A/N: Alas the laws of writing are not like the laws of physics. I cannot suspend them or bend them at will, changes in shift have been fixed retroactively.
I apologize a million times over for the length between updates. And Happy Valentine's Day.
Tonks woke up with dried tears on her face and wet spots on her pillow. She frowned as a sinking feeling accompanied her recollection of why she'd been crying.
It was her day off, and she actually had nothing to do -no friends to hang out with, no work to catch up on, even no Order duties. All she could do was sulk around her room. She dared not go down to breakfast. Sirius would pity, Molly would pry, and Remus would be sitting there as benevolent and impassive as ever. All of them making her rue the day she was born. So she sulked around in her pajamas, not even bothering to get changed. Her magazines were old, her books were boring, and she had nothing to do. Her room at Grimmauld Place was not fit for lazy days. There seemed to be no sort of absent distraction at all. She decided to end her extended sleepover and go check on her place.
Back at her place there was a pile of letters on the coffee table. All from her mother, all unopened. She'd know about eleven of them, but three new ones had come. At first she was content to disregard them and go water her dying plants, but the ever-growing stack of letters was nagging her the back of her mind. All had gone unanswered, and most of them had gone unread, somehow they'd gotten lost in the shuffle of less unpleasant things she had to do. But to be perfectly honest there were very few things that were more unpleasant to Nymphadora Tonks than speaking with her mother. She sank into the chair by her desk and began to count the letters. One, Two, Three, Four,...Fourteen. Fourteen letters had been sent to her by her mother. She hadn't opened a single one, but she would bet her life that she could relay the contents of all of them. She began opening them a little reluctantly.
Letter Number One:
"Nymphadora,"-cringe- "I haven't seen or heard from you in quite sometime. I was just hoping to hear from you soon. I think any mother would hope her daughter would make a greater effort to keep in touch. Especially with a war going on and the rising panic. But I suppose you must have met someone, and that's why you're neglecting your dear mother. I understand how much time a new relationship can take up. I can't wait to meet him. Love, Mom "
Letter Number Two:
"Nymphadora,"-double cringe-"Your father and can't wait for a visit. We've been worrying about you. Have you considered leaving that job of yours. I keep hearing about terrible things happening to people. I don't want you to be a target. I'm sure there is a burly man somewhere who would love to be fighting dark wizards. Make sure to bring whomever you've been spending all your time with for your next visit. Love, Your Mother."
Letter Number Three:
"Nymphadora, I'm not at all impressed by your talent for worrying your parents. Please send us a reply so that we know your still alive atleast. Hopefully this boy who's been monopolizing all your time has good intentions of marriage. Hope you have some good news by our next visit. "
Letter Number Four:
"Nymphadora, It's been a whole month without a reply. It's not okay to worry us like this. I hope we hear from you soon. If this boyfriend of yours doesn't intend to let you speak to us then maybe he isn't for you. Your father met a very nice boy who's excited to meet you. That is if you ever deem visiting us worth your time. Love, Andromeda"
The letters continued in the trend, only getting more disapproving. If she had to say anything positive about them she could at least say they were concise. Each letter spanned half a page or less. Until she got to the last letter, which was much more of a threat than a request.
Letter Number Fourteen:
"Nymphadora, I know that you're alive because I've been checking the obituaries in the paper. If I don't hear from you soon, so help me god, I don't think anymore correspondence will be necessary. You are not so old that you don't need your parents anymore Nymphadora, and we will not tolerate being ignored and disregarded. It is completely unacceptable for you to worry us like this. There is a war going on, that you happen to be a part of, and we would like to make certain that you're alright. Visit soon, we'd like to see you in person. Andromeda."
A guilty blush crept across her cheeks. No, matter how much she wanted to avoid speaking with her mother she knew it wasn't fair. But any time she convinced herself to go for a visit the knowledge that any sort of conversation with Andromeda seemed to lead in the same desolate and unpleasant direction inevitably leaving them both frustrated and upset left her making an excuse to put it off. But the last letter was a threat, and she knew her mother expected a visit. And she knew that during the visit she ought to be accompanied by a very nice man or a very good excuse, preferably severe and extended incapacitation. She didn't have either.
The best she could hope for was some dreadful chore she could help her father with, that would bore or disgust her mother. Andromeda's letter weighed heavily on her mind. She hadn't even realized how worried her parents would be about her. The threat of wartime hadn't crossed her mind. The more she thought the guiltier she felt.
