"I believe in you, come on, you've got this. Just focus on my voice, okay?" Tonks coaxed.

"This feels like a really bad idea." Remus spat. "Tonks, I'm not joking around, this is a very, very, very dangerous idea."

"It's okay Remus, really. Alright? But you've got to stop trembling and steady your hand now."

"Tonks, I'm not kidding. You are an auror and this looks like a very bad that you're encouraging me to-"

"I'm standing just a few metres away from you. I'm holding the book out in front of me. I know you can't see it, but it's... it's a pretty big book. You'll have to hit it. You can't not hit it. You know where I'm at, so hold out my wand, and just flick it."

"Tonks-"

"Oh please, we've been over this before. You can handle this."

"It's not me that I'm worried about."Remus took a long, deep breath, and a moment of clarity to think. This was a bad idea and it was plain and simply. The end of her wand was resting firmly in his palm. He was nervously twisting it over and over to get a feel for every marking and groove on it. He didn't like it. His was smooth, except for a very distinct chip in the bottom that took him years to get used to. Hers was jagged like teeth.

"I'm okay. I'm tough, you know?" She replied.

Remus knew she wasn't going to let him argue. "What if I blow out the window? Or the wall?"

"You won't blow anything out, okay?" Tonks reassured. Her voice was genuinely convincing, yet Remus had to keep reminding himself of all of the dangers this little game presented. "Are you okay?"

"Not really." He mumbled.

"Take a deep breath," She demonstrated the deep breath. "Okay. You've got this, yeah? Just like we said. The book's thick leather, I don't think sparks will start any kind of fire-"

"You don't think?"

"It won't cause a fire, okay? It's all going to be alright." Tonks said. "You were the one who wanted to do this and there's no need to back out. I can take it."

Before he could even mutter anything other than the garbled nonsense of the beginning of what was nothing like a spell, the wand let out a sharp bolt of electricity through his hand and leapt from his hand, spinning around in circles before landing in the floor.

"Argh!" Tonks let out a cry and then there was a loud thump of her body weight onto the floor. There was a sound similar to a pillow exploding, paper rustling all about through the air.

"NYM-PHA-DOR-A!" Remus instinctively flung his body forward, scrambling around with his limbs outstretched in desperate search for her. He said her name a bit louder than he expected, enunciating each syllable with different amounts of emphasis, and in a tone he wasn't trying to use; he felt like he was scolding her rather than trying to see if she was hurt. His hand was throbbing with pain but Remus shoved that down. He could hear her wheezing and groaning in her own agony. It didn't occur to him right in that moment, but later on when he was thinking about it, he was overjoyed to hear her making some kind of noise. The book fell after he body and tumbled off the couch. Tonks coughed. It was deep and raspy from somewhere deep in her lungs. She was still straining for air as she slowly picked herself up. "Are you hurt? What's wrong? Where are you hurt?" He demanded. "Tonks, talk to me please, what's wrong?"

"I'm-" she gasped at the air. "Oof, you knocked the wind out of me, alright? I think you stunned me-"

"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, oh my god, I-"

"You're sorry. I heard you the first time." She laughed, but it was a "laugh through the pain" sort of laugh. It took her a while to regain her composure. "Gah-don't touch me, I'm okay."

"Are you bleeding anywhere?"

"No- nope. Felt like you punched me in the chest, though."

"I am so sorry, Tonks." Remus begged. "Do I need to find Molly and have her look at you?"

"I'm okay, really." Tonks grumbled, still trying to get her bearings.

"Here, don't stand up if you can't." He offered himself to help her up anyways. Her feet swayed beneath her as she clung to his arms. "We won't ever do that again."

"So, er... you did manage to blow up the book. Thank god it was there or I probably wouldn't be as well off as I am." Tonks said. He could tell she was looking up at him. "It was a mistake. I'm okay, you're okay, my wand- Where is my wand?"

"I- I think I threw it on accident. I mean, I think it flew out of my hand." Remus told her. "I don't know where it went." The drawing room was smelling slightly more charred than before now.

"Is everything alright in here?" A woman's voice asked from the doorway.

"Yes, Molly, everything's fine." Tonks replied.

"Is something burning?"

"No, just some sparks. We're okay."

"You're sure?"

"We're fine, Molly." Remus interrupted quickly.

Molly was apprehensive. "It's getting much too late to be practicing magic. The two of you ought to be asleep by now."

"We're heading that way." Tonks assured her.

Molly was quiet again. "Goodnight, then. Try not to cause any more of a ruckus."

