A Christmas chapter. Well, a Christmas holiday chapter. This is set during Order of the Phoenix Chapter 24 Occlumency, the end of the Christmas holiday.

Geneva

She asked if he wanted to go to a café after dropping the kids back at Hogwarts, and he said yes. He wasn't entirely sure why. Usually it's the sort of invitation he'd decline. Perhaps he knew that Tonks was aware that any activities he usually used as excuses- Order work, keeping Sirius company- did not seem appealing today. He wasn't sure how appropriate it was for him to be seen out with Tonks so close to the school. In Edinburgh or Manchester or London, or back in Wales, wizarding communities had moved on from the news that a Hogwarts professor had been a werewolf. Remus did not like disclosing his name in case somebody remembered, but most of the time they didn't. There had been three Defence teachers since Remus and they'd all caused enough gossip and headlines that his tenure was largely forgotten. Hogsmeade was a difference case. Here, Hogwarts news stuck. But when Remus had pointed this out to Tonks, she'd looked puzzled, and when he clarified, she'd scoffed and insisted that it didn't bother her. It bothered Remus, though by the time he explained this Tonks was already marching off to Madam Puddifoot's, and Remus had felt compelled to follow her.

Hogsmeade locals knew today was a day to avoid the village centre, but Hogwarts Express staff were having a break in Madam Puddifoot's before the journey back to London. Parents who dropped their children off at school in-person were there too, some using coffee and cake to cheer themselves up after their children had gone back to school for another term, some to celebrate. As a result, Madam Puddifoot's was busy, so Remus and Tonks got a takeaway. Usually Remus would have ordered a simple tea, but Tonks rolled her eyes, elbowed him in the ribs, reminded him that they were on Order expenses, and flashed him a grin. So instead, Remus asked for a nougat Frot Chogolat with mocha sprinkles. He wasn't sure what any of that was, but it tasted delicious. They wandered around the village together, Tonks nattering cheerfully. There was something rather sweet about her babble, Remus thought. Tonks was funny, both in things she said and things she did. She was kind enough to invite him out for a drink. She was certainly very charming- she was a Black, after all. But, refreshingly, Tonks' charm was without the self-aware vanity which Sirius charisma had. She was blunt and down-to-Earth, and she was an Auror, and she had a complicated family. Yet despite all this, there was something invitingly naïve about her. Or perhaps naïve was the wrong word. Maybe he meant she was impulsive, uncynical, optimistic. She new that smartness didn't need to be proved through being sardonic and black-humoured.

"Remus?" she asked.

"Yes?"

"I said did you hear they're finally closing that old jewellery shop in Diagon Alley? The one nextdoor to the bakery, number 93 I think? My mate Mickey told me it's going to become sort of entertainment complex,"

"Ah,"

"We should go there some time," she suggested.

Remus glanced at her and saw her cheeks had flushed pink with cold. A strange feeling, which he could only describe as like, shunted into him: he liked her face rosy like that.

"Hmm," Remus muttered vaguely, perturbed by the feeling.

"You've got the complex thing covered, but I reckon you could do with some entertainment,"

Remus chuckled at the joke. She was very sharp.

"Sirius is entertaining," he pointed out.

To Remus' surprise, Tonks' response was a huff. "Why d'you always do that?" she grumbled.

"What?"

"Talk about Sirius,"

Remus had no idea how to answer that question. Tonks evidently knew this, because she let him dangle cluelessly for a few moments.

"You're enough without him, you know," she murmured.

"I know," he answered automatically, untruthfully.

"Good. Because he's a dickhead,"

Remus coughed Frot Chogolat down his front as he spluttered with laughter. Which, he realised, mopping himself, up, was strange because what Tonks had said hadn't really been a gag. She had a knack for making not-on-paper-funny comments sound like jokes. Last week she'd said something - Remus couldn't remember exactly what- on the way out of an Order meeting. He'd assumed it was a gag and had started to laugh, but nobody else had so he'd shut himself up. But then he'd caught Tonks' eye and seen in her expression that she had been jesting. It had been odd, though in a pleasant way, like when the feeling he'd had when he'd seen her cheeks reddened with cold.

"He's been telling me all sorts of things about you," Tonks continued.

Padfoot's forced stay in headquarters had turned until into a shameless gossip.

"Doubtless exaggerations. And I thought you didn't want to talk about Sirius,"

"I'm not talking about Sirius. I'm talking about you. He was telling me how much you took care of your little gang after Hogwarts,"

Padfoot had never said any such thing to Remus, so he couldn't help but tell Tonks, "They were the ones who took care of me,"

"Well, you were a family. That's how it works. And you're good at taking care of people. The kids think you're their best Defence teacher. Not just 'cos of what you taught them, but because you cared,"

Remus cared too much for Harry. He did not care in the right way for Harry. He probably still didn't. Thank goodness for Molly Weasley. The closest Harry had to a consistent, competent parent, Molly knew how to channel love and wanting the best for a child into actual words and actions.

Remus did not say any of this to Tonks who, it was clear, lacked patience for his introspections. No doubt she would have called him overly self-deprecating, perhaps too self-involved. Instead, he said, "That's kind of them,"

"Also maybe because of that Snape-in-a-dress thing. I wish I'd seen that,"

"Not one of my prouder moments. Also, one of my prouder moments," Remus admitted.

"You're I'm a sensible boring teacher facade is sooo thin, Professor," teased Tonks. She frowned a little on the word professor and Remus found he didn't like her calling him that either. He didn't want her to see him like that. Well, of course not, he told himself- they were colleagues. He valued her insights, and they were good team-mates on Order assignments. Sometimes he suspected they were close to being friends. They'd even got a vague habit of chats on the back porch. She was intriguing and impressive, disarmingly easy to open up to, and her ebullience was infectious.

"You won't let me be sensible or boring," Remus smiled. He didn't want to be sensible or boring around Tonks. He wanted to be interesting, convivial, bright,. Remus seldom wanted to be any of those things around people. Around women. He rarely wanted to be noticed, but he liked it when Tonks noticed him. Despite his reservations, he'd enjoyed wandering Hogsmeade with her, chatting and drinking over-priced Order expensed Frot Chogolat.

Tonks turned to him, bouncing happily on the toes of her Doc Martens, and beamed back. It was at that precise moment when Remus realised: he liked wandering Hogsmeade with over-priced drinks because he was with Tonks. He liked was attracted to her. This was what attraction felt like. Goodness, it had been so long, no wonder he hadn't recognised it. He was enamoured with her.

He felt stunned.

"Certainly not," Tonks said.

And it was at that precise moment, that Remus realised that he was in very, very big trouble.


Thank you for reading, and a big thank-you to everybody who has left feedback this year. Pluto will come to an end at Chapter 100. Given my updates are currently pretty slow, that's likely to be at least a year away.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year x.