Author note: This chapter contains dialogue from J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (New York: Scholastic, 2003), pp. 122-123, 176-177.

Chapter 2: Past Present

Remus had moved into Grimmauld Place as soon as the Order of the Phoenix established headquarters there. Sirius was embarrassingly pleased to have company. He prowled the house day and night, staring longingly at the front door, pouncing on any new person who came to visit. All summer, he kept open house, with six Weasleys, Hermione, and eventually Harry in residence, and Mad-Eye Moody, Kingsley Shacklebolt, and Bill Weasley taking potluck in the kitchen three or four times a week. Though he had not seen Tonks since her childhood in the First War, Sirius warmed to her at once, inviting her to supper night after night, questioning her eagerly about everything from Ministry gossip to which hexes had been in fashion during her final year at Hogwarts.

"—and have you seen Ginny's bat-bogey hex? She did it to George the first night they were here, after he tried to slip a Nosebleed Nougat into her ice cream sundae. It was a sight, I never saw Molly so flustered—and George just stood there laughing—"

"Yes, I know, Ginny tried it on the ghoul in the upstairs bathroom—except the bats didn't stick to him, the ghoul just plucked them off and chucked them back at Ron—"

"Filthy little blood traitor assaulting our faithful ghoul," muttered Kreacher, drifting through the kitchen. "Oh, if my mistress could see what her house has come to! Creepy half-breeds and blood traitor brats from cellar to attic—"

"Hello, Kreacher," said Tonks. Kreacher stared through her as if she weren't there.

"Say good afternoon to Tonks, Kreacher," said Sirius mischievously. "Her grandfather was my father's brother. A blood relation. Surely you can't resist welcoming a daughter of the House of Black?"

"Sirius, I am not—"

Kreacher bowed reluctantly to Tonks. "Good afternoon, young lady. Welcome to you. Sneaky unnatural changeling, what her mother ran off with a Mudblood louse," he added under his breath.

"Oh, she'll be so thrilled that you remember her, Kreacher!" exclaimed Tonks cheerfully. "Don't worry, I'll pass your message along!"

Remus smiled. What impressed him most about Tonks was how lighthearted she was. She injected the only note of gaiety into the Order's increasingly grim meetings—a true gaiety, honest and unforced, differing greatly from Sirius's jocular humor, which was always tinged with bitterness. Watching her, listening to her spar with Sirius, Remus was reminded of the First War, when he had been twenty-two like Tonks, when Sirius and James had laughed and joked about their missions with the same lightheartedness, with the same unthinking bravery, with the same utter lack of understanding of what was to come.

Remus himself was feeling anything but light-hearted when he rose on the morning of the 12th of August, the day of Harry's hearing. He stumbled down to the kitchen and started making coffee. Tonks was coming off night duty; she would need it. And Molly and Sirius had both been in a bad way the night before.

He was already sitting at the table, reading yesterday's Daily Prophet, when Arthur came in, followed closely by Sirius, who was muttering to himself and did not look as if he had gotten any sleep.

"Molly'll be down in a minute," yawned Arthur. "She's just rapping on Harry's door."

There was a clatter in the front hallway.

"Damn that girl!" exclaimed Sirius.

"Stains of dishonor, filthy half-breeds . . ." came the high-pitched roar from the portrait of Mrs. Black.

"Want help?" asked Remus without enthusiasm.

"No, I'll take care of it."

As Sirius went out, Molly bustled into the kitchen in a quilted violet dressing gown that emphasized every flaw in her figure. Arthur looked at her fondly. "Good morning," she said resolutely, surveying the table, which bore three coffee cups and several crumby plates from the previous night. "Aren't you eating anything?"

"Oh," said Remus, embarrassed. "I—um—I forgot." Arthur brushed the sleep out of his eyes as Molly began to assemble a meal.

