Author's note: this chapter has no business in this story because it can't reasonably be described as a vignette. The first 4/5 of it are an (ill-advised! Writing action or plot is not easy for me) attempt at a description of some Order of the Phoenix manoeuvres just to set the scene for a conversation about the nature of Lupin's bravery and a gratuitous Faramir (Lord of the Rings) reference. But it does move the relationship along, and I love a Faramir reference, so in it goes.

Hopefully it's very obvious but just in case it isn't, please note that in British English "fag" is slang for a cigarette, not a homophobic slur.

Tonks was excited to be teaming up with Remus again for a job for the Order, and, frankly, to be doing anything that wasn't sitting outside the sodding Department of Mysteries. It had been a few weeks since they'd been able to spend any decent stretch of time together - first Remus had gone for a week on a mission to hunt out hermit-like werewolves he suspected might be amenable to joining the Order (or at least helping it, and dealing one on one with him). Then they had hardly got past the first fevered flush of their reunion before Remus had got paler and more withdrawn, and the dreaded full moon had come around again. And since then, between shifts at the Department of Mysteries for the Order and her actual work, Tonks had hardly had a moment to breathe, let alone to do more than to crawl into Remus's bed late at night and emerge from it into the grey autumn morning not nearly enough hours later and start it all over again. So a job with Remus - even if it did also involve Hestia, Kinsley and Mad-Eye - was a very welcome spot of brightness in a dim drizzly season.

As they gathered in the drawing room of Grimmauld Place, waiting for Hestia to arrive Tonks sat on sofa studying the photograph of the man whose appearance she was to assume, pleasantly conscious that Remus was standing only three feet away.

"Mark Corser," Mad-Eye said gruffly, looking over her shoulder over the back of the sofa. "Not a Death-Eater, as far as Hestia can tell. But the bastard's the next best thing. He's in their pay and he receives a box from Yaxley every Thursday night outside this warehouse in Vauxhall, then makes a bit of a tour of thirty or so suspicious characters round London the following day. Only way we're going to find out what's in it is to interecpt it."

"Mark Corser," Tonks repeated to herself. "Right you are, Mark. Let's be having you." She looked up to see Remus watching her, a troubled expression on his face. She grinned at him cheerfully.

"It's risky, Alastor," he said, glancing at Moody. "Tonks doesn't even know what this man's voice is like."

"It's gravelly and unpleasant and sounds like he breakfasts on meth and fags," Hestia said, coming in the door and taking off her cloak in a brisk and businesslike manner.

"Breakfast of champions," Sirius broke off from prowling around exuding pent up energy and frustration to remark. Tonks laughed.

"There's not a lot of talking going on during these exchanges, anyway," Hestia said, bracingly. She rested her hand on Tonks's shoulder and Remus bit back a biting remark about how it was all very well for the rest of them to opine on how safe it was, when only Tonks could be the decoy Corser. He also repressed a surge of jealousy that Hestia could be so easily tactile with Tonks in front of others, when he didn't dare so much as to brush her hand unless they were alone in case the irrepressible spark between them flared up and the passion became visible for everyone to see.

"You know we wouldn't set this up if we hadn't put in precautionary measures, Remus," Hestia said, meeting his eyes from behind her mane of thick black hair. He nodded. He didn't know Hestia well - they were both quiet and introverted and only really unfurled in the presence of exuberant people who would ride roughshod over their reserves. But he knew that Hestia was fond of Tonks: they went out for drinks to the Felix Felicis cocktail bar sometimes and Tonks always came back giggly and happy and with her mouth tasting of obscenely sweet alcohol. Remus wondered fleetingly whether Hestia knew or suspected what Tonks was to him.

"I mean, it is a shame that I don't have any previous experience of undercover ops," said Tonks, eyes twinkling. "Oh no, hang on. I'm a bleeding auror."

"Point taken," Remus said quietly, looking down. What right did he have to object, anyway?

"Right, so Kingsley and Remus are covering Tonks throughout from here and here," Hestia pointed at spaces she had marked on a map drawn neatly on the piece of parchment she had unfurled from under her cloak. Remus looked up in surprise. Previously they'd discussed Hestia and he forestalling and containing Corser whilst Moody and Kingsley covered Tonks. Hestia gave him a smile which he wasn't sure how to interpret, but which he returned.

