Tonks was curled up on the couch near a window in the sitting room of The Order's headquarters. She was lost in her book and dull sunlight was pouring in through the big old window. She neither looked up or noticed when a familiar figure entered the room quietly.

"Oh, Nymphadora! The meeting is starting," Remus Lupin told her. Tonks looked up at his soft, kind face and her heart melted and jumped and sank into her stomach all at once. She recalled how she came to be stuck in a place she didn't want to be with this man. That place was love.

After the fight at the Ministry of Magic Tonks had been sulking in her room, worried about too many things to name and mostly sad for Sirius. It was dark in her room but sleep didn't come. It never did.

She was lying on her bed on top of her covers; eyes wide open, facing away from the door. Remus opened the door and came to sit on the bed.

"Nymphadora, you need to sleep," He said gently, laying his hand on her forehead. His hand was rough but soft, if that makes any sense.

"No," Tonks grumbled, her face buried in her pillow.

"At least come down and eat," he said firmly.

"Not hungry," Tonks insisted.

"Then you're going to sleep. I'm going to make sure of it," He said. Then he laid back on the bed and sat with his hands folded in front of him.

He comforted her, just his presence. He made her feel safe, like nothing could hurt her. She shivered as she realized there were loads of things that could hurt her.

"What's wrong?" Remus asked, seeing her shiver.

"A bit cold," she lied. Then she moved a tiny inch closer to him and fell asleep.

The next morning Tonks woke up, one hand on Remus's chest, her face in his shoulder and her body snuggled against him. She quickly stood up and realized that he was asleep.

She smiled serenely and walked out the door.

In present time Tonks put down her book and sighed.

"Don't call me Nymphadora," she said quietly, without any feeling. He gave her a weak smile and turned to leave, but she hurried to catch up with him. They walked in expectant silence for a while.

'She's so sad. Is it a result of what happened at the Ministry?' Remus wondered, 'Sirius dying? Stress?'

Remus was worried. She just didn't seem her usual spunky self, and then there was her hair. It hung limp around her shoulders in all of its mousy brown glory. Scratch that, it's definitely not glory, thought Remus.

"How's Harry?" Tonks asked before they went into the kitchen for the meeting.

"Fine. Molly said he's spending the summer at The Burrow," Remus said distractedly.

"I know, I was there when he… I mean I was visiting Molly… when he got there… business, just Order stuff… you know…" Tonks covered up her lie badly.

The day after she realized that she was overly fond of Remus, she had gone to Molly's house and confided in her. Molly comforted her, but warned her of the risks. The same risks that she had known for a while now. The same risks that made no difference to Tonks.

"This may be the last time in a while that we're here. The Order is going to have to be out there in the action, and we'll have to leave. Everyone does, since we don't know if Lestrange or Harry inherited the house from Sirius," Remus added as an afterthought.

"I just hope I'm stationed somewhere interesting," Tonks replied simply as she walked in and took a seat.

Albus Dumbledore, head of The Order and the greatest wizard of the time, stood at the head of the table. The twinkle in his eyes had become determined, rather then humorous these days. Not much humor left in the world, Tonks thought bitterly, glancing sideways at Remus. She knew he was too old, too poor, too dangerous. She had heard the words so many times that they were pounded meaninglessly into her head, playing like a broken record whenever she looked at him. I don't care! She wanted to scream. I don't care! I DON'T CARE!

"More dementor attacks, three more actually. It's getting worse," someone was talking.

"I don't care!" Tonks suddenly spoke.

"What?" Kingsley Shacklebolt, who had been speaking, turned to her, baffled.

"You don't care about dementor attacks?" Remus whispered from the seat next to her. She shivered from the closeness of him, the smell of books and chocolate and baked bread wafting off of him dreamily.

Then she came back to earth, blushing furiously about her runaway thoughts and her sudden outburst to her inner voices.

"Sorry, continue," She said with a forced smile.

"Let's move on to stations," Dumbledore suggested knowingly, "Nymphadora, since you are being assigned by the ministry to guard Hogwarts, I suggest you go along with them. Keep an eye on Harry. Dawlish is stationed there too, I believe? Keep an eye on him as well. We have reason to suspect… Well just please keep an eye out for anything suspicious."

"Always the boring jobs," Tonks thought.

Dumbledore went on to assign stations to the rest of the Order and Tonks tuned out. She was brought back to earth with a jolt at Remus's name.

"Remus, I think it would best suit our needs for you to work…" Dumbledore coughed, "…undercover for a while."

Remus looked up at Dumbledore sadly.

"Of course, of course," Remus nodded dutifully. He was going undercover with the werewolves. Fenrir Greyback could kill him, or any of those other beasts! Tonks leaned over to Remus.

"Let me talk to you tonight privately before you leave, in the drawing room?" she whispered. He nodded. He looked sick and she felt a rush of sympathy for this man who made her so happy.

Tonight she was going to tell him how she felt. She was in love with Remus.

That night Tonks was sitting in a big chair in the drawing room, nervously fiddling with her hair. This was probably the most emotion she'd felt since she'd fallen in love. Wasn't love supposed to make you happy? Dumb irony.

Then Tonks looked up to see the familiar form of Remus hovering in the doorway.

"What is it that you wanted to talk to me about," he asked, sounding nervous himself.

"Well… I'll get straight to the point," She told him. He nodded encouragingly.

"That would be nice," He said. She took a breath to steady her furiously beating heart.

"I- I love you," She breathed out.