Author's note: Someone in the reviews of the last chapter said they missed Remus, and you know what? Me too. Enjoy!

Disclaimer: J.K. Rowling owns the canon, world, and characters portrayed below and you can tell I'm not J.K. Rowling because #transrights

Hogwarts: Assignment #2, DIY and Home Repair Task #3 Write about someone's day brightening for some reason.

Warnings: NA

Not The Most Romantic Pub

Remus smiled as soon as he walked into the Hog's Head. It wasn't very hard to find his wife—both because she was the only patron, and because her hair was her favoured shade of hot pink. She was bundled up for the uncharacteristically cold Fall day they were having, in leggings, a denim skirt, a pea coat, and a green sweater whose dark colours all made her hair look even more outrageous. The piercing on her nose was in today and he could see the tiny crystal on the jewellery shine from across the dingy pub, even if Dora was hunched over the book she was reading. She did look up when she heard the door shut behind him, and probably felt the chill rush in. She smiled when she saw him, which was all the incentive he needed to hurry across the room. She slid out of the booth she'd picked for them just in time for Remus to wrap his arms around her waist and for her to wrap hers around his neck.

"Hey, stranger," she said with a softness and fondness to her voice that had him melting all over.

"Hi," Remus said. He pulled away to kiss her, sampling a new lipstick he'd never seen her wear before. She had been experimental with makeup lately. "I hope you haven't been waiting long."

"No, no," she said.

"I got stuck on the walk here," he said. "A few of my seventh-year students had some ideas about how we could rearrange the Grindylow tank to make room for a mate."

"More Grindylows?" Dora said with a smile. "Is that really what we need?"

Remus shrugged.

"It doesn't look as if we'll be able to reintroduce it into the Black Lake and it's been alone for some time now," Remus said. "Maybe I'm just being sentimental. Lonely and so forth."

Dora laughed.

"Okay, I definitely need to visit you more often if you're starting to empathize with a damn water demon in a tank," Dora said.

"I wouldn't be opposed to that," Remus said. He smiled and they sat down again. The wooden benches were just as decrepit as the rest of the Hog's Head and they creaked under their respective weights, but Remus didn't mind. Most of the students didn't even know that the Hog's Head existed; it was a much quieter place for them to meet, which was nice because the student body typically lost its collective mind at the sight of Professor Lupin and his wife. Because of that, Remus had actually started having some strange, Pavlovian association of happiness to Aberforth's terrible pub.

Cheap drinks? Typically tasteless food reheated from the day before? A good, inch-thick coating of dust? The occasional and inexplicable bleating of a goat? Perfect; it meant Remus was about to see his wife.

Maybe it was good that he and the Grindylow had each other.

"I already ordered for you," Dora said. "It's bloody cold out there, I thought you'd like something warm when you finally got in."

"Thank you," Remus said. "Bangers and mash?"

"You know it," Dora said with a grin. Remus had been teaching at Hogwarts for well over ten years now; they had, through a tedious trial and error process, sorted through Aberforth's menu and found the items that were most reliably palatable. Dora's go-to was ham, egg, and chips.

"I also got us two Firewhiskies," Dora said. "Large ones."

"You really are cold," Remus smirked. She held out her hand across the table and Remus winced when he took them.

"Merlin, Dora," he said. "Didn't you have any gloves with you?"

"It wasn't this cold in London!" Dora said. "Imagine my absolute horror when I apparated to this absolute tundra!"

Remus smiled and made a mental note to give her his mittens before she left. In the meantime, he warmed up her hands in his while they waited for their food and drink, prompting her to tell him all about her week—though she, of course, wanted to know all about Teddy first.

Teddy knew that Dora came to visit Remus in Hogsmeade, when Remus wasn't one of the teachers on duty and he could afford to hide out in a dusty pub, effectively ditching his students. Still, he didn't swing by much—especially not now that he was older and grown up. It was part of his efforts to remain a normal student, even if one of his professors was his father. Remus knew Teddy wrote often, though. He was absolutely a mama's boy.

"Well, he's gotten detention with McGonagall again," Remus said.

"That troublemaker," Dora said, shaking her head. "Is he still having other kids pay him to impersonate them and take their detentions?"

"Yes, actually—that's the problem," Remus said. "He tried to do it when one of my Gryffindors had detention with me."

"The nerve of him!" Dora said, although she was laughing now. "In front of his own father?"

"I think your son forgot how accustomed I am to Metamorphmagi and their assorted shenanigans," Remus said with a smile.

"So what did you do?" Dora said with a grin, leaning forwards and knitting her fingers together around her mug, eager to hear more.

"I told him by name to go to McGonagall's office, explain to her what he'd done, and let her decide what to do with him," Remus said.

"My word," Dora said, shaking her head—although she was still smiling. Remus knew enough about her Hogwarts years to know that she'd done much worse, though she'd been smart and subtle enough not to get caught. Let it be said that Teddy, for all his good qualities, wouldn't grow up to be an Auror.

Aberforth came to deliver their drinks and grunted in Remus' direction, which was a surprisingly warm hello on the innkeeper's behalf.

"I think he was doing it to help one of the younger Gryffindor boys," Remus said. He took a sip of his drink. "Sinistra sent him to me, so I don't know the details of why the homework wasn't done, but his owl passed away earlier this week. I let it go after throwing our son to McGonagall's mercy."

"I suppose he is a sweetheart," Dora said, taking another sip from her drink.

"Slughorn and Madam Pomgrey have both been requesting him after hours," Remus said. "He's helping him with some kind of experiment. Slughorn says he's quite good."

"Well that bodes well for that application he sent off to St. Mungo's Healer training program," Dora said.

"He asked me to help him reread it," Remus said. "It's very good. I hope he gets in."

"Me too," Dora mused. They took another sip of their drinks.

"Have you had your fill of Teddy news?" Remus asked. "I don't think I have much more to tell anyways, and I want Dora updates."

She smiled.

"Well," she said with a smile on her lips that told him she was holding back something good. "Guess who can finally stop chasing down that dragon egg exchange ring because she got a confession from the leader's right-hand man," Dora said.

"You did not," Remus said, grinning.

"We're going to trial in a month!" Dora said.

"Cheers to that," Remus said, raising his mug. Dora beamed and raised hers. Their glasses clinked together and the sound was extra loud in the empty pub.

When Remus put his glass back down after taking a sizable swig, he settled into his bench for a long afternoon of catching up, a smile on his lips.

Shipping Wars

Ship (Team): Remus Lupin/Nymphadora Tonks (Technicolour Moon)

List (Prompt): Summer Medium 1 (Unconventional Date)

Word count: 1257