would at least think that she'd have a good-sized belly to show for it. Which she didn't. She had a tiny belly. A tiny belly with a tiny baby inside of it. And yes, that thought still freaked her out.

"I carried small with you as well," Andromeda told her. "But that still doesn't mean that you can put yourself at risk."

Tonks scoffed and rolled her eyes. "Hanging up Christmas decorations is not putting myself at risk."

"It is when you decide that you need to loft heavy boxes," Remus scolded her, returning to the living room with steaming mugs of hot chocolate.

Even for her mother. Tonks didn't think she'd ever seen Andromeda drink hot chocolate, she was normally all sophisticated with her teas. But apparently Christmas in the middle of a war meant hot chocolate for her. Not that Tonks disagreed. There was something comforting about hot chocolate that yea couldn't provide.

"It's wasn't that heavy," she said. "It was just a small box."

"That had a dismantled tree in it," Remus scolded. "It was heavier than it looked."

"Still not that heavy."

She could carry a bloody tree. Well, she thought she could. All this out of breathless was telling her otherwise but they didn't have to know that. Not that any of them looked that convinced anyway.

"You," Andromeda said, shoving another box at her. "Are on light duty."

Tonks rolled her eyes and opened the box. Sure enough, it was full of Christmas lights. And then she groaned. And they were all tangled.

"That should keep you busy," her mother said in satisfaction.

Remus chuckled and Tonks shot him a glare, which made him shut up.

"I think I will put the garlands up," he said, getting to his feet. "Down the banisters and the other on the fireplace?"

"And a third on the windowsill," Tonks reminded him.

Andromeda had suggested it because she had brought over an extra garland (Remus had only had two up in his unsurprisingly not dusty attic) because she had finally agreed to spend Christmas with them. After a lot of arguments but she and Remus won, something Tonks had yet to stop being smug over. Hey, she rarely won against her mum! So, Andromeda didn't see the point in decorating her own house and Tonks suspected that she didn't really want to by herself anyway, so she brought hers and Ted's decoration over to their house.

"I'll get to that," Remus agreed.

"And I will start the baking," Andromeda said, giving herself a job. "Mince pies first."

Tonks cheered at that. Andromeda's mince pies were the best.

"We can decorate the tree as soon as the lights are on it," Andromeda said pointedly.

"I'm on it, I'm on it," Tonks said with an eye roll.

She manged to get all the lights untangled. Eventually. It turned out there were six sets of lights in there. Six.

And yes, they were using muggle Christmas lights because one, her and candles equalled a disaster all of them wanted to avoid and two, they were just prettier. And this house was wired for electricity so they may as well.

"Dora! Get down from there!" Remus said in a panic, lunging for her as she wobbled.

She wobbled but didn't fall. He was being silly.

"I'm fine, let me fix this," she said from her perch.

Because yes, she was standing on the sofa so she could fix the lights at the top of the tree. They were a bit of a mess there, mainly because she was short and her levitating charm didn't do loops well.

"Dora-"

"Wait a second..."

"Nymphadora Andromeda Tonks!"

And there was her mother. Wasn't she supposed to be baking?

Arthur's Patronus interrupted them, making them all freeze.

"Please let it be about a change to the location for the next Order meeting," Tonks thought as she finally let Remus help her back onto firm ground.

Even though she knew that wouldn't be the case, the next meeting wasn't the Weasley's responsibility- it was Kingsley's. Which meant that whatever the Patronus was going to say wasn't going to be good news.

"There was an incident on the train. Twins coming with details."

And of course, it wasn't good news. There was never good news these days.

"Incident on the train?" Andromeda repeated, staring at the rapidly disappearing Patronus. "The Hogwarts Express?"

"It's the Christmas holidays," Tonks explained. "Everyone's coming home today."

And she doubted many of the kids would be staying at Hogwarts with Death Eaters literally ruling the roost there. Which meant that the train would be packed. Packed with kids. Who were targets? Oh, Merlin, what if they had been attacked? Would Death Eaters attack kids like that? Even if they were all purebloods and half-bloods? You never knew with Death Eaters. Tonks felt herself go dizzy at the thought.

Before she could think anymore, there were two identical cracks. Remus rushed out to the front, wand out. Tonks heard some murmuring before the front door was opened again and Fred and George stumbled into the house with pale faces. Everyone was immediately got to their feet, waiting for the news but not wanting to demand it from them. Especially when it looked like they were about to collapse.

"What happened?" Dora blurted put as Andromeda led them to the sofa, unable to wait any longer.

"The train," Fred said quietly, looking like he was in shock.

"The train? Was it attacked? What happened? Should we be doing something?" Remus fired off the questions one after the other without pause.

"Ginny's fine," George interrupted hoarsely. "Thank Merlin, Ginny's fine."

"Then what-"

"Luna. They took Luna."

"Luna?" Tonks questioned.

That was Ginny's friend? The one that went to the Department of Mysteries, right?

"Luna Lovegood?" Remus questioned.

George nodded and tried to explain what happened. What didn't really make sense because no one really knew what happened. Luna had vanished off the train. Taken apparently. But no one had seen it happen. Or knew how it happened or who had taken her. The assumption was Death Eaters because who else could it be?

Fred and George couldn't give them much more than that and they were soon ensconced on the sofa, both with steaming hot cups of sweet tea in an effort to settle their nerves. Tonks had never seen them so quiet.

"Is it bad to say that it's still really weird to easily be able to tell Fred and George apart?" Andromeda asked her quietly.

She couldn't help but snort at that, despite everything. How could she even laugh when they got news like this? There had to be something wrong with her. With all of them because all five of them laughed. Which was horrible. And inappropriate. But what else could they do?