Sorry; it's been a tough 6 weeks, from procuring props for a play at school, to taking stage combat lessons (yes, it is VERY cool, like the Dueling Club only better, because I have an instructor who fights better than Snape- and looks better than Snape... sighness), to actual HOMEWORK and boring stuff like that. But here you have it, Chapter 3, which is nice and long for your reading pleasure:-) I'm actually quite proud of this one, to tell you the truth.
Chapter 3: Elbow Grease
Remus took his coffee black.
The reason for this was that he figured life was bitter, and there was nothing he liked more than drawing parallels. The way you start out in the morning is the way you end up when you go to bed. Bitter. Every morning, every night.
He also drank it cold.
Swig after swig, Remus downed his first cup of the day like a pint of whiskey as he sat alone at the kitchen table. He browsed the Daily Prophet feeling much the same way he had felt last summer toward it; it was all the same. Then, there had been nothing but ignorance. Now, there was nothing but blind panic and bad news.
It was his first full morning at Grimmauld Place. Last night he had experienced a bit of drama with Buckbeak, but that was all over now, and not a peep had been heard from the hippogriff since then. He supposed that, sore as he was still from the full moon, today would be a good time to tackle some of the cleaning he had planned to do. He washed out his coffee cup and placed his orange peel in the trash basket, then sat back down to make a list of things to do.
--------------------
#1: Scour the Bathrooms.
"Put some elbow grease into it," he could hear Professor Grouse, the Potions Mistress, chide him and his companions in a singsong voice. The stark-faced, crow-like middle-aged woman sat with her feet on her desk, drumming her fingers together evilly. The five boys glared up at her in unison, then went back to scrubbing the floor.
Remus wanted it to be known that he had had nothing to do with this mess. It was Snape, the slimy git. And Padfoot. And, well, Prongs too. And Wormtail- he had done a grand job of buggering things up, himself. But Moony was completely apart from the scenario. He'd just happened to be in cahoots with the culprits.
It had been earlier that afternoon. It was Friday, and their last class of the day had been Double Potions with Slytherin. The four Marauders were chatting amongst themselves when in walked Snape, walking quickly, his face buried in another book. He was always reading, and sometimes Remus thought fleetingly that it would be interesting to drop his hatred of him and to get to know him, because he read a lot himself; then he remembered exactly what it was that Snape was usually reading. The greasy-haired youth made his way to an unoccupied desk in the very front of the room. Not looking, he attempted to sit down in his chair while still reading, but missed. Before he knew it he was flat on his bum, inches from the chair. The class was in uproar. Snape thrashed around to glare at them all before rising into his seat and immersing himself back in his book. As soon as he sat down at his seat, Grouse entered the classroom with a flourish and began the day's lesson. While she talked, James, who sat next to Remus, whispered to him. "I wonder what it is Snape's reading this time?"
"Probably something distasteful, as usual." Remus was only partly listening to James; he was trying to copy down Grouse's notes, as he knew they would be useful.
"Yeah," chimed in Sirius, who was behind them. "But look at the bastard, he's engrossed in the damn thing. He's not even taking notes! I wonder what it is." Pettigrew giggled in agreement.
And soon enough, their chance came to find out. They heard a knock at the door five minutes later. "Come in!" Grouse shrieked.
"Professor Grouse," began a pale, worried-looking second-year Hufflepuff, breathing heavily from exertion. "I come to tell you- Shawn Muldoon's done transfigured 'imself into a potato! McGonagall tried the counter-charm, but 'e wouldn' fix! Madam Pomfrey needs the ingredients for the elixer, quick!"
Grouse slowly walked around to the front of her desk. "And how, pray tell, does she plan to administer this elixer to-" her expression turned sour- "'fix' Muldoon?"
"Gonna cut 'im open and butter 'im with it, for all I know, Ma'am. Please, he needs it soon's possible!"
Grumbling to herself ("It's probably his animagus. Potato, indeed,") Professor Grouse strode over to her cupboard and pocketed a few of its contents before following the young Hufflepuff out of her classroom. As an afterthought, she poked her head back into the room. "You, boy! Lupin! Watch the class for a few moments! It appears I have some... business... to attend to." And with that, she was gone.
