Strangeways, Here We Come

Doodles…

She dragged the tip of her quill along the parchment, the purple ink leaving sketches and squiggles as she mindlessly hummed a Weird Sisters tune. The work she was supposed to be doing was frightfully boring (honestly, she was a fully trained Auror with messy handwriting – why relegate the paperwork to her?), and she simply couldn't concentrate on it. Instead she filled the blank page with scrawled artwork in her reverie.

Halfway through drawing a smiley face, Remus entered the kitchen and jolted her back to attention. Quickly straightening up, she knocked over a mug full of tea in the process, the lukewarm liquid spilling out all over the table and her notes.

"Oh, bloody hell!" she cursed, searching for a dishrag.

"Allow me," the man offered courteously, waving his wand and easily vanishing the mess. Then he began to reach for the parchment and asked, "Would you like me to perform a drying charm on those?"

"No!" she cried, lunging across the table in a surprisingly graceful feat of acrobatics and covering them with her hands.

He stared at her in bewilderment. "I assure you, I can do the charm quite well – they won't be set on fire, or otherwise be ruined."

"I know, of course not," she quickly tried to reassure him with a sheepish grin. "I'm the one who would probably set them on fire. It's just that… Well… Oh, bugger, I just didn't want you to see what I was doing."

He quirked a brow and his mouth slowly began to spread into a grin. "Hmm, top-secret Auror information, then?"

"Um, not exactly…" The newness of their relationship was that where they still coyly tried to impress each other, and she doubted that childishly daydreaming when she should have been working would further that goal!

Looking down at the edges that her small hands weren't covering, he could make out a few flowers and random scribbles. "Ah, doodling, were you?"

"…Yes," Tonks admitted, her face reddening slightly at the unprofessional impression was she making.

"You know," Remus began thoughtfully, moving to sit down beside her. "They say the types of doodles drawn can be interpreted to analyze a person."

"Really?" she blinked, and then took in his kind smile. Feeling slightly better about him finding her with her head in the clouds, the witch then chuckled. "That sounds like something Trelawney would come up with, doesn't it?"

"That's what I thought at first…" Peering at the parchment once again, he smirked and continued, "But the concept has grown on me. Look, it seems to apply to you – flowers indicate a desire to blossom in life, and stars are often drawn by the irrepressibly romantic…"

She followed his gaze and saw those very things, and her curiosity was peaked. "What else?"

"Let's see – I believe dots are signs of a fragmented personality, while arrows indicate the aggressively ambitious," he explained, but then paused a bit before saying, "And lips usually point to a frustrated sexual desire of some kind…"

Tonks laughed in delight, winking at him cheekily. "Well, none of those for me – I'm far from sexually frustrated," she replied pointedly.

"Well, that's good to know," he murmured while valiantly attempting to suppress the flush to his cheeks – in the end he couldn't, and beamed bashfully at her compliment.

Oh, he was too adorable when he blushed! Perhaps she could make it happen again? Tapping a finger on her chin thoughtfully, she mused, "Well, Professor, perhaps this idea has some merit… How would you analyze this, then?"

She proceeded to hand him the sheet of parchment she had so hastily covered up. Hearts, stars, and flowers surrounded the largely embellished letters that lay in the middle of the page, spelling out NT+RL.

Please review, I'd love to know what you think about it!

Toodles,
- ish -