Seventh Secret

He has thought about kissing her for weeks and weeks before actually works up the courage to do so, and even then, it is a light peck on the cheek that gets misdirected when she, confused, turns her head to look at him.

It is after one of his transformations. Dumbledore, on one of his rare visits to the house, has cast all the spells he could think of on one of the upstairs attics so that he wouldn't have to leave during the full moon. It is comforting to know that his friends are near, but more than that, it is frightening. He is absolutely terrified the first time he transforms in the house, almost out of his human mind with worrying about whether the spells will hold, almost out of his werewolf mind with the smell of people.

She unlocks the bolts and takes off the spells, early in the morning after the moon has set, to wrap another blanket around his shoulders and leave three cups for him, all piping hot: tea, and coffee, and some of Molly Weasley's famous chicken soup. (The secret ingredient, he has found out by watching her make it, is the Pepper Up potion Molly always slips into it.)

She explains almost shyly—Nymphadora shy? he wonders feebly—that she didn't know if he still liked tea or if it had changed since he went to America for a few months after Sirius was imprisoned. She found some ground coffee in one of the back kitchen cupboards and managed to get it down and make some without breaking too many mugs. "But I'm really good at repairing charms," she says with a grin.

He blinks a few times, then realizes from her expectant look that she must be waiting for some sort of response from him. He smiles a bit wanly and murmurs, "Nymphadora."

"Tonks," she says firmly.

He thinks that she can't possibly want him to call her by that ridiculous name. No fully grown woman (well, if he's perfectly honest with himself, at twenty four she's not really that fully grown, but he is rarely perfectly honest because that makes him remember how wholly unsuitable his attraction to her is) could possibly want to be called "Tonks." He raises himself up on an arm so that he is closer to her and says, "Thank you." He leans forward to brush a kiss against her cheek, and her head turns, and then their lips are touching, and he is lost.

It is soft and gentle, nothing more than an exploration of each other's lips, the pressure almost non-existent, but his heart is pounding so hard that he can almost hear it through the ringing in his ears, and the exhaustion he thought would never leave is swept away in a frantic wave of heat that threatens to consume him.

She breaks away first, her eyes wide and startled, her face still so close that he can just barely feel her breaths on his face. He can't help the glow of male satisfaction that arises when he hears how laboured they are, that he is not the only one effected by their almost-kiss.

Her hair is wildly changing colors, first magenta, then blue, then the trademark black of her family, the wild tangled reds of the Weasleys, Draco Malfoy's pale, pale blond. He is entranced by the way it shimmers and then rearranges itself, the way it turns a deep auburn and the waves of gold that reached past her shoulders shorten so that they barely curl about her ears as she runs a hand desperately through it.

She licks her lips, and he can feel his eyes dilating. "What—did you mean that? The—the kiss?"

Of course he did, he thinks to himself, but he doesn't know whether to say it, whether the surprise he can read in her entire body is shock and horror or the sudden, unexpected realization of a secret hope. So instead he is silent, looking into her faded blue eyes. They have stayed the same color this whole time, he realizes.

She stands up abruptly and almost runs out of the room. He is left on the floor with his blankets and three steaming mugs and a bone-deep ache that is more than the usual pain of a transformation.