A/N: This piece was written for Prompt fourteen of the rtchallenge – a fuzzy picture of a naked man's backside as he lies face down on a bed. ;p This is also the Tonks pov companion piece to Chocolate Eyes.

Chocolate Warmth

It was around midday on the morning after the second full moon since she had joined the Order of the Phoenix that Nymphadora Tonks first brought Remus Lupin a hot chocolate.

It had been an impulse – she couldn't deny that and so didn't bother to try. But the look that had passed across his face the night before as he had risen to head upstairs and face an ordeal that none of the rest of them could even imagine; the quiet dignity with which he had acknowledged that collective shudder that had passed like a chill breeze through the room… It had made her feel ashamed, ashamed that his condition disturbed her on a primitive level she couldn't battle down, ashamed that she felt pity for a man who neither wanted nor desired to be pitied and most of all ashamed that his lycanthropy had lingered like an unspoken wall and kept her from knowing him better.

And she liked Remus Lupin. She really did. She wanted to know him better. He was so kind, so generous, an intelligent professional who handled a terrible illness with a strength that belied his slender frame. A werewolf he might be but first and foremost, Tonks told herself firmly, he was a good man.

But if he thought her actions rose from pity…

No. She didn't want to offend him. She needed a reason to show him that she didn't care about his condition, to hide the lie that going to visit a werewolf mere hours after his transformation didn't make her instinctively squirm inside. She needed an excuse.

A part of Tonks was candid enough to admit that she might never have mustered the courage to go if she had not remembered that offend comment he had made to Sirius about Madam Pomfrey's therapeutic post-moon hot chocolate. For hot chocolate was something it would challenge even her to burn. Getting up the stairs would be more interesting but she could cross that bridge when she came to it.

Hot chocolate. It was just what she needed.

And when, fighting her pounding heart, her shaky hands warmed by the steaming mug, she had peered around the door that morning, and saw him, pale and drawn, his eyes rich with exhaustion as he looked over at her and smiled, she knew that she'd done the right thing.

She couldn't remembered exactly what she'd talked about – some guff about the Ministry and the deliciousness of Molly Weasley's pancakes as far as she recalled – but she did remember vividly the way he'd smiled at her, the slow, almost tentative release of tension from his shoulders as he sipped at the drink she had brought him with a bemused but happy look on his face. And she had found herself smiling and relaxing in turn.

And so it became their ritual. The lunar calendar became her watchword - come the first strike of noon to followed the full moon, she would be there, in the kitchen at Grimmauld Place, brewing up hot chocolate in a rickety little cauldron before pouring one dose into a waiting mug. Cradling the mug as securely as she was able in her occasionally unreliable hands, she would then turn and make her way tentatively upstairs to knock upon the now familiar door where Remus would invite her in and smile, sometimes offering humorous congratulations on yet another success ascent to the first floor, at others simply accepting the mug with a grateful smile. Those visits became a solace, a chance to vent her spleen to an understanding ear or share in necessary laughter, a guilty pleasure to be looked forward to, their private time and soon, nothing was allowed to interfere. If she was at work, it did not matter – no great disasters had ever fallen that had prevented her taking an early lunch break. The day following a long and gruelling night shift had proved a little more of a challenge, but she had sleepwalked her way up the stairs nonetheless. As she sat, leaning against the foot of his bed, head nodding, eyes drooping, it had been hard to tell which of them had the longer, harder night.

Remus had told her that morning that she shouldn't take such trouble on his account. She had told him not to be a prat and informed him in no uncertain terms that that was the end of the matter.

He was her friend. She looked forward to the time they spent together. That was never going to change.

Until that morning.

