"Remus Lupin?"

"Yes. I'm here."

His eyes were steadily fixed on the tall, stern witch standing before the group in a shimmering floor-length emerald robe. Remus uncrossed his arms and raised a hand slightly to catch her searching eyes that peered over her square spectacles. She acknowledged him with a quick nod.

"Nymphadora Tonks?"

"Aw, bouncing bowtruckles! McGonagall…are you kidding me?"

"I beg your pardon?" McGonagall fired back with a steely gaze and eyebrows raised.

"Are you really going to call me that after this long? I mean, I would think you'd know my name preference by now. How many times do I have to tell you people, it's TONKS, just Tonks, don't bloody call me Nymphadora!"

Some members of the Order in the room made audible snickering noises, especially Sirius which erupted into his distinctive canine laugh. Tonks crossed her arms, and squinted her eyes around the room in irritation of their dismissal.

"Oh shut your yammering pumpkin pastie holes!"

She scrunched her face and suddenly it morphed into an exact replica of Sirius Black's face. Her hair darkened; from a bright fuchsia color to coal black. She stuck her tongue out at him, and then looked inward at her nose to mock him. This made him and others laugh even louder. Her face morphed back to normal, she rolled her eyes and then settled into a slight scowl of annoyance.

McGonagall was not in the least bit amused. She heaved a sigh of frustration, cleared her throat and said in a louder voice,

"Very well. My apologies. Tonks. I stand corrected. Now, are you quite ready to listen to your assignment now?"

"Yes, yes. Go ahead."

"You have been paired with Remus Lupin for the next overnight mission."

"Alright."

Tonks answered and found her eyes darting across the room to locate where Lupin was seated. She found him. He was already looking at her. They made eye contact and then both exchanged brief nods of agreement before the group.

Tonks noticed when she looked across the room that everyone else present at the Order of the Phoenix meeting still seemed to have lingering foolish grins on their faces; likely from her cheeky performance. But not Lupin. His facial expression appeared totally neutral and serious.

Something about that initial observation of him seemed to bring comfort to her at the moment. Perhaps it was knowing that besides McGonagall, there was at least one other Order member that had refrained from laughing at her. God, she hated it when they wouldn't take her name preference seriously.

McGonagall glanced at the assigned pair and then continued.

"The two of you shall patrol the outside perimeter of Malfoy Manor and gather any and all intelligence you can for us. We have strong evidence that it is most likely being used as the base of operations for Lord Voldemort and the Death Eaters. So please, I urge you to use the utmost caution to remain undetected."

Madeye who was sitting next to her, gave her a sudden nudge on her leg with his walking stick.

Then he said, "That means turn up your stealth skills, Tonks."

She whipped her head towards him and replied,

"Of course. Got it. I'll even morph myself into a man if you'd prefer. Constant vigilance, right?"

"Constant vigilance," he echoed in agreement for the umpteenth time ignoring her snarky suggestion.

Tonks had honestly never paid too much attention to the rather quiet Order member, Remus Lupin up until that point in time. Her background knowledge of him was limited.

She knew he was mates with her cousin Sirius at Hogwarts. She vaguely remembered seeing him hanging around Sirius and James Potter in Diagon Alley a time or two when she was much younger. They were mostly goofing off and gathering school supplies.

She remembered at that age in a true Hufflepuff manner, she was always in a hurry to get to the Magical Menagerie to check out all the exciting magical creatures in the shop. Either that or she was in a hurry to Sugar Plum's sweet shop to buy herself chocolate frog or licorice wand.

His name had been briefly mentioned once by Madeye when they had discussed the threat of werewolves. But Madeye had spoken highly of him so he was obviously not a dark wizard nor any concern to the Ministry as far as she knew. He certainly wouldn't be present in the room as a member of the Order of the Phoenix if he was a concern.

She knew enough to pick up on the vibe that sometimes others were wary of him because of him being a werewolf. To her that sure seemed like a ripe load of Hippogriff shit.

Tonks was smart enough to know that it was completely unnecessary to treat him any different. It didn't bother her a bit he was a lycanthrope. It wasn't his fault. Clearly, he didn't have any choice in the matter whenever it happened.

She paused for a moment of introspection. Tonks thought about how how she herself had experienced times when others treated her differently because of her being a metamorphmagus. Occasionally, other ignorant wizards and witches had reacted in fear of her abilities, oddly distancing themselves from her like it was a some new detestable magical disease.

Ugh. They must of snoozed through that magical history lesson at Hogwarts about the existence of metamorphmagi. Needless to say, that was probably only a drop in the cauldron compared to the on-going prejudice he had likely experienced.

She knew he had been a Hogwarts Defense Against the Dark Arts (DADA) professor but not anymore. She didn't remember all the details of why he had left the position. She figured either it was the on-going cursed temporary nature of the DADA professor position or too many complaints from fearful, prejudiced parents. Hopefully, they hadn't been too hard on him. She felt a sudden wave of pity wash over her for Lupin.

Tonks decided to show the group she had no qualms about being paired with the known werewolf in the group.

She deliberately got up from her chair and walked with extra careful steps over towards Lupin. Merlin knows how after the comment from Madeye about stealth she could not afford to trip over something. She was determined not to make an clumsy arse of herself in front of everyone. She successfully made it across the room and sat down in the empty chair right next to Remus.