"Long sleeves in August, Remus?" whispered Tonks, sliding into the chair next to him and yawning broadly. She was wearing her "Weird Sisters" T-shirt, cut-off jeans that displayed her slender legs, and a garish purple kerchief tied round blonde, curly hair. "Whatever were you thinking?"

"I'm an old fuddy-duddy," shrugged Remus. "I may dress shabbily, but I dress properly."

"Couple o' spells and I could redesign those clothes for you in a minute," suggested Tonks. Remus shook his head.

"Don't bother," interjected Sirius. "Moony is actually proud of his grey hair."

"If I could morph other people—" began Tonks.

Remus smiled. Having lived with James and Sirius, he recognized an empty threat when he heard one.

Tonks caught his eye and smiled daringly. She pulled out her wand and struck Remus lightly on the top of his head. "Accio grey! Remus transformus!" Nothing happened, but Remus burst out laughing.

The tension broke for a moment, as Molly shoved steaming bowls of porridge and fruit before them. Tonks played with hers, stirring the fruit into the cereal and diving after it with her spoon. "Rufus Scrimgeour," she yawned, "has been asking me questions—" She yawned again.

"Yes?"

"He saw me—" yawn "—going into the Ministry the other night . . ."

Harry crept into the kitchen looking pale and young and eager to disappear.

"Breakfast," exclaimed Molly, jumping to her feet.

"M-m-morning, Harry," yawned Tonks. "Sleep all right?"

"Yeah," said Harry, staring at Tonks, who was almost drowning in yawns.

"I've b-b-been up all night," she explained. "Come and sit down . . ."

Harry looked slightly sick, though not uncurious about why Tonks had been up all night. Remus quickly changed the subject back to Scrimgeour.

In the end it was Arthur who tackled Harry. "How are you feeling?" he asked gently.

Harry shrugged.

"It'll all be over soon. In a few hours' time you'll be cleared." Arthur paused. Harry said nothing. "The hearing's on my floor, in Amelia Bones's office. She's Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement and she's the one who'll be questioning you."

"Amelia Bones is okay, Harry," said Tonks, comfortingly. "She's fair, she'll hear you out."

"Don't lose your temper," interjected Sirius. "Be polite and stick to the facts."

"The law's on your side," Remus pointed out. "Even underage wizards are allowed to use magic in life-threatening situations."

Harry just nodded silently, jumping only when Molly tackled him with a wet comb.

"I think we'll go now," said Arthur, checking his watch. "We're a bit early, but I think you'll be better off there than hanging around here."

"Okay," said Harry docilely.

"You'll be all right, Harry," said Tonks, brushing his arm.

"Good luck," said Remus. "I'm sure it will be fine."

"And if it's not," growled Sirius, "I'll see to Amelia Bones for you . . ."

Remus did not want to think about what Sirius would do if the hearing did not turn out well. He did not want to think about what he would have to do, what would have to be done. But he did, on the whole, think Tonks looked nice in cut-off jeans.

Molly threw a party for Ron and Hermione, the new Gryffindor prefects, on the last night before the new term. It could—though Remus took jolly good care not to say this aloud, especially not in front of Sirius or Molly—it could have been a party for Harry too, who stood the unexpected ordeal of trial by the full Wizengamot for repelling dementors that had certainly had no business in Little Whinging. Even Dumbledore did not know why they had been there. Remus was relieved that Dumbledore had not made Harry a prefect; he felt obscurely that further political complications—even if they amounted only to machinations among fifteen-year-old prefects—could not make Harry safer.

It was a strange little party. Tonks was enjoying herself, telling silly stories of her Hogwarts days to Ginny and Hermione; Remus wished he could join them. Kingsley was determinedly talking shop. And Mad-Eye was carrying around the photograph. It had been taken at some forgotten gathering of the Order, oh, sixteen, seventeen years ago. Remus had not looked at the thing in fourteen years, not since that bitter night—waxing moon—when he sat up drinking with Mad-Eye and Minerva and Elphias Doge as their dead friends waved to them eerily from the photo. Now Mad-Eye was showing it to Harry . . .

