Remus sighed as the kitchen door clicked closed and a thick layer of tension settled over the room. It was very late, but since Harry had arrived at Grimmauld Place a few hours earlier, an argument had been threatening to bubble up to the surface and now that the children had gone to bed, Molly was scowling openly at Sirius, who was staring back at her with narrowed eyes.

'You think we told them too much, do you, Molly?' Sirius challenged her. 'You think we should have just sent Harry and the others off to bed like good little children and told them nothing that's going on, nothing about the dangers we're all facing?'

Molly pursed her lips but said nothing.

'Because you're the only one who thinks so,' continued Sirius.

Molly looked at Sirius defiantly. 'That's not true. Dumbledore said he doesn't want Harry to know any more than he has to –'

'And that's all we've told him: what he has to know.'

'No, you crossed the line, Sirius … telling him about weapons and deaths … he doesn't need to hear that, he's been through enough!'

'And he's going to go through a lot more – none of us can prevent that no matter how we try to shield him! It's best if he knows what to expect, so he can be prepared.'

'But he's just a child!' Molly banged her goblet down on the table in frustration.

'We know, Molly,' Remus spoke up quietly. 'In an ideal world Harry wouldn't have to know about any of this. But what's happening is hardly ideal.'

'I suppose so.' Molly's eyes filled up with tears and Tonks, her face full of sympathy, laid a hand on her arm. Bill, on Molly's other side, put his arm around his mother.

Sirius looked both triumphant and horrified. 'I'm sorry, Molly. I don't want to argue about this, I'm just trying to do what's right for Harry. I know what he's like – and yes, you know him too. He would never be happy to live in ignorance and let us get on with it – he'd probably get himself into trouble trying to find out what Voldemort's doing.'

'He might be safer knowing what's going on,' Arthur agreed gently.

Molly gave a slight sob, wiping her eyes on a napkin. 'I still think we need to be careful how much we tell them all.'

'Of course, Molly,' Arthur assured her. 'Now then, it's late and we're all tired. I think we should all go to bed. Things will look brighter in the morning.'

Molly and Arthur left the kitchen and Bill said goodbye before heading home to his own flat. Remus was left sitting at the table with Sirius and Tonks, neither of whom looked like they felt like moving. Remus himself was exhausted – it had been a very long day, and it was also only a few days till full moon, which always drained him of energy – but he felt glued to his chair as well.

'You didn't need to attack her like that, Sirius,' he found himself saying in a rather harsher tone that he had intended. Sirius looked at him in annoyance and Tonks, too, looked surprised at Remus's words. 'Molly was only looking out for Harry's best interests.'

'And I wasn't?' replied Sirius, bristling. He looked more annoyed with Remus than he had been with Molly, and Remus had to admit he could understand why.

'Of course you were. But this is all very hard for her –'

'Hard for her?' Sirius let out a sour laugh. 'Hard for her? Is she the one who has lost almost everything, who is reduced to hiding in his parents' old house, who can't do anything to help the Order? Harry is all I have left!' Sirius cried in a rasping voice.

'Come on, Sirius, be reasonable.'

'I will if she will, and you. Of all people, Remus, I thought you'd be on my side. Now if you'll both excuse me, I'm going to bed.' Sirius stomped from the room, leaving Remus with a bitter taste of guilt in his mouth.

He was almost shocked to find himself alone again with Tonks. He had been carefully avoiding that for several days now. He was even more surprised when he registered the look on her face.

'I never imagined you two fighting before,' Tonks said softly. She looked almost upset and Remus felt even more guilty. 'You seem like brothers.'

'Well, isn't that what brothers do – argue?' said Remus, giving her a weak grin. 'We used to fight all the time when we were younger. We rarely saw eye-to-eye. I think we were usually both vying for James's time. I suppose it was as though James was our older brother and we both wanted his attention.'

He felt himself smiling at the memory of it all. And Peter was like the much younger brother: idolizing James, jealous of Sirius and me for being closer to him ... But Remus could not bring himself to voice his thoughts on Peter … on Wormtail, rather. Remus did not like to think of that man as Peter anymore. Peter was the fifteen-year-old who had been loyal and kind to him, who had gone to the ends of the earth with the other two to help ease Remus's monthly burden. The man who had betrayed them all was not Peter. Not to Remus.

'I – I wish Sirius would talk to me like he talks with you,' said Tonks shyly.

'What – arguing and being rude?' he replied incredulously. Then his stomach turned over as she gave him her trademark eye-roll.

'No! Well, yes, actually. Just … all of it. He really opens up to you, Remus. You're the only one he will talk to.'