Tonks took a deep breath. "My wand landed over there. Well, I'll sweep the mess up so I don't have to answer to Kretcher and then I'm going to go lie down for a bit and try and sleep. We can try again in the morning, what do you say?"

"We shouldn't." He said quickly. "You don't have to. Tonks-"

"Dora, remember?" She replied. She sounded either very tired or very annoyed.

"Hey, are you sure you're okay? Do you think you can get some sleep tonight?"

"Can you?" Tonks chuckled. "Yes, Remus, a little stunning spell to the chest never killed anyone. Just a few... pains, but I'm okay."

"You're sure you'll be able to sleep? I can go find something for you to take if you can't."

"No, I'm okay." She said politely. "You're very sweet."

"Thank you, I, um-"

"You know, most guys I duel are all like, 'oh god, oh no, my leg! Ah!' or like 'oh no, you bitch!'" Tonks said with dramatic voices. "So maybe I'm glad you didn't call me a bitch, but consider yourself lucky this time."

"I won't call you a bitch." Remus gently reassured.

"Promise?"

"Of course."

"Even if I ask?" There was a little twinkle in her voice.

He couldn't quite get to laugh. The grief of what had just happened was still fresh on his mind.

"I'm sorry." Tonks said. "I'm sorry, actually, if you've every felt that I'm... you know, pushy. I'm bad about that."

"You've never exactly come across as pushy to me." Remus stated. "Not that I can think of, at least."

She appeared to be nodding. "Right. Hey, it's okay. Don't be all uptight over this. I'm okay."

"I hurt you." He replied. What if it had been worse? What if he was capable of killing her? Surely he was even if he didn't mean to, he knew he had the ability to kill her.

"I'm still okay, though." Tonks cooed. Her face was close to his, their foreheads almost touching. "I'm really okay. You're learning. It wasn't that bad."

"I'm sorry." Remus quietly gasped.

"I know, and I keep telling you, it's okay." Her arms snaked around his middle. "We won't practice again if you don't want to. From now own, you call the shots."

He couldn't help but stand and run his fingers through her hair pensively. Remus couldn't think of any other way to apologize, any meaningful way to get through to her. She just seemed to... brush off their dangerous encounter while encouraging him to do it again. She wasn't going to listen to reason. "You've got work in the morning. You should go get some rest."

"Do you want to come?"

"What?"

"I dunno." She shrugged. "The house is just quiet and I hate being alone all the time, 'cept for you and Sirius. I dunno how he deals here. It's so gloomy and dark and cold... I think anyone would go a bit mad spending all their time here." The was a long pause. "But do you want to spend the night in my room? I brought my own blankets. They're not as ragged as the ones here."

Remus was trying to quickly process everything she was saying when he found his head involuntarily nodding. "Sure, yes."

"Cool." She replied, pulling herself away. "I'm going to go brush my teeth then. You know which room's mine."

Now, as her footsteps disappeared down the hall, Remus was left to internal panicking. What was he supposed to do now? What was she going to be expecting from him? She sounded weirdly casual for what Remus's first thought was going on. What, was he supposed to bring his own pillow or something? Was that weird?

Remus walked slowly, listening for the sound of running water in the bathroom at the end of the hall. He liked the smell of her room. It smelled completely different from all the other stuffy rooms. There was still a faint undertone of dust that infested even the most well kept corners, but that was inevitable. He asked her to describe her room to him.

It wasn't like he hadn't been there before, but until now, his only idea of it was how many steps he needed to take to water her plants without bumping into things. She liked burning candles. Something smelled warm and clean, like lemons and citrus. But there was also something spicy in her room, like bitter incense. She wasn't as bored by reading as she wanted him to believe, as there were at least three books piled on her dressers.

Her bed wasn't made and she wasn't great about shutting all of the drawers on her dresser as his shins quickly found out. He didn't know which side of the bed she slept on, either, and he didn't want to intrude or find out by flailing his arms around the bedside tables until he could use deductive reasoning to figure it out. He felt like he was standing there for an eternity, waiting, with no idea what to expect.

"Are you okay?" Tonks's soft voice asked, shutting the door behind her. "You look like you've seen a ghost."

"I'm okay, I just- I didn't-"

"You can have the left side if you want." She told him. She seemed frozen in place. "I'm sorry, you don't have to stay. I just didn't want to really be alone tonight."

"I can stay." Remus nodded, sitting on the edge of the bed. Tonks has crawled up on the other side. She leaned over and kissed him on the cheek.

"G'night, Remus." She cooed.