And now, as Harry melted out the door, he was showing it to Sirius and to Kingsley. Sirius liked the photograph. Sirius liked living in the past. Remus sat back in his chair, thinking of his friends who were yet alive. Alastor, when he had two eyes. Frank and Alice, when they had their wits. Sirius, when he still knew how to laugh . . .

From the living room came a series of cracks and the sounds of a woman keening. Remus jumped and ran, Mad-Eye and Sirius hot on his heels. Harry, dead on the floor; Harry, alive and anxious, beside the door; Molly transfixed, moaning faintly, wand in hand.

"Riddikulus!" said Remus firmly, demolishing the boggart. Molly burst into tears.

"Molly," he said bleakly, "Molly, don't . . ." He took her in his arms. "Molly, it was just a boggart. Just a stupid boggart . . ."

"I see them d-d-dead all the time!" sobbed Molly. "All the t-t-time! I d-d-dream about it . . . D-d-don't tell Arthur," she gulped. "I d-d-don't want him to know . . . Being silly . . ." Remus took out his handkerchief and handed it to her. She blew her nose. "Harry, I'm so sorry, what must you think of me?" she asked, slightly more coherently. "Not even able to get rid of a stupid boggart . . ."

"Don't be stupid," said Harry, helplessly.

"I'm just s-s-so worried. Half the f-f-family's in the Order, it'll b-b-be a miracle if we all come through this . . . . and P-P-Percy's not talking to us . . . What if something d-d-dreadful happens and we had never m-m-made up? And what's going to happen if Arthur and I get killed, who's g-g-going to look after Ron and Ginny?"

"Molly, that's enough," said Remus. "This isn't like last time. The Order are better prepared, we've got a head start, we know what Voldemort's up to . . . Oh, Molly, come on, it's about time you got used to hearing it—look, I can't promise no one's going to get hurt, nobody can promise that, but we're much better off than we were last time, you weren't in the Order then, you don't understand, last time we were outnumbered twenty to one by the Death Eaters and they were picking us off one by one . . ."

"Don't worry about Percy," said Sirius abruptly. "He'll come round." His brother, thought Remus abruptly. Sirius is thinking about his brother. "It's a matter of time before Voldemort moves into the open; once he does, the whole Ministry's going to be begging us to forgive them. And I'm not sure I'll be accepting their apology," he muttered.

"And as for who's going to look after Ron and Ginny if you and Arthur died," said Remus, "what do you think we'd do, let them starve?"

Molly smiled faintly. "Being silly," she murmured, mopping her eyes, "being silly . . ."

"Everything okay?" asked Kingsley when Remus returned to the kitchen.

"Molly has a nasty boggart."

"The First War took a lot out of her, didn't it?"

"Her brothers," said Remus briefly.

Kingsley nodded. "And Sirius too—or was that all Azkaban? Hestia said she wouldn't have known him again."

"There's a bit of history there," said Remus quietly. He was very, very tired.

"So I gather," chuckled Kingsley. "Sounds like Snuffles was a randy dog."

Remus shrugged. "Hestia was a bit wild herself in those days." Hestia Jones was a Muggle-born witch who had been just one year above them at Hogwarts. Remus remembered her regaling the Gryffindor common room with jazzy tales of the sexual libertinism she had witnessed at home. Her mother was a folk singer, and her father was head gardener for a commune that subsisted chiefly on marijuana and root vegetables; she had seen quite a lot. Such had been London in the 1970s. He remembered Hestia being reprimanded for her language and her miniskirts. Professor McGonagall did not let the mores of the Muggle world intrude far into the Gryffindor common room. Aloud, he said, "It was a different era."

"There was a war on then, you mean?" asked Kingsley, in a tone that implied there was a war on now.

Remus, who remembered the horrors of the First War more fully than Kingsley could, said simply, "Yes. And on the other side—the Muggle side—it was the 1970s. A wild era in human history."