Tonks knew what she had to do. She slowly got up from her desk and gathered up her bath things to go take a shower. Every step towards the bathroom felt like a mile, and her feet were like lead. She would have to visit her parents, and to do that she would have to look presentable. Her mother was a real stickler for that sort of thing -no boots, no pink hair, no pants, no t-shirts, etc. After she was showered she began her frantic search for something appropriate to wear. Her mother hated the idea of women in pants, so that killed half her wardrobe. Most of her skirts were too short or too bright, and she liked all of her T-shirts much to much for her mother to ever like them. After a long and desperate search she came up with a sweater, a green turtleneck type deal, and skirt, one of those tapered beige numbers with a hidden zipper, that she could have sworn her mother sent her. The hardest part was shoes, boots were unacceptable, she couldn't walk in heels, and sneakers would make her look like some aging teacher at a rural intermediate school. She searched under her bed, in her closet, in the cabinet where she kept cereal. Certainly she had to have a pair of loafers or something equally sensible somewhere. She eventually found them. And coincidentally discovered the reason that her bottom desk drawer wouldn't closed all the way. An extremely squashed pair of loafers had somehow found they're way into the space behind the drawer. She tried to unsquish them a bit before giving up and slipping them on.
After getting dressed she almost felt ready to walk out the door. Then she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror. She'd almost forgotten to unmorph. Her parents liked to be able to recognize her by something other than the fact that she was unrecognizable. She took a deep breath and tried to pluck up a bit of courage before standing up and walking out the door.
She walked for a few blocks, and deeply considered walking the whole way just to buy herself some time. She relented after about a half a mile, deciding that she would like to be there before the war ended. She ducked into the next alleyway, and after deeming it safe she apparated to the walk of the house she grew up in. She stared at her feet as she crossed the large blue paving stones, careful not to step in the cracks. She felt like a child again, like avoiding the cracks would force the universe to endow her with some special protection.
She stood at the door with her hand raised, daring herself to knock. She swallowed hard then knocked twice. She heard movement behind the door and stood waiting.
"Dora!" Her father shouted in amazement before drawing her into a hug. She returned his affection with zeal. He released her from his hug, then took a step back to inspect her with a smile. She smiled back stupidly and said, "Wotcher, Dad."
"Oh, Dora it's great to see you looking so well! Dromeda, come out here. Dora's come for a visit!" Her father called toward the kitchen.
They were both startled by the sound of plates crashing and then quick footsteps. Her mother appeared around the doorway, and she soon after found herself in another hug. "Nymphadora!" she cried emphatically as she gave Tonks a kiss on the cheek. Tonks was too surprised by the warm greeting she received to be properly annoyed by the use of her first name. "Nymphadora, we haven't seen you in so long. We've missed you!" She cringed the second time, but it was as much from embarrassment as annoyance.
"Momma!" She exclaimed as she clung to her mother's petite frame. They embraced each other firmly. Reluctance and anger were the last things on their minds. Tonks hadn't realized how much she'd miss her mother. They stepped back to look properly at each other. They mirrored each others actions in near perfection for anyone who was watching.
Tonks stayed for lunch. She and her mother miraculously managed to avoid conflict for the time it took to prepare and consume a meal.
After lunch she went out back with her dad, to help him add a lean-to to the shed for more space. She was grateful for the chore if only because it gave her an excuse to put on a comfy pair of his old denims and a T-shirt, but she was even happier that it gave her the opportunity to get away from her mother for a bit. Though they hadn't argued their conversations were strained.
Tonks and her father had been working on the roof silently for a while, enjoying the sunshine, when he turned to her "Do you think Andromeda is a bad mother?" He asked her. She gaped and the nails she'd been holding in her mouth fell to the ground with a clatter.
"No,- Why- Eh-" She sputtered, unable to find acceptable words for what she wanted to say. She didn't think her mother could ever intentionally hurt her. She loved her mother.
His forehead creased in concern, "Don't-," He began, but he stopped unable to finish his sentence. He took a deep breath before he started again, "It's not that I think you don't love her. But do you resent her for wanting you to get married?"
Yes! Nymphadora wanted to shout it from the rooftops, and she could have considering she was coincidentally on a rooftop. But she wasn't sure she could say it. It felt so ungrateful. She didn't want to be disloyal to her mother. But her father looked at her earnestly. Something about the way her father looked at her implied secrecy. "Yes." She muttered as she pulled out her wand to summon the dropped nails and give her an excuse to look away.
"She's afraid you don't think she's a good mother, that you don't like her. She thinks that's why you haven't visited or wrote, or flooed." His forhead creased a bit as if he wasn't sure he should continue but after a breath he went on, "She just wants you to be happy. She's afraid that you're lonely like you were at Hogwarts, and she wants you to have someone. We remember the morose little creature you were as a teenager, and we don't want you to be that way. This war is dreadful, and sometimes just to know that someone loves you and to be with them is enough to make it less dreadful. She wants you to have that." Tonks felt uncomfortable, and it wasn't because she was on a partially framed roof. Her parents honestly believed that all she needed was to be married. She could understand that they found happiness in each other and wanted her to have the same thing, but why couldn't they let her find it herself? Why didn't they think she was capable of finding it for herself? She was reminded of an incident from the second summer holiday after she began going to Hogwarts.