Remus stood up shakily, flattered in a strange way that his professor had asked him to lead the class. He walked over to the front, quiet whistles from the general direction of the Marauders heard among the din of the teacher-less class. "Um... Class..." No one seemed to be paying attention to him. Now he knew what Grouse must feel like, giving lectures while her students made a commotion. "Class!" Not even Sirius and James were paying attention. The only one who was looking at him at all was Snape, and he watched him with cold, calculating eyes for a second before returning to the tome in his hands. Remus looked around for some way to call the class to order...
Suddenly an idea struck him. He began to gather up all the books on the case behind Grouse's desk, and then charmed them to make them float. They managed to reach the ceiling unnoticed before Remus let his magic slip and suddenly they all came crashing down at top speed.
Everyone startled to attention; Remus performed a neat cleaning charm and brushed his hands together, facing the class. "I think... um... I think that we ought to begin our potions, before Professor Grouse comes back. Er... was everyone paying attention to the ingredients, or shall I write them on the board?" They stared at him blankly, angry with him for interrupting their much-more-important conversations. "Er- right then. Well, I'll just, um..." He walked to the board and began to copy from his notes. But when he finished, he turned around again and saw that no one was writing. "Oh, why don't you just listen?" he asked quietly; then he realized that there was a new development going on in the vicinity of Snape's work table.
Snape had let his book take second place to his potion, and it was now sitting beside his cauldron. The three Marauders not standing in front of the Potions classroom were eyeing the book with overpowering curiosity. Slowly the three of them, let by Padfoot, translocated to visit their Slytherin classmate. "Oy, Snivellus!" exclaimed Padfoot jovially.
"What is it, Black?" growled Snape, adding a hippogriff talon to the steaming brew.
"We were just wondering..." he began slyly, motioning to Prongs behind Snape's back. "What exactly is that fascinating book you've been so enraptured with?" At that moment, James snatched up the book, and Snape froze.
"Give it back, Potter," he said in a deadly whisper.
"Make me, Snivellus. Ooh, what do we have here?" James's eyes widened mirthfully, seeing the title of the book.
"POTTER!" Snape shouted, skillfully skirting around the cauldron as he made to grab the book from him. By now the entire class was watching. Lupin became aware of the fact that he was glued to the spot on which he stood, and ought to do something about the pandemonium the classroom had descended to, but he waited perhaps a second too late to hear the title of the book Snape had been reading-
"DATING FOR MUGGLES!" exclaimed James triumphantly, as Sirius and the rest of the class burst into fits of evil glee and poor Severus Snape sank into the epitome of adolescent embarassment, clutching his wand with a death grip-
"PETRIFICUS TOTALUS!" he shouted, aiming for James, who ducked, and hitting Peter, who with wild, desperate eyes fell facefirst into Snape's table and knocked over his cauldron, spewing steaming green muck over everything and everyone.
It was at that moment that Professor Grouse chose to reenter the room, and promptly award an evening of detention to the four involved, and to Lupin, whom she was sure had done nothing to prevent his friends' little escapade.
It was a long, grueling evening.
--------------------
Remus smiled a little to himself at the memory, dipping his sponge back into the bucket of water and continuing to scrub the floor mercilessly. He was coated in a thin sheen of sweat, and his muscles were beginning to ache slightly from working. He knew that most wizards would have simply performed a charm, and the floor would be spotless, but he didn't mind. He was his mother's son, after all. He had grown up in a half-Muggle household, and he never forgot his heritage. He scrubbed until he couldn't scrub anymore.
As he finished, charming the water in the bucket to disappear and placing bucket and sponge in their rightful places, he heard a quiet knock on the door with his sensitive ears. He padded into the entrance hall, curious as to who could be visiting at midday on a Monday. Performing a few spells for safety, he opened the door, to find-
"Tonks!"
"Wocher, Remus!" she replied, coming inside as he closed the door. "You smell like an entire Quidditch team in the middle of August!" she exclaimed irreverantly as she walked to the kitchen and plopped down in a chair, pointing her wand at the coffee pot behind her and pulling out a scroll from her handbag.
"I do no such thing," he retorted, sitting next to her. "Wait a minute," he wondered aloud. "Why are you here, anyway? I thought you said you wouldn't come back here in a million years."
