Thanks for the reviews and the follows and favorites! I'm glad you're enjoying it!

It was probably a mistake, to stay and guzzle Firewhiskey with Sirius and Remus, but sentimentality got the better of Tonks and she found herself lounging in the study long after the meeting was over, shoes off and blouse untucked from her skirt. She felt like she was getting away with something, dressing this way in Walburga Black's house, and from the look Kreacher gave her as he brought the second bottle of Ogden's Finest, he clearly thought she was getting away with something too.

"He hates you." Sirius said, glaring at the closed door Kreacher was probably listening through. He had dressed down for the occasion as well, his jacket thrown over the back of the couch and his shoes somewhere in a pile with Tonks'. "Don't feel bad. He hates me too. Always has."

"I don't feel bad." Tonks swished the alcohol in her glass before downing it in one gulp, and held it out to be topped off. "I feel astounded that his head isn't mounted on that ghastly wall."

"Don't say that too loudly. He'll be running in here, begging you to kill him." Remus slurred his words slightly, blushing at the realization that he might, in fact, be inebriated. Though she'd only known him a few hours, Tonks got the distinct impression that Remus Lupin was not one to stay up all night drinking, and he definitely wasn't one to down the help.

"Remus Lupin!" Sirius gasped, his hand pressed to his chest in mock horror. "And here I thought you were the champion of poor, misunderstood creatures."

A look passed between the two men and Tonks diverted her gaze to her drink. Best to not get involved in whatever history they had to sort out. From the stories she had heard... boy was there a history.

"I am the champion of nothing." Remus took a long sip of his drink and turned to Tonks, giving her an unexpected wink. "I find it best to keep my head down and mind my own business."

Tonks smiled. "I'm an Auror. Everybody's business is my business. Or so Moody keeps telling me."

"I could have been an Auror," Sirius broke in. "I wanted to be an Auror, when I was a boy."

"You wanted to be anything that your mother couldn't brag about at parties." Remus grinned, unrepentant. "The more shame you brought upon her the better."

"Hey!" The whiskey in Tonks' glass sloshed over the top and ran down her fingers as she sat straight up. "Police work is a perfectly acceptable profession!"

"Not if you're Walburga Black." The very mention of her name brought a hush over the room. Even the snapping and crackling of the fire in the fireplace seemed to die down, as if afraid of calling the woman forth. "Aurors don't make a lot of money," Sirius continued defiantly. "They make a decent living, to be sure, but they aren't wealthy people. Not unless they climb the ranks into the Ministry, and even that was only acceptable if that power was used to help Voldemort completely fuck the wizarding world up the ass."

"Not quite the way I'd put it, but Sirius is right." Remus rose from his seat and paced the floor in front of Tonks. It was silly really, but she was a wee bit jealous of his steady gait. She didn't even have that when she was stone cold sober. "Money mattered. Power mattered. Breeding mattered to a point. She was willing to look over a little mixed blood if you had the money to cover it up."

"Priorities. My mother had them."

Tonks shifted from the sofa to the couch, settling beside Sirius as closely as she dared. "I'm just grateful that your priorities were different. Otherwise who knows where we'd all be." She patted his hand gently and was stunned when he grabbed her hand and held it tightly, laying his head on her shoulder.

"And you... you've seemed to have escaped the family curse. I'm not surprised, what with your parents..." He gripped her hand even tighter, smiling when the tips of her nails turned a pale shade of pink. "How are your parents? Andromeda? Any brothers or sisters I should know about?"

Tonks laughed. "Do you honestly think my parents could handle more than one of me? It was all they could do to get me through Hogwarts."

"You couldn't have been that bad," Sirius said incredulously. "You were always such a sweet kid."

"Sweet, yes. I was sweet. I also took down the entire Quidditch pitch during a particularly rowdy game against Gryffindor. Was benched for an entire season."

"The entire Quidditch pitch?"

