Tonks flinched violently when Snape pressed too hard for anything resembling comfort into the healing wound on her arm from where the waper had bitten her, and then where toxic feelers on its legs had dug into her skin where Lupin had dragged it off her arm. He was reluctant to use magic to heal it until he was satisfied there was no toxin in either her body, in the wound, and that the wound was merely superficial – if painfully so. Tonks flung her good arm around Lupin's neck and released a soft cry into his shoulder. "Do you have to hurt her so much?" he asked Snape testily.

"So sorry," he said sarcastically. "Last I checked I was Potions Master, not a Healer. I'm happy to give her a potion, then you can tell her parents you didn't want to hurt her if something goes wrong." Lupin gritted his teeth and shot Snape a filthy look but let Snape continue what he was doing. After a few more minutes, he was satisfied that the wound was merely a flesh one and ran the tip of his want over her arm. "Heal," he chanted softly.

There was a prickly, burning sensation along her arm as the skin healed itself and Tonks wrapped it around Lupin, clasping it with her other one. She buried his head in his shoulder, and in doing so, her hair slid across her neck. "Hey, what's this?" Snape asked, brushing her hair completely to the side to reveal the scar that ran along the base of her neck. "If I didn't know any better, I would say it was Bellatrix's work"

"And you would know this, how exactly?" Lupin asked testily.

"We all had our signature curses," Snape said, referring to the Death Eaters. "Bellatrix had this thing with inflicting wounds that took months to heal and left scars that couldn't be removed. But this," he said, running his fingers across the scar in typical Snape style, not bothering to ask Tonks if it was alright to invade her personal space like that, "is not her work."

"And you know that how?" Lupin asked, just as testily. He wrapped his arms tighter around Tonks's waist, wishing that Snape would stop touching her.

"Because one, I could feel it if it was," he announced casually, as if it was no big deal that fifteen years after Voldermort had been defeated and Snape had renounced his ways, he still had a weird psychic connection with other Death Eaters. "And two," he said, bringing his wand to her neck, "I wouldn't be able to do this. Heal," he said again, and there was the same prickly sensation, but this time far more pleasant, as the scar vanished like it was no more than a pencil line on a piece of paper being erased.

"I already tried that!" Lupin said indignantly, a little put out that Snape had one more thing over him when it came to Tonks. "Several times."

"With all the Dark Magic in your experience, I suppose," Snape said sarcastically. "Anything else you want me to fix while I'm here?" he asked Tonks.

"No," Lupin said shortly.

Despite himself, Snape smirked, and it made him look remarkably human, at least by Snape's standards. "Is he like this with every man who touches you?" he asked Tonks.

Tonks withdrew her head from Lupin's neck and rewarded Snape with a small smile. "He was worse with Charlie," she said.

"Funny, out of the four I always pegged Potter as the possessive boyfriend type" he said, which sounded remarkably like a joke to Lupin's ears – one at his expense, granted, but not a particularly malicious one. "So it's too amateur to be Bellatrix," he mused. "Who was it then? Narcissa or Andromeda?" he asked with genuine interest.

"Mum."

"Ah. I always figured her for the most pacifist of the three. What did you do to piss her off?"

"Nothing that warranted beating the crap out of her," Lupin spoke up.

Snape's eyes glittered with amusement. Lupin wished he hadn't chosen now to develop a sense of humour. "She caught you in bed together, didn't she? Good grief, Remus, what possessed you to go to her place?"

"I bullied him into it. His entire apartment was, like the same size as my bedroom."

"Was not."

"Was too, I checked the dimensions one day." But as she was speaking, she was looking at him in a way that said she had been quite happy with his tiny apartment, and everything else about it.

"Nymphodora, no more excuses. I'm taking you to see your parents."

Tonks crossed her arms across her chest and did her best to look defiant, which was never easy with Moody. Not only did he have phenomenal perceptions, but he had been her mentor, so it was difficult to defy him.

"They have a right to know what's happened to you."

"I'm fine now."

"Remus doesn't seem to think that," Moody said slyly. Her naturally robust constitution was restoring her health and strength in leaps and bounds, but she appeared to regress whenever Lupin was around to support her and carry her around and stay with her until she fell asleep. "And the fact you're fine now is all the more reason to go and see them. They're less likely to cause a fuss if they can see you're doing well. You were bitten by a waper, Nymphodora," Moody reminded her needlessly. "That's not something many people can live to tell."

She glowered at Moody, knowing perfectly well that he was right. "Fine, but I want Remus to come with me."

"I've already spoken to Remus about that, and he agrees it's a bad idea." Tonks's eyes started to flash, both at being told no and the fact the two men had discussed her behind her back, and Moody waved her silent. "Listen to me, Nymphodora, and I'll tell you why it's a bad idea. He's worked hard to get back in your parent's good books. How do you think they'll feel when he goes with you and does his protective-boyfriend act the second things get a little tense?"

"He's not my boyfriend."