'Well, we have known each other for a long time. Much longer than we've known anyone else here.'

Her face fell. 'So it could take me years to get him to trust me.'

'I'm sure he'll come round sooner than that, Tonks.'

Remus was not quite sure why she was so intent on befriending Sirius: she seemed to be taking it to an extreme.

'I hope you're right. I really want him to be part of our family. If he gets his name cleared then he can see my mum again, she'd be over the moon!' Her face lit up and it was frightening how much it affected Remus to see her looking happy again: her smile made him feel warm from his head to his toes. He returned her cheerful grin and prayed once more, for the thousandth time in three days, that she would not guess how much it meant to him.

'It's funny, Remus. I always hang around here with the intention of talking to Sirius, and yet it's you I seem to end up chatting to.'

A short time later, Tonks went home and Remus slowly relaxed, the tension he always felt around her easing out of his system. He was heading to bed, assuming the rest of the house had long gone to sleep, when he heard muffled voices coming from Fred and George's bedroom. He thought nothing of it, smiling to himself at what Molly would say if she knew they were up talking at this hour, until he heard something peculiar.

'… always talking about guard duty. Dad said he was doing it tomorrow, but he told us he was just working. What do you think they're guarding?'

' … not sure … maybe a weapon …'

Remus paused outside the door, feeling slightly guilty for eavesdropping, which he realised was ridiculous considering how the children must have obtained the details of their subject matter. Remus had already suspected that the twins had kept a set of Extendable Ears, but now he was certain. He listened to their discussion for a few minutes, feeling slightly concerned, but he soon established that they had only overheard fragments of the Order's conversations and had very few details of any importance. He was slightly amused at the far-fetched theories they came up with to fill in the blanks.

'… maybe they're breeding a colony of Acromantula to use on the Death Eaters!' one of their voices echoed excitedly, followed by low, mocking laughter from his brother. 'Come on, it's possible!' the first voice insisted.

It was only when he heard one of the twins saying, 'What do you think of Tonks, then? She's a bit of all right, eh?' that Remus hastily decided that was enough eavesdropping for one night and went to bed.

It was a pleasant change having Harry staying at Grimmauld Place: Sirius was in a much better mood, for one, and Remus found he had missed Harry in the year that had passed since he had taught the boy at Hogwarts, having started to see him almost as a nephew of sorts. Remus was disappointed by how little time he was able to spend at Grimmauld Place with them all, but his duty to the Order came first. Instructed to take time out from following Avery, Remus was now tailing Bode and Macnair, and a lot more carefully than ever before. In addition, he was helping out with Department of Mysteries guard duty, so was often away from the bustle of the house for days at a time.

With so many people around the house all the time, it was also easier for Remus to distract himself whenever Tonks was present. Gradually he grew used to how he felt around her and after a few weeks he could happily sit in the same room as her without her occupying all his thoughts, and even hold a conversation with her without feeling awkward. Remus was relieved that his feelings were abating and glad that it had not turned out to be anything more than a fleeting infatuation. He and Tonks were so different that a relationship would have been out of the question. Now that his head was clearer about her, he realised how ridiculous that idea had been.

All too soon the month of August was over. Harry, Hermione and the Weasley children were due to leave for Hogwarts in a couple of days and Sirius was already practising being sullen again for when his godson left.

On the last evening before the children returned to school, Molly threw a small party for Ron and Hermione, who had just been made prefects. Molly was quite overcome with emotion at Ron's achievement, and when she wasn't chattering non-stop about how proud she was, she was having to wipe tears away with a tea towel, her apron, a stalk of celery, or whatever else was handy at the time. Remus was startled at first by this display until Tonks, noticing his concern, assured him that Molly's overly-emotional response was probably just a release of all the worrying she had been doing all summer.

Somehow, Remus had found himself sitting beside Hermione Granger who was wearing a very determined expression and going on about something to do with the rights of house elves.

Tonks, a sheet of long red hair swinging behind her, was sitting between Bill and Ginny Weasley. Tonks looked strikingly different with her hair like that, although Remus was getting used to her changing appearance. In fact, in a strange way, he found that the more different she looked from usual, the more comfortable he felt around her. It was almost as though she was a different person. When she had her usual pink spiky hair, it only reminded him of the silly notion he'd had that he had feelings for her. He smiled to himself as he turned back to Hermione, and could not help feeling glad he had got past such a daft idea and could now get on with things with a clear head.

Tonks, Ginny and Bill were talking animatedly and their loud conversation became interspersed with the steady stream of chatter from Hermione. Remus found himself paying less and less attention to the plight of the house elf, even though it was an undeniably interesting debate, and more and more attention to Tonks's inane chatter about Quidditch, though he had never been particularly interested in the sport.