"I've got to come back for Order meetings, silly," she said, poring over an obviously boring document before finally giving up and tossing it back into her purse. "And anyway, I had to find somewhere to have lunch today. Kingsley and Arthur were at meetings, and Molly was on Order business. So I came here."
"Don't you have your own flat?" Remus asked without thinking. But Tonks picked up immediately-
"If you don't want me here, I can leave, you know," she said matter-of-factly, getting up out of her chair.
"No!" Remus said, pulling at her arm. "You don't have to leave! I didn't mean that, Tonks. I meant-"
"Relax, Moony. I'm just pouring coffee. Besides, do you really think I'd leave even if you wanted me to?" She had a point. "What have you been doing today, anyway?" she asked him cooly.
"Just cleaning. I cleaned the bathrooms."
"All seven?!" Tonks nearly choked. "I didn't even clean one of them!"
"I noticed," Remus quipped as he got up to pour himself another cup.
"You used magic, I hope... although by the state of you I don't think you did. Did you?" He shook his head, raising his cup to his lips. She breathed. "You never cease to amaze me, Remus Lupin." He felt the warm liquid gush down his throat. "How did you do it?"
"Elbow grease," he answered, flinching as he took another sip of the bitter coffee. He watched as Tonks added three heaping teaspoons to her cup, followed by a generous helping of cream. He surveyed her as she stirred.
For Tonks, life was sweet. The greatest hardship she had endured was Sirius's death, which was, albeit, enough to make any of them bitter. But Tonks had a candy-pink personality to match her hair, and her life had seen more ups than downs. She was young. She still had her ideals, whatever they were. She had her dreams, and she had her future to see them come true, God willing she should live long enough. She had seen one skirmish against the Dark. Remus ascribed seven all-out battles to his name.
Remus found himself wishing more than anything in the world right now, apart from wishing Sirius alive again, that this candy-pink woman before him would never lose her sweetess and her youth. But there were dark times ahead. And under the circumstances, Nymphadora Tonks may have to grow up after all.
When she left a few minutes later, he decided to give in to his fatigue. He heaved up the staircase, finally finding his bedroom door and collapsing onto his bed. He slept for the longest time, dreaming of happy, impossible things. He too used to believe in those dreams. But much had changed since then.
Chapter 3: Elbow Grease
Remus took his coffee black.
The reason for this was that he figured life was bitter, and there was nothing he liked more than drawing parallels. The way you start out in the morning is the way you end up when you go to bed. Bitter. Every morning, every night.
He also drank it cold.
Swig after swig, Remus downed his first cup of the day like a pint of whiskey as he sat alone at the kitchen table. He browsed the Daily Prophet feeling much the same way he had felt last summer toward it; it was all the same. Then, there had been nothing but ignorance. Now, there was nothing but blind panic and bad news.
It was his first full morning at Grimmauld Place. Last night he had experienced a bit of drama with Buckbeak, but that was all over now, and not a peep had been heard from the hippogriff since then. He supposed that, sore as he was still from the full moon, today would be a good time to tackle some of the cleaning he had planned to do. He washed out his coffee cup and placed his orange peel in the trash basket, then sat back down to make a list of things to do.
--------------------
#1: Scour the Bathrooms.
"Put some elbow grease into it," he could hear Professor Grouse, the Potions Mistress, chide him and his companions in a singsong voice. The stark-faced, crow-like middle-aged woman sat with her feet on her desk, drumming her fingers together evilly. The five boys glared up at her in unison, then went back to scrubbing the floor.
Remus wanted it to be known that he had had nothing to do with this mess. It was Snape, the slimy git. And Padfoot. And, well, Prongs too. And Wormtail- he had done a grand job of buggering things up, himself. But Moony was completely apart from the scenario. He'd just happened to be in cahoots with the culprits.