"Hestia thinks I'm too fond of Tonks for the proper detached approach," Moody explained, his left eye swivelling frantically. Remus wondered if it was an attempt at rolling it. It may have been, because Moody snorted. "As if I'd let a little personal affection interfere with proper protocol and vigilance. None of us are in this game for our own survival. There's nobody I wouldn't leave behind if needed for the mission."

"Ah, stop being so soppy, Mad-Eye, you'll bring a tear to my eye," said Tonks, grinning at her old mentor affectionately.

Kinglsey coughed, and Remus wondered whether he was going to make the point that as Tonks' boss and personal friend, he too had a claim to insufficient detachment. But Kingsley just drew everyone's attention back to the map, pointed with his wand and said calmly, "So Alastor and Hestia, you'll intercept Corser here, ten minutes before the target time?"

"That's the plan," Hestia said with her usual brisk competence. "He walks this way along the canal, and this is the least overlooked spot. The key is to get him quietly, obviously, and for Tonks to get a good look at him so she can get his height and build right." Tonks nodded.

"All right, team", Hestia rubbed her hands. "Are we good to go?"

"Let's do it," Tonks said, getting up and stufing the photograph into her pocket.

"Come back safe, coz," Sirius said lightly, but with an intense gleam of sheer envy in his eye.

"Don't worry, mum," Tonks replied. "If I can convince the entire staffroom that I'm McGonogall and that all the teachers need to turn up to the Halloween Feast in fancy dress at the age of 15, I can manage this."

"That sounds like a story we definitely need to hear." Sirius grinned but Remus saw the pain in the way he hunched his shoulders as he watched them all leave. Impulsively, he gave Sirius a gentle squeeze on the shoulder as he passed. Sirius looked up, startled more by noticing that Remus's hand was shaking slightly than by the affection. He nodded at Remus, and Remus followed the others into the hall, and disapparated with barely a sound.

The night air was chill and dingy with the glow of grubby streetlights in the seedy area of London they apparated to. Hestia wordlessly signalled Remus, Kingsley, Tonks and Moody towards the spot on the canal towpath she had chosen for them to wait for Corser. It was under a dripping bridge where the road rumbled over the canal, and it required them to press themselves into a crevice of the damp brickwork to ensure they weren't seen. Remus backed into the wall, feeling the residue of damp mould from the wall seeping through his cloak. It was extremely dark but Remus knew exactly where Tonks was, and he reached across to her and pulled her gently back into him, her back pressing into his front. It was vastly too intimate, and had anyone seen they would have immediately realised that this was not the action of a simple comrade or friend. But the darkness was thick and soupy, and he told hinself firmly that it made sense for everyone to take up as little room as possible, and for his body to protect hers from the dank wall even if he could do little else at this point. He had reckoned without his body's burning reaction to her proximity, and hers to his, and he had to work very hard to keep his arousal in check and his mind on the task at hand. Tonks's breathing was faster than usual, whether from the rush of the danger or from his hand around her waist he didn't know, but her body was taut with attention and focus.

Twenty minutes passed with nobody in sight other than pidgeons, rats, a pair of drunks and a young man on a bike. But at last Hestia muttered "that's him", and they watched Corser loom out of the darkness as he got closer and closer, and held their breaths as he passed them. Kingsley peeled himself out from the shadowy brickwork and padded behind Corser with a stealth that recalled his panther patronus. Hestia followed, moving like a shadow. Corser hadn't seemed to notice a thing before he was hit with a stunning spell, and crumpled to the ground. Kingsley and Hestia lifted him to the side of the towpath, where brown patches of dying rushgrass and dead nettle clumped damply, and laid him down. Looking around for signs of anyone approaching, Moody, Tonks and Remus left the bridge and joined them.

The light from Hestia's wand tracked up and down Corser's prone form. "All right, Tonks?", she asked. "Got the build and everything?"

Tonks nodded and stood still, concentrating hard, for a second. Then the same man appeared out of Tonks's smaller body. Remus gulped, finding himself, ridiculously, frantically missing the heart-shaped face and small, strong and delicious body which had vanished as though it had never been. Tonks gave him a quick wink which looked so out of place on this leering face that it made Remus feel worse, if anything. "How do I look?" she asked the group at large.

"Disgusting. Perfect." Hestia spoke with a flash of humour. "The voice is okay, but don't say anymore than you can help and keep it low."