"Even for you, Professor Lupin?" piped up a sweet, young female voice. Remus jumped. Ginny? Hermione? He would not have spoken so plainly if he had realized the children could hear him.

But the speaker was Tonks. She sidled up to them, smiling, shaking a curtain of red hair that, to Remus, still whispered Lily rather than Ginny. And she was, technically, an adult.

"For me," he said, a little sadly, "for me, it was wild in all the wrong ways."

They saw the children onto the Hogwarts train at King's Cross the next morning. Remus breathed a sigh of relief when the warning whistle sounded. "Well, good luck to them!" said Tonks, waving to Ginny, who had just opened the compartment window. "And bad luck to us. It'll be duller without the kids around."

The beginning of the school year necessitated new potion arrangements as well. Ever since the Order had been recalled, Severus Snape had been delivering the Wolfsbane Potion regularly to Grimmauld Place—not without some grousing. But this was an unsatisfactory solution at best: Snape was needed elsewhere, on assignments more pressing than potion brewing. After a good deal of consultation, Snape broke the Wolfsbane Potion into three component parts, two liquids and the chopped wolfsbane, that could be prepared in advance and combined just before the potion was drunk. This task usually fell to Molly or Tonks. Remus had floundered through NEWT-level Potions under Horace Slughorn's indifferent eye, but he was well aware that it was only Lily's patient, reassuring tutelage that had secured him an "Acceptable." Molly, on the other hand, had done well in Potions and had honed her expertise considerably in the process of raising seven rowdy, accident-prone children. And Tonks, somewhat surprisingly, turned out to be a potions whiz.

"It's so much easier than cooking," she explained happily to Remus. "I'm dead clumsy at cooking—it's something in the wrist—but potion brewing is precise. You follow the instructions exactly, and you only have to worry about the final product works, not about how it looks or tastes or anything! Cooking is mostly wandwork, but potions is brainwork, you see—"

Remus, who was a good cook though a poor potioneer, smiled and held his tongue.

Remus's good opinion of Tonks was, he soon found, shared by wizards beyond the Order. One September afternoon he was sitting with a sheaf of notes outside Florean Fortescue's ice cream parlor in Diagon Alley, waiting for Tonks to bring him her weekly update on the activities of the Auror Office, when a familiar voice hailed him.

Alfred Bones was the much older half-brother of Edgar and Amelia Bones, whom Remus had known in the First War, and the uncle of a certain Carrie Bones, whom he had known at Hogwarts. He was a research healer at St. Mungo's, where he explored rare magical diseases and conditions. When Remus was seventeen, Dumbledore had imported Alfred Bones to give a short course of lectures on experimental potions at Hogwarts. Remus had greeted this news with profound indifference, but Lily enthused about Healer Bones and dragged James and Remus to every lecture, as well as a couple of highly intellectual tea parties in the potions study. By the time Bones departed, Remus had developed a keen appreciation of his gruff good nature, if not of his intellectual pioneering. When the Wolfsbane Potion first became available, Remus had sought him out and listened with gratitude for two hours as Bones explained the potion's composition and effects in words of one syllable.

"How are you doing, Remus?" asked Healer Bones. "I haven't often seen you hanging around ice cream parlors. Not even as a young buck."

"Just waiting for a friend," Remus explained. "Have you seen a young witch, probably in rather wrinkly robes, with pink hair? Or possibly blue hair? Or violet?"

Bones did a double-take. "You know Nymphadora Tonks?"

"You know her too?"

"She was one of the brightest students I ever taught. She would have been a natural for healing, of course, but she seemed absolutely set on becoming an Auror."

"She's a marvelous Auror," said Remus loyally.

"I can well imagine it. She's a living marvel, that girl."

Remus grinned. "With pink hair."

"Exactly," said Healer Bones. "With pink hair."

Author note: Hmm . . . do you want to know who Carrie Boneswas? Read my story, "Carrie." It's very short!