'I've always supported Puddlemere United because my Dad did, but everyone knows the Montrose Magpies are the best British team by miles,' she was telling Bill, while Ginny listened intently.

'Nah, the Chudley Cannon are better!' Bill argued, grinning. He shifted in his seat to face Tonks squarely.

'Our whole family support them, they're ace,' Ginny agreed loyally from Tonks's other side.

' … and poor Kreacher,' Hermione was saying. 'He has obviously been driven to madness, being alone in this place for ten years, all he really needs is a little kindness.'

Hermione looked pleadingly at Remus, but he was finding it hard to concentrate on the young student.

'Well, Hermione, I do agree that it wouldn't hurt to show Kreacher a little kindness,' said Remus distractedly. 'But I can't honestly say it's likely to make much difference. After all, he served the Black family all his life, he is bound to have taken aboard their views, however despicable they may be.'

'But Dobby was Lucius Malfoy's house elf for years and he is the sweetest little thing you ever saw!' came Hermione's persistent protest, and Remus nodded wearily.

'… too right, I love Quidditch,' Tonks was saying. 'I was never on my house team at school, though, couldn't catch the Quaffle to save my life. I reckon I'd have made an okay Beater though.'

Remus wasn't meaning to listen to their conversation, but as Hermione continued to drone on about elfish rights, his eyes strayed to Tonks's sympathetic expression as young Ginny confided how she had thought about trying out for the Gryffindor team but was scared of her brothers making fun of her, or of making a fool of herself in front of Harry.

'I don't think they're holding open try-outs this year anyway, their team from last year is too good. The only way I could get on the team is by speaking to the Captain directly,' Ginny said gloomily. 'Maybe I could be a reserve or something.'

'Seriously, Ginny, as soon as you find out who the new Captain is, have a word with them and you never know what might happen,' Tonks advised.

As though a damn had burst, emotion washed over Remus like a tidal wave. In that simple moment, Tonks's kindness to Ginny seemed to flick a switch in Remus's brain and he felt like he was seeing her for the first time again. He suddenly knew, without any shadow of a doubt, that this sweet, lovely woman was going to infiltrate his every thought, every action, every motive, for a long, long time. He knew he was too far gone to ever hope for recovery.

And now he could not stop looking at her. The entire room seemed to have gone strangely silent as he watched her. Suddenly feeling extremely claustrophobic, Remus excused himself from Hermione and headed for a less crowded space beside Kingsley Shacklebolt.

Kingsley and Remus chatted about nothing in particular for a few minutes, Remus trying to think of anything but than Tonks, before Kingsley brought the conversation around to the new prefects.

'I must say, I'm rather confused by the choice. Do you have any idea why Dumbledore didn't make Potter a prefect?' Kingsley asked.

Remus could understand Dumbledore's reasoning perfectly, but he felt it was not quite appropriate to discuss the Headmaster's decision. As he tried to turn the conversation away from the subject of prefects, Remus glanced over his shoulder and caught sight of Harry, worryingly close by, hastily moving away from them. Remus gave an internal groan of regret, strongly suspecting Harry had overheard them. He kept an eye on the boy, intending to go and have a discreet chat with him in a while to see how he felt about the prefect situation. Usually Remus would leave those sorts of things up to Sirius, but even if it wasn't for the grumpy mood Sirius had been in for the past few days, Remus felt sure that Sirius wouldn't understand that Harry might be bothered by it at all – after all, Sirius had never been, nor ever wanted to be, a prefect.

Remus watched Harry for a few moments as he hovered at the table and spoke briefly to Molly, then to Mad-Eye Moody. Remus saw Mad-Eye bringing out that battered old photograph he had taken to carrying around lately to show to new Order members – a photograph of the original Order of the Phoenix. Mad-Eye handed the photo to Harry, who, after a few moments, looked rather startled and began to look longingly towards the door.

Remus noticed Harry slinking out of the kitchen a minute later looking very subdued. Remus wavered, unsure whether Harry would appreciate being followed upstairs, but his fatherly instinct won out and he squeezed through the crowd in the kitchen and made his way upstairs. He had reached the ground floor hall when footsteps told him someone else had come up after him.

'Remus, can I have a word?' Tonks asked, catching his arm. Her brow was furrowed with concern, an expression Remus had rarely seen on her outside of Order meetings.

Remus glanced up the stairs where Harry had disappeared to the next floor and hesitated.

'Well, I was just on my way to …' He was unable to resist the hopeful look she gave him. 'All right. What's the matter?'