Nymphadora sat in the hall listening to the voices beyond the door. "She doesn't have any friends Ted! She doesn't get letters over the holidays, no on has invited her for a birthday or out to play. During the year all she ever writes to us about is her teachers. I just think she's lonely." Andromeda whispered concernedly.
Nymphadora could just imagine them sitting there at the table. Her mother would be leaning over the table a bit with her hand stretched out towards her fathers. He would be sitting back in his chair massaging his forehead, trying to stave off a headache. He answered with a sigh, "But what can we do about it? We can't make other children like her." He sounded a little desperate. His heart ached for his only child. She felt her eyes start to fill up, and hot tears stained her cheeks. She abandoned her perch in the hall and fled to her room.
"I'm sorry. I don't want her to think that I don't love her, but I'm just so busy and frustrated with work and the war." Nymphadora stopped. She waited a moment before continuing again with a bit more conviction and a lot more sadness, "I didn't want to come over just to pick a fight with her, and it always ends in a fight."
"She means well. That's all I can say in her defense I suppose." He picked up his hammer and started working again. They fell into silence. Tonks tried her hardest not to fall off of the partially framed roof. In an hour around three in the afternoon they climbed down to admire their handiwork. The lean-to was framed. "Remind me again why we didn't do this with magic."
"You do less damage without magic," Mr. Tonks answered with a smile, "And where would the fun be in using magic?" They chuckled a little as they stowed the tools in the shed and walked back to the house together.
They slipped in quietly, tracking a little bit of mud across the floor. Mr. Tonks sank heavily into his favorite armchair and summoned a Butterbeer from the refrigerator. Nymphadora sat across from him on the couch and curled around the arm. He summoned another that she presumed was for her. "Thanks," She said reaching toward the floating bottle.
"For what?" He asked feigning confusion, as he sat the bottle next to his open one.
"But you have one!" Tonks exclaimed as he sat the bottle down.
"And now I have two," He said with a smug smirk. She glared at him. He chuckled then tossed her the bottle, giving up his act.
"Why are you always makin' funna' me?" She griped petulantly after a gulp.
"It's just so easy to ruffle your feathers, who could resist?" She stuck her tongue out at him. They sat looking at each other for a bit. Tonk's was thinking about how nice it was to sit around and joke with her father. "You know sometimes I wish you looked more like me." He remarked absently after setting down his empty bottle.
"Well thats an easy one," She answered screwing up her face and turning her hair blonde and copying her fathers nose, "See, now I look like I'm yours."
Mr. Tonks rolled his eyes and sighed, "You know what I mean Dora. It would make me feel like I had, hmmm, more of a stake in you."
She looked at him confusedly for a moment, "Are you doubting my paternity?" She exclaimed before doubling over in a fit of laughter.
He gaped and sputtered trying to explain himself before joining his daughter in a fit of laughter. The noise must have drawn Andromeda from the kitchen, but she was not pleased at what she saw. "Oh, what are you two simpletons in here laughing about?" They continued their fits of laughter. Upon receiving no answer she grew more petulant, "Nymphadora why haven't you changed? Dinner is going to be served in a half-hour, and we're having a guest! And both of you sitting on my furniture in those nasty work cloths! I see you've also tracked mud in the house." They weren't laughing anymore. They knew what was happening, and once Andromeda had picked up steam there was no stopping her rants, "Did you get sawdust on my furniture?" She exclaimed a little disbelievingly. Mrs. Tonks took a steadying breath before she shooed her daughter upstairs to get changed, and her husband away from herself for fear of committing murder.
As she mounted the stairs Nymphadora tried to recall soliciting, receiving, or accepting and invitation to dinner -she couldn't. She also couldn't recall when a simple visit after breakfast had turned into an all day affair. She was also fairly sure she knew what kind of guest they were having to dinner. The guest would coincidentally be around her age, male, a good friend of her parents, and available. How conventient. She seethed at being drawn into one of her mother's traps. "Why didn't they just trade me for a few cattle right after Hogwarts?" Tonks muttered to herself as she slammed the door of her childhood room. On the bed her mother had laid a tan skirt, a white blouse, and a pair of stockings. She let out a low growl and snatched them off the bed. The only thing that kept her from setting them afire was her contrition at having not visited her parents for so long. She stalked off towards the bathroom to bathe and change. She emerged twenty minutes later clean, groomed, and presentable all to her dismay. The cloths her mother picked were less comfortable and more unflattering than she expected. She scowled at her reflection in the the foggy bathroom mirror as she walked out. "Nymphadora, you have three minutes!" Andromeda called up the stairs.