McGonagall was still making announcements about assignments that involved who was paired with who. Many sets of eyes had followed Tonks when she made the conspicuous seating relocation across the room.

She nonchalantly put her hand on his arm, put on a friendly smile and whispered,

"Hi ... new partner."

Remus looked down in surprise at her hand touching his arm. A warm, pleasant feeling splashed across his body unexpectedly as if her wand had touched him instead. Strangely, he felt his heart start to beat faster inside his chest.

He silently took a breath to calm himself and dismissed his bodily reaction. Stop it, he said internally, disgusted with himself.

His lips formed into a small, polite smile. He answered her quietly,

"Hello, Tonks."

Tonks brazenly looked right into his eyes. It was an attempt to show the others her full, unbiased acceptance of him. However, her focus on the others perceptions in the group began to rapidly crumble away. Unexpectedly, she found that the longer she gazed into his captivating eyes the more others seemed to fade away into nothingness. Her heart unexpectedly gave a lurch of attraction she had never quite felt before.

He continued,

"Remus Lupin. How do you do."

He hesitantly extended his other hand to her and she immediately took it still staring steadily into his eyes. They shook hands but Tonks didn't let go of his hand.

"Pleasure to meet you, Mr. Lupin."

"Please. You can just call me Remus."

Tonks was in a trance and continued silently staring into his mysterious, deep blue eyes. His eyes had so much depth reminding her of great bodies of dark water she had flown over at night. She felt so drawn to him as if he was casting some sort of magnetic spell on her.

Another moment passed.

He added,

"It's an honor to be assigned to work with such a skilled Auror. Thank you for your service to the Order. I, I know that must come with a great deal of risk to you and Alastor."

Remus looked down at her hand still grasping his own. He didn't try to pull his hand away, though. He was curious to see how long she would hold it. Tonks continued to remain silent.

"Are you alright?" he asked softly with concern.

She wondered why he was so kindly concerned about her.

"Huh?"

Finally, she broke out of her trance when she followed his eyes looking down at their hands. It dawned on her that she had been holding onto his hand for too long. She quickly released her grip.

Focus! She told herself silently. Feeling a bit rattled she awkwardly stammered,

"Oh! Um, yes, I'm fine. Right. Remus it is... and thank you. Thanks for actually calling me Tonks. I do appreciate it."

"Not at all, Tonks. Of course."

"The Malfoys are a wicked, vile lot, all of them. Have you visited Malfoy Manor before?"

"No, never. My blood is probably considered even worse than that of a Muggle from their point of view."

Tonks made a huff sound and rolled her eyes.

"Well, I think I still have nightmares every once and a while from visits to my aunt, Narcissa Malfoy's place when I was little. But mind you this was before our family was disowned; burned right off the Black family tree for my mom marrying my impure Muggle-born Dad."

"Oh, yes. I remember when a similar event happened to your cousin Sirius when we were at Hogwarts together. He went to live with the Potters. Dreadful business...pure blood supremacy."

"Yes, dreadful indeed and completely crackers. Do you know where it's located? I do. It's in Wiltshire, which is west of London, so not too far of a broomstick ride."

"I didn't know but I'm glad you do. I'll have to follow you when we fly there."

"I may be dead clumsy on the ground sometimes but believe me, I'm much better in the air on my broom."

"I believe you. Are you... morphing into any man in particular for the assignment?"

"Oh I don't know yet. Maybe I'll do Alberic Grunnion, inventor of the magical stink bomb."

Remus suppressed a laugh of amusement, not wanting her to feel mocked. He decided to change the conversational topic back to the location of their assignment.

"I'm somewhat familiar with the Wiltshire area. When I was just a little lad, my parents once visited the famous Muggle StoneHenge site."

"Oh yeah that's right! I remember seeing a picture of Muggles fascinated by that old circle of stones in my textbook when I took Muggle Studies my third year at-"

"Tonks! Remus! Hush." Minerva McGonagall interrupted.

Tonk and Remus looked up in surprise at everyone. They both had grown blissfully unaware of the Order members all staring at them; even Madeye's magical eye had stopped whizzing around and was fixed on them.

"My apologies, Minerva," Remus said feeling his face flush red in embarrassment.

"Please refrain from side conversations until the meeting is concluded. I don't want you to miss any key information."

"Yes, of course. Sorry," Tonks chimed in. She noticed Madeye frowning at her. His magical eye was now making triangular movements darting between her, McGonagall, and Remus.

McGonagall continued discussing the Order assignments. They both kept their mouths shut and listened attentively.

Tonks stole a glance at Remus. She found him to be stealing a glance at her at the same time. Both of their mouths twitched into mischievous grins.

Author's note:

Dear readers,

I was stuck in the mindset I had to write this story in precise, sequential order of all the events in Remus' life. But finally realized that one doesn't have to go in the exact order of events.

I decided it was taking too agonizingly long to write everything leading up to Remus & Tonks first meeting at the OOTP meeting during the Second Wizarding War. I've been working on this story for two years. I wanted them to meet already!!

So I'm skipping ahead to their meeting at last!

I could always do flashbacks when they're getting to know each other in Order missions, right? Thank you for reading & following.

Any & all feedback is greatly welcomed & appreciated.

~EmeraldChicken