"Against Gryffindor?" Sirius gripped Tonks' knee in an almost pleading gesture. "You weren't... you were...?"

"A Hufflepuff." Tonks giggled at the joint sigh of relief that emitted from both Sirius and Remus. "My mum would have taken me straight out of Hogwarts if I'd sorted into Slytherin."

"You could have been a Gryffindor," Sirius sulked. "The best house of them all. Could have continued my legacy."

"Na. I didn't have what it took to be a Gryffindor. Too much work. I was one hell of a Hufflepuff, though. Smoked an impressive amount of pot out by the Black Lake and took down an entire Quidditch pitch. Might have also had my first fuck in the Astronomy Tower. I was a legend, at least in my own mind." Those were really the days. Tonks had lived life to her fullest at Hogwarts, waiting for the day when she was finally an adult and could do as she pleased. Too bad she really had no idea that being an adult meant the exact opposite. That was a lesson hard learned. "Don't tell me you aren't at least a little proud of me."

Sirius laughed, a full-bodied, almost barking sound that Tonks hadn't heard in years. "Proud doesn't do it justice, Little Cousin." He pulled Tonks to him in a bone-crushing hug and her head swam, the alcohol once again making its presence known. She rested her head against his shoulder to steady herself and inadvertently locked eyes with Remus, who seemed to have relaxed into the background, sitting backwards in a chair with his arms folded across the back. He was watching them rather intensely, taking in her relationship with Sirius. It was unnerving.

"You know," Sirius said, pulling away, "I might have never got myself benched for an entire Quidditch season, but I did make the entire Great Hall uninhabitable for two whole weeks in my third year."

"How?! How could you possibly...?"

"Never-ending dung bombs," Remus answered, the intense look gone from his eyes and replaced with a hint of nostalgia. "Sirius' brilliant take on your ordinary dung bomb."

"I was quite disappointed that "never-ending" turned out to be two weeks. I was getting quite fond of dinner in bed." Sirius gave Tonks a conspiratorial wink and turned to Remus. "Though it was probably a good thing they got it cleared out. Some of us couldn't handle being cooped up."

Remus' eyes narrowed playfully. "If I recall, you were the one who couldn't handle the lack of social interaction and we all paid for it."

"Hey," Sirius held his hands up in self defense. "I wasn't the one hanging by my underpants from the Clock Tower." Tonks gasped and Sirius grinned. "It was the big hand."

"It was humiliating." Remus groaned and buried his head in his arms.

"Somehow I can't imagine you hanging anywhere by your underpants," Tonks laughed.

"You should try," Sirius teased, egged on by the scarlet glow of Remus' cheeks. "He was hot shit back in the day."

Tonks could see the truth in that. She remembered, vividly, scores of girls tracking Sirius and his group of friends around Hogsmeade, giggling and staring way too openly. It was sickening to Tonks as a little girl, and vaguely amusing to her now. Always fixated on the bad boy, these girls were. But there had been times when the flirtatious glances weren't only directed at Sirius. James had his fair share of devotees, silly girls who knew they never stood a chance against Lily Evans. Peter even had a few girlfriends at Hogwarts. And Remus... well Tonks had never heard of Remus having a real girlfriend, but she was sure that a lot of girls had liked him. Her mother had kept up pretty well with Sirius and his friends, seeing as his own mother couldn't be bothered, and she often lamented that Remus didn't have the romantic entanglements the other boys had, though, apparently, he had options. He was smart and sweet and handsome. And twelve years hadn't changed a thing.

"I know he was."

That was enough to set Remus' whole face on fire, and Tonks couldn't bring herself to feel sorry for it. She was a firm believer in giving credit where credit was due.

"Awww look at him blushing!" Sirius stumbled off the couch and over to Remus, tousling his sandy brown locks. "You'd think he'd never had a bird tell him he was cute!"

Remus pushed Sirius away, only half playing. "Forgive me if I never developed an ego the size of Mars. I didn't have quite enough people kissing my ass for that."