It had been earlier that afternoon. It was Friday, and their last class of the day had been Double Potions with Slytherin. The four Marauders were chatting amongst themselves when in walked Snape, walking quickly, his face buried in another book. He was always reading, and sometimes Remus thought fleetingly that it would be interesting to drop his hatred of him and to get to know him, because he read a lot himself; then he remembered exactly what it was that Snape was usually reading. The greasy-haired youth made his way to an unoccupied desk in the very front of the room. Not looking, he attempted to sit down in his chair while still reading, but missed. Before he knew it he was flat on his bum, inches from the chair. The class was in uproar. Snape thrashed around to glare at them all before rising into his seat and immersing himself back in his book. As soon as he sat down at his seat, Grouse entered the classroom with a flourish and began the day's lesson. While she talked, James, who sat next to Remus, whispered to him. "I wonder what it is Snape's reading this time?"
"Probably something distasteful, as usual." Remus was only partly listening to James; he was trying to copy down Grouse's notes, as he knew they would be useful.
"Yeah," chimed in Sirius, who was behind them. "But look at the bastard, he's engrossed in the damn thing. He's not even taking notes! I wonder what it is." Pettigrew giggled in agreement.
And soon enough, their chance came to find out. They heard a knock at the door five minutes later. "Come in!" Grouse shrieked.
"Professor Grouse," began a pale, worried-looking second-year Hufflepuff, breathing heavily from exertion. "I come to tell you- Shawn Muldoon's done transfigured 'imself into a potato! McGonagall tried the counter-charm, but 'e wouldn' fix! Madam Pomfrey needs the ingredients for the elixer, quick!"
Grouse slowly walked around to the front of her desk. "And how, pray tell, does she plan to administer this elixer to-" her expression turned sour- "'fix' Muldoon?"
"Gonna cut 'im open and butter 'im with it, for all I know, Ma'am. Please, he needs it soon's possible!"
Grumbling to herself ("It's probably his animagus. Potato, indeed,") Professor Grouse strode over to her cupboard and pocketed a few of its contents before following the young Hufflepuff out of her classroom. As an afterthought, she poked her head back into the room. "You, boy! Lupin! Watch the class for a few moments! It appears I have some... business... to attend to." And with that, she was gone.
Remus stood up shakily, flattered in a strange way that his professor had asked him to lead the class. He walked over to the front, quiet whistles from the general direction of the Marauders heard among the din of the teacher-less class. "Um... Class..." No one seemed to be paying attention to him. Now he knew what Grouse must feel like, giving lectures while her students made a commotion. "Class!" Not even Sirius and James were paying attention. The only one who was looking at him at all was Snape, and he watched him with cold, calculating eyes for a second before returning to the tome in his hands. Remus looked around for some way to call the class to order...
Suddenly an idea struck him. He began to gather up all the books on the case behind Grouse's desk, and then charmed them to make them float. They managed to reach the ceiling unnoticed before Remus let his magic slip and suddenly they all came crashing down at top speed.
Everyone startled to attention; Remus performed a neat cleaning charm and brushed his hands together, facing the class. "I think... um... I think that we ought to begin our potions, before Professor Grouse comes back. Er... was everyone paying attention to the ingredients, or shall I write them on the board?" They stared at him blankly, angry with him for interrupting their much-more-important conversations. "Er- right then. Well, I'll just, um..." He walked to the board and began to copy from his notes. But when he finished, he turned around again and saw that no one was writing. "Oh, why don't you just listen?" he asked quietly; then he realized that there was a new development going on in the vicinity of Snape's work table.
Snape had let his book take second place to his potion, and it was now sitting beside his cauldron. The three Marauders not standing in front of the Potions classroom were eyeing the book with overpowering curiosity. Slowly the three of them, let by Padfoot, translocated to visit their Slytherin classmate. "Oy, Snivellus!" exclaimed Padfoot jovially.
"What is it, Black?" growled Snape, adding a hippogriff talon to the steaming brew.
"We were just wondering..." he began slyly, motioning to Prongs behind Snape's back. "What exactly is that fascinating book you've been so enraptured with?" At that moment, James snatched up the book, and Snape froze.
"Give it back, Potter," he said in a deadly whisper.
"Make me, Snivellus. Ooh, what do we have here?" James's eyes widened mirthfully, seeing the title of the book.
