Remus didn't see or hear from Tonks again at all that day. The Howler he'd expected never came, and so as he went downstairs for the Order meeting, he could barely contain his amusement at the thought that she still didn't have the faintest idea what was going on. Either that, he thought, or she was going to exact some kind of spectacular revenge during the meeting….
Tonks was already at the table, talking to Kingsley and Sirius, when Remus pushed open the door and stepped into the kitchen. She looked up, having obviously been waiting for him to appear, and he offered her a quick, tight-lipped smile that could either serve as apology or embarrassed grimace, depending on the state of her memory and whether or not she intended to hex his balls off. She smiled back and offered him a tentative "Wotcher," leaving him to surmise that she, in fact, couldn't remember a thing. He pressed his lips together to keep from laughing, turning his head slightly so she wouldn't see the effort keeping a straight face was costing him.
"Tonks," he returned flatly.
He cleared his throat to dislodge the laughter that was brewing there, and then swallowed, mock-nervously, and slid into a chair on the opposite side of the table, steadfastly refusing to meet her eye.
He'd resolved to tell her the truth – well, that wasn't entirely true. He'd resolved that he should tell her the truth, but now that he was faced with her concerned expression and the eager kindness he knew lay behind it…. He didn't want to be cruel, but he couldn't help thinking that confessing all now would just be a wasted opportunity. And if he was honest, he was intrigued to see how much more he might be able to get away with before she rumbled him.
Remus avoided Tonks' eyes all the way through the Order meeting, silently plotting what his next move should be. He wondered if there might be more mileage in making her squirm….
By the time the meeting was drawing to a close, he'd decided that it might just be better to follow her lead, to see how she intended to handle things, and take it from there.
He said polite, clipped goodbyes to everyone and shuffled away down the corridor and up the stairs to the drawing room. He selected a book and opened it in his lap, fingering the edge of a page as if he was just about to turn it. And then he waited for her to come and find him.
Soon enough, he heard Tonks trip over the last step, swear quietly to herself, and then hesitate outside the door. She paced for a few moments, and then took a deep breath, let it out as a quick sigh, and pushed the door open.
"Wotcher," she said, quietly, as she edged into the room, closing the door behind her.
"Hello."
Out of the corner of his eye he could see her staring at her feet, scuffing a threadbare patch in the carpet with her toe, while he pretended – quite obviously – to be engrossed in the book in his lap. The silence stretched, and by the time she spoke, the tension in the room was so thick he could barely make out her words through it. "How are you?" she asked.
"Fine, thank you," he replied. He delivered his line rather stiffly, as if he was painfully embarrassed and trying not to show it. To compound the effect, he threw her another obviously forced, tight-lipped smile, barely glancing up from the book he was obviously pretending to be reading.
"You don't seem fine," she said.
Remus stayed quiet, staring intently at the print on the page in his lap. "Are you still feeling a bit odd about last night?" she said. He looked up to find her eyeing him with the same concern she'd had that morning, but as soon as he met her eye she straightened up and squared her shoulders, obviously trying to indicate that she was utterly unflustered and not feeling odd in the slightest.
"Odd?" he said.
"Yeah."
He fixed his face into a picture of embarrassed incredulity, deciding that a touch more guilt might not go amiss, and that there was a chance he could maybe turn up his dejection a bit. "Last night I shared something with you I'd never shared with anyone before, and you don't even remember it," he said quietly, nervously fingering the edges of the shabby volume in his hands. " 'Odd' barely begins to cover it."
She opened her mouth to say something, but he cut her off before she had a chance. "I really would be more comfortable not talking about this," he said, laying the bait.
"I don't think that's really an option, though, is it?" she said, taking it, as he'd hoped she would. After all, if she abided by his wishes and left him alone, it wouldn't be very much fun. "If we carry on acting weird around each other, people'll know something's up. We've got to work together, if nothing else."
Remus wondered what on earth she meant by 'if nothing else', but he was saved the trouble of really thinking about it when Tonks decided to plough on. "Everyone feels a bit weird after – you know – the first time."
Remus rolled his eyes to disguise the smile in them at how desperately she was trying to make him feel better. Of course he couldn't let her off the hook that easily, though. "Please don't make this worse by patronising me," he said.