Tonks nodded. She'd worn clothes which were much too large but Hestia efficiently stripped Corser of his boots, cloak and hat and passed them to Tonks. Tonks almost lost her balance and fell into the canal as she pulled the boots on, and she steadied herself on Remus's arm. He gave her large, slightly hairy hand a quick squeeze before he had time to reflect upon the strangeness.

"It must take a while to adjust to a higher centre of gravity," he said softly, and was rewarded by hearing her familiar snort of laughter, although sotto voce and through an unfamiliar voice.

"Yeah, that'll be it," she said, looking up at him from a much smaller distance than usual. "I never lose my balance at my usual height, do I?"

Hestia's voice interrupted this conversation. "All right, Tonks. We don't want Corser to be late. Moody and I will disapparate with this fella before someone sees us but Kingsley and Remus will be fifteen seconds behind you. Okay? Take it slow when you approach Yaxley to make sure they have time to catch up, just in case they're on to us and you get trouble."

Tonks nodded at Hestia quickly and set off, her gait impressively similar to that Corser had used. Remus didn't like this situation particularly but he did enjoy watching her work. It constantly impressed him that someone so carefree and exuberant could become so laser-focused in a flash.

In tandem, on a count of fifteen, he and Kingsley set off. Had Remus noticed it, his own tread was as wolf-like as Kingsley's was panther-like. They made no sound and kept in the shadows. As they walked up off the towpath towards the road and the path widened, they spread out to opposite sides of the road.

Outside the warehouse, Tonks was leaning against the iron gate, smoking a cigarette. Remus ducked into an alley where a group of wheelie bins were stored haphazardly, twenty feet away from her. Pressed against the wall of the alley, behind which he thought there might be an abattoir, he craned his neck and peered out of the darkness. On the other side of the road Kingsley's hiding place, crouching around the side of a battered white van badly parked half across the pavement, was a little closer, but slightly less secure. A couple of minutes passed. Tonks, who was not a smoker, coughed and extinguished the cigarette with her boot as Yaxley approached at a swift, steady pace from the warehouse, his cloak billowing.

"Corser," Yaxley's voice was low but clear. "Any messages?"

"None this time," Tonks said, curtly but with a hint of deference. It seemed to be the right approach because Yaxley pulled a large box from his cloak. He was about to hand it over when he checked himself.

"Oh yes - the new procedure. What's the password?"

Tonks hesitated imperceptibly. "Nobody told me any bloody password," she said, surlily. "Not my fault."

Yaxley looked annoyed but unsuspicious. Before he could say anything, a noise drew his and Tonks' attention. A tired looking man had emerged from a neighbouring building and opened the white van. He got in and drove off with a rattling noise that betokened no good to his engine.

Kingsley had had time only to move away from thr van and tie his shoelace when the van driver appeared. He straightened and walked on as the van drove off. Yaxley's glance flicked back to Tonks. "That man must have been waiting behind the van a long time," he said, softly. "Do you know him, Corser?"

"Can't even see him," Tonks answered, quite truthfully, because Kingsley was too good at his job to risk walking near any light and had kept his face turned away when the car's headlights had rushed over his body.

"Why would someone be watching us, Corser?" Yaxley's tone was still soft, but his actions were not. He suddenly grasped Tonks's arm with a vice-like grip. "I very much hope you haven't been talking, my man," Yaxley continued, his wand in his other hand with its tip red hot.

"I haven't," Tonks spluttered angrily. She didn't try to escape from Yaxley's grip. "It'll just be some muggle. Go after him if you care so much who it is."

"Oh, I don't think so," Yaxley hissed and shouted a spell that none of them had ever heard, his wand pointed at Kingsley's retreating back. Kingsley was pulled back towards them at speed as if by a magnetic force. He was half way to them when he had worked out how to counter the spell. Kingsley stood in the shadow, poised to strike, but knowing that revealing his identity would cost the Order dearly.

"Just some muggle, you said," Yaxley murmured, his wand glowing red again and positioned only a centimetre from Tonks's skin.