"Be that as it may," Moody said, taking note of the longing tone in her voice when she said that, "he still acts supremely protective of you. If you and your parents disagree over anything at all, that protective instinct will most likely kick in and he'll whisk you out of there before they can do anything. And all that will do is make them resent him for taking you from them. Is that what you want to happen?"

"No," Tonks admitted in a small voice.

"Then see them without making them feel like they're going to have to compete with him for you," Moody said reasonably. "I'll be there with you, I'll get you out of there if I think things are getting hairy," he promised. Tonks relaxed slightly at the thought. If there was one person she felt secure around after Lupin, it was Moody. "Oh, and Nymphodora?" Moody asked when he saw that Tonks was agreeable to the idea.

"Yeah?"

"Drop the invalid act. Remus might take accept any thin excuse that means he gets to touch you, but I know perfectly well you can walk."

"Dora! Darling, it's been so long..." Andromeda said longingly when she saw her daughter for the first time in over a year. She eyed her critically. She looked thin and weak, and Andromeda actually missed the vibrant hair colours and wacky outfits. "Alastor," she said to Moody. She was fond of the retired Auror, who had not only been a very talented Auror but had taken Tonks under his wing and taught her every considerable thing he knew. "Is something the matter?"

"You might want to sit down," Moody suggested. "Nymphodora has had something of a health scare. I thought you might like to be informed... and see that she's recovering well."

Andromeda paled visibly at the thought of anything happening to her only child. Moody solicitously helped her into a comfortable chair. "Grimmauld Place was somewhat infested and she had a little run-in with a waper," he said, making it sound like it was no more than a bad fall – which for Tonks, was practically an everyday occurrence.

Andromeda's eyes went wide. "A waper?" she cried. "As in, the parasite that kills most things with one bite?"

"Most things," Moody agreed casually.

Andromeda looked at Tonks who, apart from looking thin, pale and far too traditionally dressed for Tonks, looked well. "But – how?" she asked.

"You're not going to like this, Dromeda, but the combined efforts of Remus Lupin and Severus Snape. If they hadn't been there and reacted as quickly as they had, she wouldn't have made it. It was touch-and-go for a few days as it was."

For a second, Andromeda looked remarkably like her older sister when her lip curled up in disgust with the knowledge that her daughter owed her life to two men she detested. Well, she didn't exactly detest Lupin – liked him quite a bit, actually, so long as he steered clear of her daughter – but to have them both responsible for Tonks's life!

Finally, her maternal instinct kicked in and she swallowed her disgust. "How are you feeling?" she asked Tonks. They hadn't seen each other for more than a year, since Lupin had come by to tell her about Sirius.

"I feel stronger every day," she said truthfully. Her words got a grin out of Moody, who had witnessed her playing down her increasing strength and health to get sympathy and attention from Lupin. "I'm fine, mum, really, I am. It was – really bad – for a while," she admitted, her throat catching on really bad when she remembered her pain and delirium, "but Snape says I'm recovering well, and he's even worse than Madam Pomfrey."

Andromeda laughed at that. Madam Pomfrey had been the hospital wing Matron at Hogwarts since before even Andromeda's time, and she'd always had exacting standards when it came to her patients' recoveries, as she herself had found out more than once. "And you're happy with the Order?" she asked.

Tonks grinned at that, knowing exactly what her mother was getting at. "Between Sirius, Remus and Alastor, there's barely any strife I can get into," she half-complained and half-reassured her mother. "Other than the nasties that have taken up residence in the Black house."

Feeling the paternal protection of Moody behind her, Tonks began to relax around her mother, and Andromeda put in the effort as well. It helped that she looked happier than she had in years, despite the fact she looked too thin and pale than Andromeda would have liked. Deep down, she was aware that Remus Lupin was a large part of that happiness.

After an hour or so, Ted returned from work, and was just as surprised as Andromeda had been to see his daughter – and just as horrified to hear about her brush with death. After all, what was the point of letting her join the Order under the supervision of her cousin and former mentor if she was going to get herself almost killed without so much as leaving the house.

He grinned dryly when he found out that Remus Lupin was part of the Order. He had no doubt that Tonks had found out about it, and been determined to join for that reason. But then, according to Moody, Lupin's quick-thinking – along with Snape's – had saved Tonks's life. And Ted had never been as against Tonks's relationship with Lupin as Andromeda had been. Sure, he had been angry to find them in bed together, and her at such a young age, but at the end of the day, he knew he couldn't begrudge his daughter loving someone who loved her back but that society deemed to be beneath her – after all, hadn't he been in that exact same position twenty-five years ago? And hadn't he gotten twenty-five years of marital bliss out of it?

So he sat down for a good long catch-up with his daughter while Andromeda and Moody retired to another room for a chat of their own. "Do they still have feelings for one another?" she asked contemptuously, as if 'feelings' were nothing more than an infatuation between two impetuous people who should have known better.