"I wasn't – "
"I already feel like the most spectacularly pathetic human being ever to roam the planet…. I mean I've never exactly been over-confident or brimming with ego," he said, "but this is the first time something's happened to put me below nothing in those stakes."
He wondered if he'd gone too far, been too dejected and possibly a little melodramatic, but Tonks crossed the room and perched beside him on the sofa, her expression teetering precariously close to having to be described as one of anguish. He leant heavily on the arm of the sofa, covering his mouth with his hand and breathing heavily against his fingers in what he hoped looked more like embarrassed consternation than amusement.
"I'm really sorry I don't remember," she said.
"It's all right," he said. "You don't need to explain. If I'd slept with me I'd probably want to block it out too."
"That's not it at all. I'm sure it was – "
She faltered, and he wondered what words she was debating using. Fine? Lovely? Perfectly adequate? What did she think going to bed with him would be like? "But that's the thing, isn't it?" he said, deciding that he probably didn't want to know. "You have no idea what it was, and it's not as if I have anything to compare it to."
"Look," she said, placing a hand gingerly on his arm. "I'm sure it's nothing personal…."
"Nothing personal?" he said, meeting her eye with a touch of horror that she would suggest such a thing in his.
"I mean – I'm sure I wouldn't have remembered anybody."
He gritted his teeth together to keep from laughing. "Is that supposed to make me feel better?" he said, adopting a miffed tone to go with his expression. Tonks blinked a couple of times, utterly taken aback.
"Well, yes," she said. He sighed and closed his eyes, unable to look at her any longer if he wasn't going to give the game away.
"I think I really did prefer not talking about this," he said.
She took a deep breath, letting it out slowly through her mouth as if she was steeling herself to say something she really didn't want to. "Look, Remus," she said, glancing nervously at her lap. "I'm bloody useless at this kind of thing. In fact, I'm probably the single worst person in the entire Northern hemisphere that you could've chosen to do this with – I never know what to say normally, let alone in a – you know – delicate situation like this…." She trailed off, looking a bit dejected herself as she spread her hands across her lap in apology.
He was about to say something when she straightened up, having obviously given herself a mental shake. "But I – you – I mean we – did this and now we're just going to have to deal with it," she said. He smiled a little to himself at her sincerity, hoping she wouldn't notice, and thinking that if this had happened for real, he couldn't have picked a better person. "And yes, it's awkward and embarrassing and a whole load of other things it probably shouldn't have been, but, you know, we're stuck with it, so…." She trailed off again. "Do you want a hug, or something?" she offered tentatively.
He let out a sniff of laughter before he could stifle it, and decided that he'd better nod just so he could hide from her gaze for a moment. She pulled him to her and he dropped his head onto her shoulder, hoping that she wouldn't feel his tell-tale grin through her clothes. She gave him a reassuring squeeze and then patted him brusquely on the back and let him go again.
She smiled at him a bit uncertainly, and he almost caved and told her the truth. "Sorry I've been a bit – " he started, but she shook her head.
"It's all right," she said. "It's not like I've got any brilliant ideas about how to handle this or what we're supposed to do next either."
The word 'next' sent a jolt right through him, but he'd barely registered it when she continued. "I mean it's not as if I go around randomly sleeping with people – "
She stopped, frowned slightly, and looked right at him. Her eyes narrowed slightly as she considered him, and even though he tried to keep his face impassive, trying to look as if he was just hanging on her every word, waiting for her to continue, he knew that he was probably giving himself away somehow.
After a moment, all traces of nervousness and apprehension drained from her face, and she raised a hand to her mouth. Between her fingers he could see the briefest traces of a smile, and he knew she'd figured him out. He couldn't help it. He grinned.
"You wouldn't," she said, although even as she uttered the words she didn't look like she believed them for a second. Her eyes widened and her jaw tensed as she drew in a long breath through a tight, astounded smile. He smiled back sheepishly, wincing in expectance of the tirade that was no doubt about to follow.
"Wouldn't I?" he returned.
"You were joking," she said, and he nodded.
For a minute she seemed to be contemplating the appropriate response. He supposed it was going to go one of two ways – either she'd have a bit of a rant and then see the funny side, or she'd take huge offence, hex him to hell and back and never speak to him again. Her eyes darkened momentarily in anger, but her lips were fluctuating between a smile she was obviously desperately trying to suppress and open-mouthed indignation, leaving him to think that he was probably in for the former. "You git!" she said, her voice squashed and high-pitched, shaking with something he desperately hoped was suppressed amusement. He tried to look suitably admonished, even though he desperately wanted to roar with laughter. "You complete and utter git!"