"I dunno, do I?" Throughout the whole exchange, Tonks had remained motionless and made no attempt to escape. Then in one fluid movement, she kneed Yaxley very hard in the groin and used his second of surprised distraction to free herself from his grasp. She poked two sharp fingers in his eyes and flicked his wand out of his hands and onto the floor. Instead of picking it up, which Yaxley had obviously expected her to do, Tonks grabbed for the box he had replaced in his cloak. He grabbed her again but this time, his vision still impaired, didn't get a firm grasp. They struggled, and she got hold of the box. Yaxley grabbed for his wand; Tonks kicked it away and it rolled down the street with a clatter. Tonks ran. A second or two's distance would be enough for her to disapparate and she would have made it, but the noise had drawn another two men from the warehouse. They came out of the gate just at the point that Tonks had reached it, so that there was no way she could avoid running nearly into their arms. Remus was careering towards down the street before he knew that he had moved.

"He's a double crosser," Yaxley spat to the men, as he finally caught up with his wand and picked it up and pointed it at Tonks. He shouted "Crucio" a fraction of a second after Remus yelled "Protego" and created a shaky shield around Tonks. Furious, Yaxley turned on Remus, who ducked as a cruciatus curse came flying his way. "Stupefy" Remus shouted, righting himself, but Yaxley dodged that easily. Remus hadn't caught his breath enough to do more than rasp a second "Stupefy", but Remus shot the spell from an unexpected angle. Yaxley hadn't been expecting a follow up so quickly and his reaction was a second too late. He slid to the ground and Remus turned to Tonks, who his shield charm had protected from Yaxley but not from the men holding her.

Kinglsey was there, duelling expertly with one of the men. The other still held Tonks, who was struggling to escape his grasp and had managed to twist herself so that the man couldn't reach his wand without releasing her. The man was so absorbed in this struggle that he didn't see Remus run to them and stand behind him and so, ridiculously, Remus tapped him on the shoulder and said, politely, "Excuse me."

The man turned and Remus punched him extremely hard across the eye and the nose. The man yelled in pain at the impact and Remus didn't blame him; he rather wondered if he had broken his own fingers. It had been a while since he'd thrown a punch and he wasn't sure really why he hadn't used a spell. The man staggered, let go of Tonks, and reeled around to retaliate, but having decided that he might as well break his fingers properly if he was going to do it at all, Remus punched him again, so hard that he knocked him out. Tonks looked at him with familiar laughing eyes in that stranger's face, and they turned to Kingsley. Kingsley, however, had just succeeded in stunning the other man, and the three of them stood for some time, panting and, in Remus's case, massaging his fingers.

"All right," Remus said at length. "Let's obliviate these men, since they've seen you and me, Kingsley."

"It takes longer on an unconscious subject," Kingsley said, squatting down by the side of the man Remus had punched. Tonks took the other, and Remus considered Yaxley.

The other men were no heroes, but they probably didn't deserve death, and if they did he had no desire for it to be at his hands. But Yaxley... His record from the first war had been appalling enough. A shock of temptation ran through Remus and he stepped back with the force of it. Unchecked, what other atrocoties might this man go on to do? Remus was under no illusions that Yaxley would be sparing Tonks's life, or anyone else's, were the positions reversed. He felt power surging in the vein of his wand-arm as he raised it.

"Hey, Remus. How do you make sure you're getting at the right bit of memory through the unconsciousness? I don't want to get rid of the memory of the nice curry he had last Saturday or something, and leave tonight's shennanigans in there." Tonks's words from a stranger's voice recalled him and, still unsure as to what he would do to Yaxley, he walked over to where Tonks was kneeling by the man who Kingsley had stunned. As he showed Tonks the technique, Kingsley finished with the man whose memory he had just obliviated and walked over to Yaxley.

By the time Remus had talked Tonks through her obliviate charm, Kingsley was standing up and brushing dust off his robes. "I've handled him, Remus," Kingsley said, in his calm, deep voice. Remus nodded, wondering whether Kingsely had seen what was going through his mind and not sure whether to be relieved that the matter had been taken out of his hands.

The man that Remus had punched started to stir. "Come on, back to HQ, d'you reckon?" Tonks said, pointing at him with her toe.

"Let's go," Kingsley agreed.

At Grimmauld Place, Tonks immediately morphed back and made a face as though she were trying to get rid of an unpleasant taste in her mouth. Remus's heart leapt at the sight of her as he took off his cloak and relieved his feelings by standing extremely close to her. Sirius enveloped Tonks in a hug and clapped Remus on the shoulder. Tonks handed the box to Hestia, and returned the diaphragm-crushing throttle of a hug that Mad-Eye bestowed upon her. "All right, Mad-Eye, I can live without a rib-cage but don't mess up my hair when I've just got it back," she laughed.