"Goodnight, Dora." He said quietly,

Remus buried himself under the covers and Tonks turned out the light. She was quite eager to snuggle up to him throughout the night. He was cold natured, so it was nice to have someone else generating body heat next to him. But Remus barely slept at all. He felt like his heart was pounding with no particular reason and his mind was racing with thoughts and worries he didn't know he had. He kept trying to pretend that this was a simple, sweet gesture, yet he couldn't decipher what this meant for them and their future. Was this "being serious"? Were the past the point that if they ever decided to back out, they could no longer be friends?

Remus couldn't sleep, so as soon as he heard the first set of footsteps arise, he decided he would make his way down to the kitchen. Was she going to be mad at him?

The lights were already on downstairs.

"Hello, Remus." The other person in the kitchen this early was shocking. The man's voice was distinctively deep, yet smooth and heavily accented. "You seem to be up early."

"Good... morning." Remus replied off beat. "It's Kingsley, yes?"

"Yes, and Arthur Weasley as well." He replied. "I ought to wake up Nymphadora. She's due for work today." Kingsley abruptly excused himself.

Remus patiently waited for him to disappear upstairs before approaching the kitchen table. "Is everything alright?"

"Remus, there are several of us who are particularly worried about you two." Arthur said quietly. "She's been training you to do magic, hasn't she? We heard something late last night. Molly said the two of you were... dueling?"

"No, no, Tonks was just having me practice and it backfired. We decided to stop." Remus explained. "Why?"

"My apologies." Arthur replied. "You and Tonks have been spending a lot of time around each other and people are... well... talking."

Remus felt his face flush, his head nodding, as his mind raced through all of the possible things he had to say. "I understand."

"I suppose I should just ask. Are you two-"

"Erm, well-" Remus awkwardly stammered. "Why? Is there some sort of concern?"

"Yes, actually..." The older man sighed. "Remus, we're all worried about the two of you creating some sort of personal connection outside of your work and what this could mean for the two of you. Perhaps the two of you should be more... professional."

"What? Professional? What does that mean?"

"Well, the two of you are working together, are you not?"

"So we are supposed to be acting like coworkers or something?" Remus shot beach with frustration. "I'm sorry. I simply don't understand what your point is. Arthur, it's not serious- we aren't serious-we really are just..." He couldn't quite piece together what word he was thinking of.

"Perhaps would be better if the two of you came to an agreement about being friends for the time being. Simply to keep things from being too, say, distracting. You'll both be able to keep your options open for the future and you won't conflict with your work."

"We weren't planning on getting married or something." Remus laughed aloud. "What are you talking about? I would never try and keep her from her work. I'm certainly trying my best to keep her focused on her missions and I promise, if you think I'm interfering with the Order, I will step out of it. Do you think that I'm becoming a problem?"

"Of course not!" Arthur said lightly. "But are you not still apart of the Order yourself?"

There was a pit of frustration in his stomach. "I thought I was utterly hopeless to you." Remus said bluntly. "I thought I was just here because you all felt sorry, or have you all of a sudden decided I'm of some sort of monetary value-"

"No, no, no, it's not like that at all." Arthur said quickly.

"They why won't you teach me to go on missions?" Remus asked.

"We simply... aren't ready for you yet. And you aren't ready for us either."

"When am I supposed to be ready?" Remus asked hurriedly.

But Arthur seemed to detour again. "It's just that... you know, some of the people here are quite concerned about... well, your ages. It's a bit funny, don't you think?" Arthur tried to keep light hearted, but there was obviously something condescending in his voice.

Remus quickly cut him off. "We aren't... Nymphadora and I agreed that we wouldn't be that serious about this, it's really nothing to be concerned about, and there should be no interference. But I don't see why this has to do with the Order. I'm barely even let in for the meetings. Why should any of this be an issue?"

There was an awkward pause. "I talked with Professor Dumbledore in a letter and he's mentioned that he wants to put you out on a mission soon."

Remus stumbled backwards. "What?"

"The problem is that we need you to work on your reading." Arthur informed him. "We'll need you because you can write in a language that's harder to trace and harder to translate. You have the potential to be an ideal messenger."

"Am I... am I going to have to go back to the werewolves?" He felt utterly childish asking, but he felt the need to.

"There's no need, really. Your cover as the mole was blown and it nearly cost you your life. We need you as a messenger. You'll be much more valuable to us that way, but not yet. Just wait for Dumbledore to contact you." Arthur informed him. "And... as a note, you never heard any of this from me. Dumbledore—a brilliant man, but he works in quite mysterious ways—he's still fleshing out his plan, whatever that will be. I need you to stand on the down low for right now, you hear?"

Remus nodded. "Thank you, Arthur."

Arthur firmly patted his shoulder. "Good luck. And don't let us down."