She grabbed a cushion from the sofa and smacked him with it, catching him a little unawares with her first blow to the side of his face. "Do you have any idea how guilty I felt today?" she said, highlighting every other word with a cushion blow. He made a noise of question before dissolving into laughter as she pummelled him, and he cowered back into the arm of the sofa, trying to dodge her blows as best he could. He raised his arms, defending himself with the book he'd been pretending to read, sniggering wildly. Her eyes roved his face, taking in his amusement. She glared at him, although he couldn't help feeling that it was slightly tempered by the glimmer of merriment in her eyes.
"I practically paced a hole in the bloody carpet in my office worrying about you!" she said.
"About me?" he said. "Really, you shouldn't have."
"Oh well I know that now," she said, and even though her mouth was forming an open smile, her tone was a little huffy. "I can't believe you – you total, total bastard," she muttered as she took a couple of swipes at his head with the cushion.
She whacked him on the shoulder for good measure and then folded the cushion to her chest, twisting it in her hands. She took a few heavy, laboured breaths. "In fact," she said, "you're so far beyond a bastard that they haven't even invented a word for what you are."
He wondered if he dared….
"Actually," he said, biting his lip against his amusement, "I believe the term you're looking for is Marauder."
She cocked her head and glowered, narrowing her eyes at him in a way he supposed he was supposed to find threatening. He sniggered and ducked instinctively, but the blow he was expecting never came. "I suppose you'd forgotten," he added, gingerly lowering his defensive book and sitting up a little straighter, edging a little closer.
"No," she said. "I just assumed you were the one they let hang around with them so they had someone to help them with their homework."
"Well now you know," he said.
"Yes, now I know. Bastard."
He was about to leap in with an apology, but she cut him off. "I take the hug back, by the way," she said, tersely. She folded her arms and hugged the cushion to her, practically quivering with either amusement or annoyance, he couldn't quite tell which. He let her seethe for a moment, if that was what she was doing, hoping that eventually she'd see the funny side.
"What gave me away?" he asked, grinning at her tentatively.
"Apart from your annoyingly smug expression?" she said.
"Yes, apart from that."
She sighed, and he suspected that she was as frustrated with herself for falling for it as with him for tricking her. "When I said that I didn't go around randomly sleeping with people, I remembered what you said when we were outside the Malfoys'."
"Ah," he said. "What I said about not going around accidentally sleeping with people."
"Yeah," she said. "It wasn't a virgin's answer."
She picked at the cushion cover for a moment, and he felt slightly bad for the cushion, taking the flak for something he'd done. "I should have spotted it straight away," she said. "If I hadn't been feeling so bloody guilty – " she paused to poke him rather viciously on the shoulder.
"Ow," he said, as he shied away far too late.
" – about robbing you of your innocence or whatever, I probably would've done."
He smiled. "Sorry," he said. "When you woke up and said you couldn't remember anything, I just couldn't resist it."
"Next time would you mind trying harder?" she said.
He suppressed the urge to laugh, feeling that his amusement at her anger might not be appreciated. "You were very nice about it," he said.
"Of course I was," she said. "I thought I'd gotten drunk and practically forced you to shag me."
"I meant that – " He wondered if he should really say what he was about to, but he felt, after everything he'd put her through, she deserved to have him say something complimentary, and it wasn't as if it wasn't true. "I meant that I think you're better at this kind of thing than you think you are. Much better."
She considered him for a moment, her eyes taking in every detail of his face, presumably to see if he was joking. He smiled at her, hoping that it looked as sincere as it felt. She rolled her eyes and looked away. "Better at this kind of thing than I thought I was," she said, "but obviously not quite as clever as I thought I was."
He chuckled quietly, and he could tell she was desperately trying to fight the urge to smile, and he knew that most of her anger had dissipated. She shook her head and sighed. "I should have seen right through you."
"Perhaps," he said. He couldn't resist teasing her a little more. "Maybe this'll teach you to make assumptions about people."
"What?"
"I take it you no longer think I'm boring?"