Tonks took a deep breath. Could she be … nervous? That was another look he had never seen on her. She fixed him with a firm stare. 'I just wanted to say, I know what you think of me and I have to admit, I'm not very happy about it.'

Remus jumped. 'What?'

'I know you're not entirely convinced I belong in the Order. You think I'm not serious enough about it and I'm not aware of the dangers. Well, I'm going to prove you wrong.'

Remus felt a cold shiver of relief as he realised what she was saying. 'No, Tonks, that's not true at all!' he insisted.

'Please, Remus. I've noticed the way you look at me whenever I speak, humouring me, as though you think I'm a silly little girl. Well, I'm not. Look, I can even say V-Voldemort's name, now. See? Voldemort!' Her face was set with determination as she spoke.

Remus was thrown. He had not even noticed that she had avoided using the name before. Lots of Order members didn't say it.

'Tonks … I don't know what you're talking about. I haven't been … looking at you in any way.' He paused, trying to work out how to get out of this without telling her the truth. It was horrifying to realise that she had interpreted the combination of elation and embarrassment he felt whenever he saw her as disapproval. 'I think you're a wonderful witch. You're doing a great job so far. We really need you in the Order.'

'Honestly?' she looked up at him with wide eyes.

'Honestly.'

She smiled at him, relief clearly showing on her face. Her open expression and her need for reassurance made Remus wanted to pull her into his arms, but of course that was out of the question. He was full of guilt – he had no idea he had been making her paranoid like that.

Sirius appeared at the top of the basement stairs and Remus was suddenly embarrassed to be standing alone in the dark hall with Tonks.

'Oh – I was just going up to check on Harry … what are you two doing?' Sirius enquired, looking from Remus to Tonks.

'Er … same thing,' Remus replied, glancing guiltily at Tonks, who looked back at him curiously.

'Hey, what's that?' said Tonks suddenly 'Can you hear it? It sounds like someone crying,' Her nose crinkled adorably with the effort of listening intently. Remus listened too and he could indeed just make out the sound of someone sobbing upstairs.

'That's Molly,' he said, frowning, and headed for the stairs. A stumping behind him told him Mad-Eye was limping up the basement stairs.

'Looks like Molly's having some trouble with that Boggart,' Mad-Eye grunted at them when he appeared. 'She's been up there half an hour and I can still see it through the ceiling.'

Remus led the way up the stairs and found Harry standing in the doorway of the recently-decontaminated drawing room, staring dumbfounded at his own dead body on the floor. Molly was standing beside the body, tears streaming down her face, her wand held out limply.

Immediately realising what he was seeing, Remus got rid of the Boggart and moved towards Molly to comfort her. As Molly sobbed on his shoulder and he did his best to comfort her, though he had no idea what to say, he glanced up to see Sirius and Harry wearing identical, stunned faces. Mad-Eye was watching Harry suspiciously. Tonks was nowhere to be seen.

Molly's tears finally abated. Harry went off to bed, leaving Remus feeling guilty that he had not had a chance to talk to him. But right now Molly seemed to need him more.

'Come, on, Molly, let's go downstairs and have a cup of tea.'

As they left the drawing room, Remus caught sight of Tonks standing in the shadows at the top of the stairs, looking slightly shaken. As soon as Molly was settled back at the table downstairs with a hot cup of tea and looking cheerful again, Remus headed back out of the kitchen, feeling drained and in need of an early night. As he left the room he felt Tonks hovering at his shoulder again.

'Remus, that was … you were wonderful with Molly. You said just the right thing,' she whispered as they stood in the small space at the bottom of the stairs in semi-darkness.

'Well, I … er…'

Before he knew what was happening or had time to dodge it, Tonks had kissed him on the cheek. He stared at a spot on the floor, unable to look at her, feeling the heat creep into his face.

Tonks was quiet for a moment. When she spoke, her tone was quite different. 'It was horrible, seeing that Boggart looking like Harry was …' She broke off shakily.

'I know.' It had been horrible, but Remus was finding it hard to remember the feeling. His cheek was still tingling where she had kissed him.

'You were so calm.'

'Well, it wasn't real.'

'But, still …'

'Look, Tonks, I'm rather tired.' Remus did not mean to sound so short with her, but for a split second he could see in her eyes that she heard it in his tone.

'Oh, sorry … I'm sorry, Remus … I'll let you go to bed.'

'Tonks –'

'Goodnight, Remus!' she called, flashing a wide smile at him as she turned back to the kitchen. As he climbed the stairs to his bedroom, Remus could not decide whether she'd been hurt by his coldness, or whether it would never occur to Tonks be bothered by such a thing.