A/N: Very perceptive. Yes her appearance is no coincidence and neither were his reactions. I always thought it'd be interesting if Snape did have a certain infatuation with Lily. She was supposed to be popular with the boys and it was asked in a recent interview whether he had a crush on her but JK didn't really answer. Meh so yes, as you can probably see, this complicates matters. But don't worry, this story is NOT fluff.

Although I am intrigued by the rolling of the eyes :P

Tonks made sure not to flinch as he carefully set the bandages around her arm and fastened them with a safety pin. Taking her arm back steadily, she held it against her chest and mopped up the small mess she had made on the work surface. The removal of her eyes from his, seemed to give him the impression she did not want his presence around her anymore and so he returned to his seat and his work, with a distracted mind.

He tried not to watch her, but it was impossible when his thoughts were constantly interrupted by the movement of her feet on the floorboards. Finally, she sat, with a glass of water and started to read through her book, although her eyes seemed to be staring rather than reading.

Reminding himself that she were none of his business, he put on his normal somber miserable expression and set to scribbling a rather complicated potion onto a scrap piece of parchment.

An hour later she left the room, breathing only once she had closed the door behind her. That had to have been the worst hour of her entire life. She was scared so much as to breathe around him, let alone turn a page of a book and risk making a noise. Delicately tip-toeing into the living room and flopping herself on one of the many sofa's, she kicked her sandals off and sprawled her legs over the fabric.

Sat in the corner, his chin in his hand, staring out of the window, was Harry. He looked so sad, so distracted, so anywhere but there. Getting up, anything but quietly, she laid a hand on his shoulder and said, her tone somehow not as chirpy as it used to be,

"Wotcher, Harry..."

Harry half smiled up at her and squeezed his hand over hers. Draping her arms over his shoulders, she hugged him tightly, kissing his forehead as she did so.

"You alright Harry? Where's Luna?"

Releasing from the hug, he seemed sadder as he spoke, "She's gone now. I'm doing alright, what about you?"

Tonks hadn't thought on the matter much, but suddenly, she found tears escaping her eyes and she turned her head so that he could not see her. She was the adult here, she was supposed to be the strong one. Coughing, she mumbled, "Sirius and I were never that close."

"But you were family." said Harry, standing, trying to look at her. Seeing her tears, he hugged her this time.

"I'm so sorry, Harry..." she spoke, wiping the tears from her eyes, ceasing her crying."I just really hadn't thought about it until now and then it just sort of..."

"Erupted?" asked Harry, knowingly. She nodded her head in return and opened her mouth to say something when a sharp knock could be heard coming from the door way.

Dabbing at her eyes with the melon handkerchief that was stuffed down her sleeve, she hinted for Harry to sit and, sniffing into the material, she called for the person to come in.

Lupin walked in warily and closed the door behind him quietly. Harry was back on the sofa and was now staring out the window, tears prickling around his eyeballs but never falling.

"Harry...?" started Lupin, walking toward the boy and moving as if to place a hand on his shoulder. As his hand was about to make contact with Harry, the boy bolted up and shot toward the door, opening it and then slamming it behind him.

Tonks watched with reddened eyes as Lupin sat on the sofa where Harry had been and ran his hands through his slowly fading hair. She heard him groan into his palms and, feeling maybe as though he might need it more than her, she handed him the handkerchief, a look of apology on her face.

"Sorry, for earlier..." she stammered, her sweaty palms becoming sticky, Tonks never was good at apologies. He took the material from her hands and ran his thumb over it, squinting at the embroidered letters in the corner that read, 'NT'.

"Sirius gave this to you..." he said vaguely, looking more at her than the writing. She nodded her head and their eyes stared into one another for a few moments, until she could bear it no longer and turned away feeling the sadness arise up in her again. What was going on with her, she never cried, she hadn't yet cried once for Sirius, so why was she now?

Lupin seemed to see these tears and he stood parallel to her and slipped the handkerchief just under her eyes, collecting the tears on the yellowy cloth. "You need it more." he said, his eyes averting so quickly that they didn't stay on hers for longer than a millisecond. She was about to move forward and take the hankie from him, when she stood on her shoelace and almost fell in a mess over him. Catching her around the waist, he pushed her back again almost as instantly as he saw how close they had been and that she was alright from the fall.

"Urmm thanks" she stuttered, taking the hankie back in her hands and squeezing it inside her fist. "I'm sorry about Harry, I really don't know what's gotten into him lately. He's so quiet and he only ever seems to want to talk to Luna. Right here, just then, was the most I've gotten out of him all summer, and even then it was only a few mumbled words..." Before she had chance to say anymore, she found herself blubbering again into her hankie and leaning on Lupin's offered shoulder for support.

Excusing what she'd said, she shook her head and mumbled, "I have no right to complain about him. Who am I to expect him to open up to me, he barely knows me."

Lupin, not knowing quite what to do pat her on the back and, thinking of what Sirius might think of him at a time like this, loosened his grip on her and slid his arms around her softly. He had never been apt at dealing with women; Sirius had been the expert in that area of things. Smiling, he held her gently and rocked her back and forth, his head leant on hers.

"I can't fool myself into believing he'd open up to me. We were never as close as he was to Sirius. The only time he ever really confided in me was when he still thought Sirius to be a murderous man who was after him. Once he found out that he was his God-Father, I think he sort of forgot about me."

"Don't be so stupid." she said, lifting her head, her red curls sticking to the tears on her cheeks. "Harry loves you, everyone can see that. He just needs time."

"He needs time to talk to me, but not to Luna Lovegood."

Shaking her head, she gave off a short giggle and pulled a funny face at him, changing her nose in between every word. "Do you mean to tell me, Remus John Lupin, that you're getting jealous of a sixteen year old girl?"

Laughing back at her because of her nose changes, her patronising Molly-like tone and the way she just seemed to cheer him up, he replied, "Don't be so ridiculous Nymphadora, I just wish he would, you know, talk to me."

"And he will, in time. I think, for the moment, he just needs to clear his head and work out how he feels. Luna can help him in that, you know it. She lost her mother at a very young age and to live to the age she is now, without her, is remarkable. Hopefully, she will pass her gift of faith onto him and he'll get through this. But believe me, you're not useless."

At this last comment, she heard a snort from by the door. Severus walked in; picked up some books from the table, glanced at the two of them holding one another and walked directly back out.

Looking down at his arms around her, she finally realised what it may have looked like to an outsider. Not that she cared at all what Snape thought, after what she had found out about his thoughts on her, but still, the way in which they held each other unnerved her a little.

"What's wrong, Tonks?" he asked, snapping her out of her trance and holding her chin so she were looking at him. "You didn't scold me for calling you by your real name; you always scold people when they do that." To try and satisfy him, she slapped him playfully on the top of his arm and with this gesture he seemed happy as he bent his head down and to kiss her forehead. By luck, chance or fate, she wasn't sure which one it was, she happened to lift her head at that exact same instant and their lips met, at first in shock. But then they relaxed and seemed to fall into place with one another as he held her tightly.