A/N: All right... Here is the next chapter! Sorry Tonks... I make her cry a lot more than I want to. But this is leading up to the time when she can't morph any more, so I suppose it makes sense. Usual disclaimers apply.
Moonbugg: spins around in little circles Thank you! I love it when people review more than once so you know that people are actually bothering to read your story. I agree completely - "Poor old Tonks".
eleen: Dogs can.. uh... prickle their ears?
Loz: Thanks for the support!
Augurey Song: Thanks for picking up on that. I don't actually pay a lot of attention to how I term some of my stuff, but you are absolutely right.
FetishFemale: Not many to go! I've been writing in most of my spare time, this chapter took quite a while with a the tweaking and whatnot. Great to see somebody who keeps up with my stories, thank you! 6
I hate it when you make me laugh;
Even worse when you make me cry.
"Oomph." A muffled thud is instantly joined by the sounds of people laughing. Sitting up in the drawing room, I do my best to death-glare Charlie, Bill and Remus. "Very graceful, Tonks." Bill's voice is high with suppressed laughter. "Thank you, Bill. I happen to consider this as one of my more elegant sprawls." He cracks up again, rubbing his eyes and wheezing for air. Charlie, crass as always, speaks next. "Nice knickers, Tonks. Wouldn't have thought you'd wear such a meaningful colour."
Rising from the floor like the avenging angel (and pulling up my low cut jeans to conceal my lacy black undies), I point my wand threateningly at them. "I'm an auror, and I'm not discriminate about who I choose to use spells against, Charlie. And you, Bill." They stop sniggering with, it seems, some effort. I stalk to the couch facing the fire and stare into it moodily.
"Nymphadora, it's childish to sulk." I feel my cheeks flaming. His cultured voice is amicable and polite. But did he think I was childish? Yes – that must be it. Anybody who spends half their day breaking, spilling and tripping over things and wears hair the colour of grass is, I suppose, childish. I don't want to be childish, but I do love my neon green spikes. "I'm not sulking," I say in my best I'm-a-lady-not-a-complete-moron voice, lifting my head in the ladylike way my mother tried in vain (until now) to teach me.
His laughter is unlike Charlie's or Bill's. It's not deeper or more resonant, but has a strange lilt to it, with maybe a hint of a growl. Unable to resist, I laugh along with him. Standing up and stretching out in front of the fire to warm myself more fully, I catch a fleeting glance of Charlie's face and hitch up my pants again before he can comment. Bill looks wryly amused but doesn't comment either. Remus, unsurprisingly, has his face stuck in a book. From the title – How To Go Muggle Hunting In Secret – I know it's one from the library here.
The image of Remus sneaking up behind a tottering Muggle grandma makes me laugh again, very hard. My laughter isn't very ladylike. Not at all. Punctured with squeals, odd sounds and gasps for air, it's been described to me as "a pig on a large dose of sugar and alcohol". She then went on to hint subtly that she thought I was just that. She also claims her nose has never been the same since. And I still maintain that she walked into a suit of armour. Don't see why Professor McGonnagall refused to believe me – I mean, I do it all the time!
Remus' amber eyes look gold in the dancing firelight. I've never seen that before. Correction – I've seen it lots of times, in fact, almost every night, but each time still feels like the first. And as always, it's after a minute of staring that I realise what seeing his eyes mean. He's looking at me. Yeah. No, I'm not thick… Well, OK, that's actually debateable. But that's not the point; Remus is looking at me with a half amused expression on his face while I'm gawking like somebody from Mars who'd never seen a man before.
One eyebrow is raised, half hidden in the grey-flecked strands that tumble from his hairline. His book is still held up in one of his long fingered hands, framing the bottom of his neck beautifully, and he is looking at me over the top of it. It's such a natural look, yet so elegant and graceful and… regal, maybe, in spite of his threadbare robes. Or maybe not, I've never really had a way with words like he does and half the time my mouth doesn't obey my brain. Had I ever submitted to my mother's whims and learned to draw and paint "like a proper lady should do", I would rush off right now and commit that pose to paper, frame it and hang it up on the kitchen wall.
Feeling very much like a prat, I flounced up to the couch he was sitting on and perched on the armrest right next to him. Lowering my head to the same level as his, I locked my gaze with his and made my eyes the exact same colour, just to make it confusing. It is a unique experience, actually, staring into your own eyes when it's not the mirror in front of you. "What, Remus? You're laughing at me." I know he is. The lines around his mouth are raised, ever so slightly, in that direction and so are the ones around his eyes. This is his I'm-hiding-the-fact-that-I'm-laughing-at-you-because-I'm-so-goddamned-polite look.
"I'm not." His voice is pleasant and calm with only the slightest hint of amusement. This is one hell of an actor. But it's not his fault; living with a mask is probably just the easiest way of dealing with things for him. I don't want to keep thinking about the lame excuse for a life he's been given, so I keep up the happy façade for him. "You may not be laughing openly, Remus… But you are inside. I can seeee insiiide, my dear…" I tried to make my last sentence as misty and Sibyl Trelawny-like as possible. He gives an uncharacteristic snort of laughter, and pats my head.