"Oh I still think you're boring," she said, her voice dancing. "Now I just think you're boring and a bastard."
He laughed quietly. "I suppose I'll settle for that," he said.
They were quiet for a while, and he watched Tonks toying with a thread on the cushion, wondering what she was thinking. "So nothing happened, then?" she said.
Remus almost couldn't believe his luck. He thought quickly about what to say next, raising an eyebrow at her and offering her his best suggestive smile. "Oh something happened all right," he said, "you just weren't my first."
Her mouth dropped open and her eyebrows shot up, as if the two were on some kind of pulley. It took a great deal of effort not to laugh.
He wasn't sure he'd really expected her to fall for it twice, but now she had, he didn't want to waste the opportunity. Remus twitched his eyebrows at her. "And I have to say," he said, "it's a shame you don't remember, because you seemed to be having quite a nice time."
"I'm sure it'll come back to me," she said in a dull monotone, eyes still a little too wide.
"Quite," he said. He covered his mouth with his hand to hide his grin.
He knew he shouldn't have done it, that he should have come clean, but he just couldn't resist it. She was inordinately fun to tease, and, besides anything else, he was intrigued to see how she might take the news. It hadn't been lost on him that at no point had she scoffed disbelievingly at the idea that she'd slept with him.
She pressed her lips together in thought for a moment, and then leaned back against the sofa arm, surveying him with quite obviously false casualness. "What did we do, then?" she asked, shifting a little in her seat.
"I don't kiss and tell, Tonks," he said.
"Not even with the girl in question?"
"Yes, well, normally the girl in question doesn't need to be told," he said, raising an eyebrow at her. "Normally she does me the courtesy of remembering."
She rolled her eyes at him. "So that's what all this was, then?" she said. "Payback for denting your masculine pride?"
He remained non-committal, although he was quite grateful to her for suggesting it, since it made a lot more sense than any of the explanations that had been running through his mind. "Look, I am sorry I don't remember," she said. "I was hammered. I'm sure it really is nothing personal."
He sighed, not troubling to hide his amusement. "So what happened?" she asked, blushing slightly.
"It was pretty much as I told you this morning," he said. He dropped his chin a little and peered up at her. "Only I didn't require much by the way of instruction," he added.
"Great," she said, crossing her arms and frowning. "So I got drunk and threw myself at you."
"It wasn't – "
"And you didn't try and stop me?" she said. The slightly accusatory tone to her voice caught any thoughts he might have had about protesting. He'd never intended for her to think that she'd thrown herself at him, simply that she'd made the first move, but since she had…. It was always better to play the cards someone else handed you.
He lowered his eyes and concentrated on the threads of binding that were coming away slightly from the spine of the book he was holding. He paused for a moment, and then raised his eyes back to hers. "I'm an old man, Tonks," he said slowly, his tone equal parts apology and flirtation, "not a dead man."
She swallowed. "And, well, you were pretty insistent," he added, with as much nonchalance as he could muster. She swallowed again.
"Insistent?" she asked warily.
"Yes," he said, sniggering softly. He met her eye and smiled. "I thought at one point we weren't even going to make it out of the kitchen."
"Really?"
"Well you did have me pinned to the doorframe."
"Did I?"
He rubbed at his shoulder and offered her his best mock-wince. "Actually," he said ruefully, "I think it's going to bruise."
She blushed. Merlin, he thought, she's adorable when she does that. "Sorry," she mumbled.
"It's all right," he said, looking away, smiling slightly to himself. "I didn't mind."
"Oh," she said slowly.
He'd given her just enough hints to make of it what she would, and much as he'd like to stick around and watch her squirm as she processed this new information, he thought that this was definitely a lie and run situation.
"Well," he said, "anyway…."
He set the book he'd used as a prop on the arm of the sofa, and got to his feet. She looked up, smiling cautiously. "What are we going to do, then?" she said.
"Talk about it in the morning?" he said, and she nodded. He'd let her stew overnight, he thought, and then tell her the truth.
Probably.
"Goodnight," he said.
He managed to contain his laughter all the way to his bedroom, where he cast a quick silencing charm and then roared with laughter.
A/N: Many, many thanks to everyone who reviewed the last chapter. Anyone who reviews this one gets a pillow fight with Marauder Remus ;).