It was Sirius' fault. That was, at least, what she had told herself for weeks afterwards until her mind had reluctantly accepted the fact that on a subconscious level, his words had only triggered thoughts that had lingered in her head for some time. But that day as she passed her cousin on the stairs and absently replied to his query as to where she was going with the steaming mug so carefully gripped in her hands… It still made her shake her head to think of it, his merry laugh, his cheeky smile as he poked her shoulder and declared at the top of his voice that he reckoned his little cousin had a crush. In fact, if she was braving the kitchen for his good mate Moony, then it could only be love…

She almost dropped the mug – only Sirius' quick reflexes prevented a very messy staircase. He had held the hot chocolate, still chuckling as she issued vehement denials, proclaiming that she and Remus were just friends and no matter how much she valued their time together, that didn't mean… it didn't have to mean…

Her words had trailed away under Sirius' humorous gaze. Handing the mug back with a substantial grin, he'd offered a final jibe about the powers of denial and then vanished downstairs to the kitchen.

Leaving a very confused cousin lingering on the stairs behind him.

For her brain was refusing to behave itself. Suddenly she was thinking of Remus, of their talks, of his smile, of the guilty way she looked forward to full moons and those little private moments that were theirs and theirs alone and something was fizzling inside of her, a sense of excitement, of pleasure, of…

Uh oh.

No, no, no, no. She was not going to trash a perfectly good friendship because Sirius had decided it was funny to put bad ideas into her obviously far too impressionable brain. Remus was her friend. Friend, friend, friend, friend…

Lost in her mantra, she didn't stop to think. She marched up the stairs, focussed, concentrating on not concentrating on the weird way her feelings were reacting to her twisted mind and its sick suggestions and without hesitation, without her usual knock, she grabbed the handle of Remus' bedroom door and pushed inside.

Friend, friend, frieohsweetMerlin….

The mantra melted instantly into a puddle of hopeless gloop. Her impressionable brain went abruptly into overdrive.

For there was Remus, lying fast asleep, face down on top of his bedclothes.

Naked.

Completely, utterly, stark naked.

And she was staring.

She couldn't stop staring.

And those thoughts that she had spent the walk up the staircase so carefully repressing exploded with triumph through her mind, setting off firework sparks in her stomach and her…

Well. Elsewhere.

Oh Merlin. Sirius was right. Sirius, you bastard, you were right…

I think… Am I…Do I…

But whatever disturbing weirdness was rampaging through her body, Tonks realised with chilly abruptness that she was standing there ogling her best friend. And since his brain was a normal brain not corrupted by Sirius' bloody idea-poking innuendos, he probably wouldn't appreciate it.

Stop it. I have to stop it.

Stop looking. Stop. Looking.

Out. Now. OUT.

How she got back out into the corridor, she never did remember. She couldn't even recall tearing her eyes away from Remus. But since the image of him lying there was now tattooed on her eyeballs, it didn't seem to matter much that she had.

And then, standing there, breathing deeply, her back against the door, the mug still miraculously gripped within her hands, thoughts and feelings flowed together, friendship and attraction, Remus her friend mingling Remus the man and coming together in her mind into one decisive whole.

And she knew.

She did.

She bloody did.

She loved him.

What was she going to do?

She had no idea how long she stood there in that corridor, gathering her thoughts, adjusting herself to this new, strange truth that had rampaged into her life. But somehow, eventually, she had turned and she had knocked, she had waited for his sleepy assertion and his request, for reasons he did not know were obvious to her, to wait a moment before coming in. And then she had walked in, smiled at his smile and handed over the now rather lukewarm drink as normal.

He hadn't protested or queried the temperature. He was that kind of bloke.

And she had watched him, watched the way he looked at her, watched the look in his eyes and knew once and for all that she wasn't the only one battling strange new feelings in her head.

She knew. He knew.

It had taken a long time for her to admit her feelings. It had even taken longer for him to admit his. Briefly, before doubt and veils and missions from Dumbledore, it had been wonderful. But now…

Now he was gone.

Wearily, Nymphadora Tonks fingered her brown locks as she stared down at the lukewarm hot chocolate cradled within her palms. The air in the now empty, dusty, lifeless Grimmauld Place seemed to press down upon her with the strength of bittersweet memories.

It was the morning after the full moon. So she had come to Grimmauld Place. She had made a hot chocolate. That was what she did.

But Remus spent his full moons elsewhere now. She could not reach him, talk to him, smile at him when he ran with Greyback's pack.

She could not smile at all.

She had made the hot chocolate. But it should have been his.

And it would be again. So it was not her place to drink it.