"Go to bed, Nymph. That's enough for today." In the friendliest way, and completely without meaning to, he can make me feel like a child again. But I'm not a child, and so I lean closer until our noses are almost touching and demand, "Why? Is it too late for me to be up, Mr. Lupin?" The light-hearted sarcasm doesn't have the intended effect. He frowns, and not openly either. This man hides so much, and even after a year I still can't work out some of his masks.
I draw back and nudge his calf with one of my dangling feet. "I'm not a child, Remus." His face is unreadable, now. A small crease is between his eyebrows, another at the side of his lips, which are pressed together ever so slightly. I'll have to work out what this one means some time soon, he's been wearing it quite a lot lately. When he speaks, his voice betrays no emotion whatsoever – to anybody listening (i.e. Charlie and Bill) we were just two good friends enjoying some light banter.
"But you may as well be, you know. You are the youngest one on our team, and, well, I can't help but feel that way. You're 13 years younger than I am, and I'm not the oldest here." There he goes again. Sometimes I almost lose all hope of breaking through his shields. But no, I can't. Nymphadora Tonks gets what she wants unless she gets seriously injured in the attempt. And Remus wouldn't injure anybody, so I'm not giving up any time soon.
"Go get some rest, N'Dora, you have night watch after work tomorrow." Does he know how patronising he is? "You need to as well, you know, Remus. You have night watch with me." He does, and his face is the hidden-surprise one. I know I have it with him because, after some wrangling and making up excuses with Mad-Eye, I managed to make sure that we were always on the same night shift. Heh.
"But you, unlike me, have work tomorrow as well. I, unlike you, can always sleep during the day." I seriously contemplate pouring his mug of tea over his head. But he would probably just wave his wand and restore everything to its former state, and send me up to bed for being naughty, without even changing the tone of his voice. I pout, and direct my gaze downwards onto his book. It has a moving diagram of a wizard dropping down from a tree branch onto a Muggle on a horse.
"You know, Remus, I would have thought I was more interesting than a Muggle-hunting book. Anyway, I don't want to go to bed." Without you, is the part I wisely refrain from saying. I don't want him to choke to death on tea right now. His eyes glint with either amusement or irritation, and he turns to me with a calm, resigned face. "Do you want me to tuck you in?" I reach for his mug, but on the way to his hair I change my mind. Not wanting to pick it up and put it down like a moron, I take a few sips. I decide that tea is actually quite nice.
Remus is now wearing his politely-confused face. I sigh dramatically. "All right, I'll go to bed. Come and tuck me in." The snigger behind me alerts me to the presence of Charlie and Bill, who I'd totally forgotten about. I'm pretty sure the sound came from Charlie, so it's his head that the mug flies to and spills its contents over. When the empty mug comes sailing back, I put it onto the side table and drag Remus up and towards the door with me. He is now wearing his politely-bewildered face. As we walk past the couch the two Weasleys are sitting on, I see the flick of a wand one second too late.
"EEEEEH!" It would have been a spectacular, windmill-arms fall had Remus not hurriedly bent down and caught me. Pulling out my 12" weapon of mass destruction (or at least minor harassment), I point it at Charlie and prepare to assail him with a shower of slugs. Now wearing the politely-alarmed look, Remus nudges me towards the door before I aim properly and the shower falls on Bill instead. Roaring, Bill with indignation and Charlie with laughter, the two boys and I prepare to start war. Remus, caught by surprise and alone after I dart behind him for shelter, barely manages to wave his wand in time to deflect the purple pellets darting towards me. As I'm sheltering behind him, he is in the line of fire and shields both of us. Smart Tonksie.
It continues while I pull Remus towards the door by the back of his robes. Bill and Charlie shoot pellets at us and conjure shields in turn, while Remus holds his shield charm and I shoot slugs and pellets towards the two boys. For the finale, small birds shoot out of my wand and fly towards them. I slam the door before their falcon can follow us. Collapsing in laughter, I would have fallen again if Remus hadn't caught me. His politely-dazed look makes me laugh even harder. "Come on then, Remus. Bedtime, remember…"
Fifteen minutes later, Remus is tucking in the ends of my sheets neatly. It won't do any good as I sleep like a hyperactive bunny, but I can't be bothered telling him. I'm also miserable, the laughter from the war downstairs gone. Not that I had really expected anything else, but the harsh reality of Remus treating me like he's still babysitting a 5 year old is slightly… extremely… off putting. "Night, Dora." He leaves the room unceremoniously, stopping only to extinguish the candles with his wand.
Have I really regressed into childhood? Remus hasn't called me Dora since I was a 5 year old that he was,in fact, babysitting. Slowly, my neon green spikes wilt and become a mopey brown. The Grand Plan isn't working. He's meant to see me as an adult, not a little kid. Men don't fall in love with little kids, they fall in love with grown-up women. Damn. Maybe letting him tuck me in has really pushed me more towards the fatherly-interest realm and away from the romantic-interest one. Damn, damn, damn… A single tear rolls down my cheek, but I don't move to wipe it away because I want to keep the blankets exactly the way he left them.
I'm afraid that it will be about another week before I can get the next chapter up. I'm drowning in homework.. Save me!