"Coming," She answered through her painfully clenched jaw. She plodded down the stairs heavily as if headed to her doom. As she reached the bottom of the stairs there was a knock at the door. She gripped the banister harder, and her knuckles went white. She caught sigh of her hair as it fell in her face, and it had gone the nasty vermilion color she recalled from her teenage fits of anger.
"Oh, Nymphadora," Andromeda tutted appearing from around the corner, "You're father's getting the door now, so could you please try to calm yourself down a little. I know I shouldn't have, and I'm a terrible mother, and you hate me -yadda, yadda, yadda. But could you please just change your hair back and stop being so sullen. I even made your favorite for pudding," Mrs. Tonks looked her daughter in the eye and her tone made the leap from condescending to pleading, "I shouldn't have, I know I shouldn't have, but please give him a chance. Not for me for him. He's a nice boy."
She silently gave in to her mothers plea. She changed her hair back to brown and stepped past her heading toward the parlor where she took a seat on the settee at the end farthest from the door. Andromeda went back to the kitchen, and Nymphadora sat waiting for her father to usher in her potential buyer. Her wait was short, soon her father entered followed by a tall younger gentlemen with dark hair and a shy smile.
"Oh, Hello there!" Mr. Tonks said with a start then he offered his daughter an apologetic smile before introducing her to the mystery guest, "Dora this is Jesse Alexander and Jesse this is my daughter Nymphadora," He introduced gesturing to Nymphadora and Jesse respectively.
She stood up to greet him, and as she shook his hand she couldn't help but notice his soft brown eyes and how his face seemed accustomed to smiling. She grinned back at him and offered a wotcher. He returned her greeting, and she asked to take his coat and offered him a seat. After hanging his coat in the hall closet she returned to the parlor where her mother had joined them. She sat down with him on the settee, and Andromeda returned to the kitchen to check on dinner without even a glance at her daughter. "It's great to meet you umm Nymphadora," He said a little unsure of what to call her, "I hear lots about you from your parents."
"Everyone calls her Tonks. It's a lot less of a mouthful if you like." Mr. Tonks suggested saving Nymphadora the trouble of being rude.
"Tonks," He repeated experimentally, "I like that." He concluded with a smile in Tonks' direction, "I go by my last name too. My parents saddled me with a girls name."
"Alex?" She asks as she returned his smile. He nodded and they had a chuckle at their shared eccentricity. A silence settle, so she asked, "How do you know my parents?"
He smiled obligingly. It was a straight bright smile that seemed to reach his whole face, "Well my father works with yours, " He nodded towards Mr. Tonks who was dangerously close to falling asleep, "And my parents had yours over for dinner one night. I thought they were great company, and I supposed I might impose on their hospitality little more often than I should."
"Nonsense," Mr. Tonks interjected perking up a bit. "We love having you. And speaking of hospitality, I ought to go check on Andromeda in the kitchen," He rose as he spoke. And with a conspirators glance at his daughter removed to the kitchen.
Tonks turned to face her companion a little more directly, "That's really nice of you. Not the imposing part," She corrected sensing her folly, "The keeping my parents company part. I probably don't visit them as often as I should."
"Well, I suppose being an auror doesn't offer you very much by the way of free time for social calls and things."He said casually.
"How do you know what I do?"
"Oh, this is odd. Your parents told me you were an auror. They've told me a quite a bit about you I suppose. That's a little queer isn't it, knowing so much about you when we've just met? Well, I guess it gives me the conversational upper hand. Too bad I'm terrible at making conversation and end up rambling a little. You can stop me whenever you're inclined to put me out of my misery." He said looking at her for a bit of help.
Tonks chuckled, "To help you'd I'd probably have to be a skillful conversationalist, but because that's not the case at all I don't suppose that's within my power. I speak how I walk. And if you've ever seen me trip over my own feet you know that's not a good thing. I suppose we'll just have to suffer through our own blunders comforted by the knowledge that the other is just as inept."
"Well that puts a silver lining to it." He said dryly.
"Well, I try to put one in everything." She smirked. They chuckled.
Andromeda, with her knack for putting an end to laughter, called them to dinner.
A/N: I know what ur thinking I promise. It probably goes along the lines of I thought this was Remus and Tonks not Remus and your silly OC? And did I really have to wait months for that?
Well I'm really sorry it took so long. It wasn't supposed to end here. But I figured I ought to just cut the chapter in half and give you something before you gave up entirely. And my OC disappears really soon so don't get your undies in a bunch.
What's for dinner? Will Tonks and Andromeda make up? Stay tuned. Review.