"I make no apologies for my overwhelming popularity."

"Overwhelming...?" Remus scoffed, rising from his chair. "I seem to remember there being an "I Hate Sirius Black" club in our sixth year."

Sirius straightened his stance, and every hair on Tonks' arms stood straight up when his wand slid gracefully from his sleeve to his waiting hand. "Not my fault a few schoolgirls got their hearts broken. I never promised any of them that we'd be exclusive."

"Amanda Kettering?" Remus's wand appeared out of nowhere, and he circled Sirius like a cat. "If there was ever a girl who didn't deserve..."

"Jeez, Moony!" Sirius groaned. "Are you ever going to let that go?"

"Who the hell was Amanda Kettering?" Tonks asked.

"You used her!" Remus snarled.

"Never!" Sirius took a step back as Remus stepped forward. "It was a fair exchange! She wrote my Transfiguration essay and I took her to Hogsmeade. We had a perfectly lovely time..."

"And you dumped her!"

"We were never together!" Sirius exclaimed, though Tonks wasn't sure that he was helping his case. "It was a one and done for the both of us. How was I supposed to know she had such a crush?"

"Fuck you, Padfoot. Everyone knew. And if you didn't then maybe you had your head even further up your own ass than I realized."

The two wizards squared off, no more than six feet away from each other. Tonks' own wand tingled in her hand, prepared to shield her from stray spells. As it turned out, there was no need. Sirius grumbled something under his breath and Remus flew at him, tackling him to the ground with a strength Tonks didn't know he had. For the next few moments, there was nothing but flying arms and legs and curses as the men tumbled on the floor.

"What is the matter with you?!" Tonks yelled, scrambling to the back of the couch when the rumble came too close to her feet for comfort. "Two grown men, fighting over a girl who probably hasn't thought about either one of you in a decade!"

If they heard her, they didn't let on. Or they probably didn't care. There was an unmistakable sound of ripping fabric as Sirius momentarily gained the upper hand, but Remus gave as good as he got and then they were rolling, heading straight for the coffee table. Walburga Black's hand-crafted mahogany coffee table. Seconds later they were underneath it, and Tonks cringed at the loud bang of someone smacking their head.

"This is ridiculous! Stop it before you hurt yours.."

It was too late. One well-placed kick and a shove took two legs out from under Walburga's precious table and that was that. The whole thing came crashing down on top of them.

"Fuck!" Remus yelped.

Tonks scrambled down off the couch and aimed her wand at the table, easily lifting it off of the two idiot wizards. She set it to the side and turned to them, prepared to give a good scolding and perhaps medical treatment.

But they were laughing.

They were fucking laughing.

"We're getting old, Moony," Sirius chuckled, still flat on his back. "That hurt a lot more than it should have."

"Can't talk," Remus wheezed dramatically. "Can't breathe."

Tonks shook her head. "Over a girl?"

"Over a lot of things." Sirius sat up slowly. "Sometimes you just need to get it out of your system."

"And my system is clear. For at least another decade or so." Remus sat up as well and the two men helped each other to their feet.

"Okayyyy. Glad you got yourselves sorted out." Tonks gathered her things from the pile of clothing and slipped into her shoes. "And I am going to leave you two to bask in your weird friendship."

"No!" the men groaned in unison.

"We'll behave. We promise." Sirius begged, giving her his best puppy dog eyes.

"I'm sure you won't, but that's beside the point." Tonks grinned and stood on her toes to give Sirius a kiss on the cheek. "I've got work in the morning and I need my beauty sleep."

"We understand. Or we would, if we had jobs to go to." Remus grinned sheepishly. Tonks kissed his cheek as well and he grinned even wider.

"Goodnight you two."

The men bade her goodnight and she made her way out of the study, pausing when she heard Sirius' voice from the behind the door.

"She's sure grown up beautifully, eh, Remus?"

Tonks didn't stay to hear the answer.