"I think so, yes,' Moody said, although he knew so; you didn't need to be an Auror to know those two shared an exceptionally uncommon bond. "I suspect it's only a matter of time before they get back together. So you've got to let go of these issues you have with him, Dromeda. Yes, he's a werewolf. But the only time he's ever hurt her is when you pressured him to leave her."

"I never – "

"Let's not have denial between old friends," Moody said calmly. "I don't imagine it would have taken you much to appeal to his better nature – kind of ironic when you think about it, given that most people don't think werewolves have better natures – and leave her to find herself someone better. You might have been able to put the pressure on him when she was seventeen, but you won't be able to do it now. You're going to have to let go of all these ideas you have if you want to keep her in your life. Because I suspect there will come a day not too far away where if you force her to choose, she'll choose him.

"I don't want her to go through what I did, Alastor," Andromeda admitted.

"Would you take it back if you knew then what you know now?" Moody asked.

"Of course not."

"Then maybe you should give her the same benefit of the doubt. Because I promise you if you don't, somewhere along the line, you'll lose her. I'd bet Galleons on that."

Moody and Tonks returned to the headquarters soon after. "What did you say to her?' she asked him. "She actually asked me about Remus, sounded almost interested, too."

"There's a war coming, Nymphodora, maybe it's occurred to your mother that the good guys need to stand together if they stand any chance of beating the bad." Tonks didn't believe for a second that that was what Moody had told her, but she didn't push it.

Lupin was waiting for her in the main living room when they got back. "How'd it go?" he asked, trying to keep his voice casual.

"Good," she said brightly. "No – better than good. I miss them," she admitted. There was so much more she wanted to say, but she didn't know how to say it. How did she express her deepest hopes that maybe someday her parents would understand how much she loved Lupin – and how much she hoped he loved her – and how much she hoped that they might accept him as much a son as a son-in-law?

"How are you feeling?" he asked solicitously.

"A little tired," she lied, because the adrenaline of a happy meeting with her parents was coursing through her veins. She felt Moody's eyes on her at the lie. "I feel like a bath and then lying in front of the fire. You feel up to a game of chess?" he had taught her when she had been ten, and for the next seven years they had whiled away dozens, if not hundreds of hours playing it.

He smiled. The thought of an evening alone with her, away from the increasingly-prying eyes of the other inhabitants of Grimmauld Place, sounded lovely.

Hours later they were lying in front of the fire in her room in companionable silence, their game of chess played to a draw. "Thanks for everything," she said suddenly. "For staying with me when I was sick – for everything."

"I was hardly going to leave you to your distress, love," he protested.

"Why do you keep calling me that?" she asked.

He shrugged. "It's just my name for you. I don't much like Tonks. Why, does it bother you?"

"No. I was just curious why you keep using it. I mean, if you meant anything by it."

He looked at her quizzically, trying to get the meaning behind her roundabout approach of questioning. "Nymphodora," he said deliberately. "Is this going somewhere?"

"I'msorryIsaidIhatedyou," she blurted out in a whisper.

"Eh?"

"I'm sorry – " she swallowed hard, then repeated her words slowly. "I'm sorry. I said. I hated you."

"Oh, that." He waved casually at nothing, the insult forgotten. "I held you down and forced a revolting concoction down your throat. I didn't blame you for it." He propped himself up on his elbow so he was looking down at her. "Don't tell me it's been bothering you."

"No. I mean, not exactly. I just – I remember what you said – and I told you I'd rather die and – well, I wasn't very grateful," she admitted.

"Don't worry about it."

"Remus?"

"Yeah?"

"Did you mean it?"

"Mean what?" he asked distractedly. God, but she looked gorgeous, the way her skin flickered hues of gold in the firelight.

"About – when I got better – " she floundered for her words.

He smiled lovingly at her. "Yeah," he said. "I meant it." And he leant forward, his forehead touching hers, taking his time, inhaling her smell, feeling her skin made warm by the fire, hearing her heartbeat increase in her chest. He leaned in to kiss her and...

... "Remus, is there ever going to be a point where I find you in your own room?" came Snape's sarcastic voice from the door. Typical of Snape, he had let himself in.

Lupin lost his balance and went crashing down on Tonks, who grunted. Lupin scrambled to his feet, feeling almost as embarrassed at the time they had been caught by her parents. "Merlin's beard, Severus, ever heard of knocking?"

"Sorry," Snape said, sounding genuinely contrite. "You told me to come get you when I'd finished the Wolfsbane."

Crap, Lupin thought. He'd completely forgotten. He looked apologetically at Tonks. "I'm sorry, I have to do this," he said, wishing Snape had been just a few seconds later, or that he hadn't wasted so much time taking in her feel and smell before going to kiss her.

She nodded, trying to hide the disappointment in her eyes. She told herself it was a bad time of the month for him anyway; if he needed Wolfsbane then it was less than a week to the full moon.

Feeling like a schoolkid been caught out by a teacher, Lupin followed Snape out the door. "One word of this to anyone," he promised, "and I'll tell Harry you wanted to bone his mother."