"POTTER!" Snape shouted, skillfully skirting around the cauldron as he made to grab the book from him. By now the entire class was watching. Lupin became aware of the fact that he was glued to the spot on which he stood, and ought to do something about the pandemonium the classroom had descended to, but he waited perhaps a second too late to hear the title of the book Snape had been reading-
"DATING FOR MUGGLES!" exclaimed James triumphantly, as Sirius and the rest of the class burst into fits of evil glee and poor Severus Snape sank into the epitome of adolescent embarassment, clutching his wand with a death grip-
"PETRIFICUS TOTALUS!" he shouted, aiming for James, who ducked, and hitting Peter, who with wild, desperate eyes fell facefirst into Snape's table and knocked over his cauldron, spewing steaming green muck over everything and everyone.
It was at that moment that Professor Grouse chose to reenter the room, and promptly award an evening of detention to the four involved, and to Lupin, whom she was sure had done nothing to prevent his friends' little escapade.
It was a long, grueling evening.
--------------------
Remus smiled a little to himself at the memory, dipping his sponge back into the bucket of water and continuing to scrub the floor mercilessly. He was coated in a thin sheen of sweat, and his muscles were beginning to ache slightly from working. He knew that most wizards would have simply performed a charm, and the floor would be spotless, but he didn't mind. He was his mother's son, after all. He had grown up in a half-Muggle household, and he never forgot his heritage. He scrubbed until he couldn't scrub anymore.
As he finished, charming the water in the bucket to disappear and placing bucket and sponge in their rightful places, he heard a quiet knock on the door with his sensitive ears. He padded into the entrance hall, curious as to who could be visiting at midday on a Monday. Performing a few spells for safety, he opened the door, to find-
"Tonks!"
"Wocher, Remus!" she replied, coming inside as he closed the door. "You smell like an entire Quidditch team in the middle of August!" she exclaimed irreverantly as she walked to the kitchen and plopped down in a chair, pointing her wand at the coffee pot behind her and pulling out a scroll from her handbag.
"I do no such thing," he retorted, sitting next to her. "Wait a minute," he wondered aloud. "Why are you here, anyway? I thought you said you wouldn't come back here in a million years."
"I've got to come back for Order meetings, silly," she said, poring over an obviously boring document before finally giving up and tossing it back into her purse. "And anyway, I had to find somewhere to have lunch today. Kingsley and Arthur were at meetings, and Molly was on Order business. So I came here."
"Don't you have your own flat?" Remus asked without thinking. But Tonks picked up immediately-
"If you don't want me here, I can leave, you know," she said matter-of-factly, getting up out of her chair.
"No!" Remus said, pulling at her arm. "You don't have to leave! I didn't mean that, Tonks. I meant-"
"Relax, Moony. I'm just pouring coffee. Besides, do you really think I'd leave even if you wanted me to?" She had a point. "What have you been doing today, anyway?" she asked him cooly.
"Just cleaning. I cleaned the bathrooms."
"All seven?!" Tonks nearly choked. "I didn't even clean one of them!"
"I noticed," Remus quipped as he got up to pour himself another cup.
"You used magic, I hope... although by the state of you I don't think you did. Did you?" He shook his head, raising his cup to his lips. She breathed. "You never cease to amaze me, Remus Lupin." He felt the warm liquid gush down his throat. "How did you do it?"
"Elbow grease," he answered, flinching as he took another sip of the bitter coffee. He watched as Tonks added three heaping teaspoons to her cup, followed by a generous helping of cream. He surveyed her as she stirred.
For Tonks, life was sweet. The greatest hardship she had endured was Sirius's death, which was, albeit, enough to make any of them bitter. But Tonks had a candy-pink personality to match her hair, and her life had seen more ups than downs. She was young. She still had her ideals, whatever they were. She had her dreams, and she had her future to see them come true, God willing she should live long enough. She had seen one skirmish against the Dark. Remus ascribed seven all-out battles to his name.
Remus found himself wishing more than anything in the world right now, apart from wishing Sirius alive again, that this candy-pink woman before him would never lose her sweetess and her youth. But there were dark times ahead. And under the circumstances, Nymphadora Tonks may have to grow up after all.
When she left a few minutes later, he decided to give in to his fatigue. He heaved up the staircase, finally finding his bedroom door and collapsing onto his bed. He slept for the longest time, dreaming of happy, impossible things. He too used to believe in those dreams. But much had changed since then.