"It didn't go without a hitch. They've introduced passwords. Then Kinglsey was seen so we ended up having to stun and obliviate a bit." Tonks said to Sirius, answering his unspoken question. "Remus even kocked one of 'em out the muggle way for fun."

Sirius laughed, excited at the thought of the fracas, but Mad-Eye looked askance at Remus at this, muttering something unimpressed about no need for showy tricks when some old fashioned wand work was surer and safer, and he grabbed the still unconscious Corser none too gently, and prepared to side-along apparate him back to the canal. "That thing's probably cursed," he barked to Hestia as he left, just as she and Kingsley cautiously opened the box, holding their wands aloft. "Thanks for the heads-up, Alastor," she said, dryly.

They all stood over the box as Hestia carefully prodded at the contents. It was a large number of muggle bank notes.

"Well, that's an anti-climax. I can think of easier ways to have made a quick buck," Tonks frowned.

But Hestia ran her wand over the box and then held a note up to her eye, staring intently. "I don't think Corser was going to be spending these," she said. "What would he want with muggle money, anyway? I think I know this charm."

Hestia concentrated hard, trying various spells and wand movements over the note, whilst Kingsley, Lupin and Sirius leaned over her shoulder and made suggestions. Mad-Eye returned and joined the group, contributing several dark warnings and jinxes which could be lurking. Tonks paced about, listening - the adrenaline of the fight was slow to subside in her veins and she needed to move around.

At length Sirius suggested they'd all work better for some refreshment, and went over to the sideboard where the decanters were kept.

"I'll grab the glasses," Tonks volunteered. She was good at undoing illusionment charms, but she'd learned everything she knew from Kingsley, so they didn't both need to be there, and she still wanted to move around.

"Better go with her, Moony," Sirius cocked his head at Remus. "Imagine the outcry from my mother if the crystal glasses meet their end."

Remus nodded, and followed Tonks towards the kitchen. If the others thought it was odd for Sirius to be giving his quieter friend orders, they didn't show it.

"Wotcher, Remus. Hoped you'd come too. That whole thing was a bit close for comfort," Tonks said, turning from the cupboard she was rummaging in and grinning as he came in. "Just how I like it. You were great." The adrenaline of the danger and of the fight was still coursing through her veins and she felt alive to the point of recklessness. She thought briefly about pulling Remus to her and ripping off his clothes.

As she considered him, she realised that she couldn't see the sort of excitement she knew was in her own eyes in his. He looked more as though he had just finished unclogging a drain or some other useful but unpleasant duty. "So were you, of course," he said, steadily. "It was brilliant how you extricated yourself from that man's grasp."

"Thanks," she said, simply. Then, pulling herself up backwards onto the kitchen counter, she said, "D'you know what I thought when I first met you?"

Remus shrugged. "Was it, this man looks deeply suspicious, I hope he's not a werewolf?"

Tonks smothered a laugh. "It was not," she said sternly.

"Ah, then was it, who is this shabby but enigmatic man with the charming Welsh lilt and compelling air of quiet humour?" Remus's tone was still playful as he loaded glasses onto a silver tray.

Tonks shoved him vigorously and then laughed and said, "Oh Godric, embarrassingly I did think some of that. I also admired your bum. But more relevantly, I thought to myself, bloody hell, this guy looks pretty unwell. One jinx could probably take him right out."

"You're not the first person to have said that," Remus shrugged good-naturedly.

"Yeah, but I soon saw it wasnt true. The first time we ever worked together, do you remember?"

"I remember every single time we've been together," he replied, suddenly serious.

"Yeah, well. We did that surveillance job outside MacNair's place and those muggle blokes came up and tried to start a fight. You just calmly diffused it, followed it up with a little bit of wandless magic, to make sure they buggered off quickly and didn't draw attention to us. And I just thought, fuck. He's strong and fast and clever, he's as good as anyone at work, but you'd never know from how he acts. And then not long after we all went to Privet Drive to get Harry for the summer and you just quietly took charge without any willy-waving, you just knew what to do and how to do it, and we all did what you said and again I just thought, oh fuck. He's quiet and polite and makes cups of tea, but not because he has to be like that. He could strut around making sure everyone knows what a big man with a big dick he is, but he doesn't. And then I thought, why is that so incredibly sexy?"

"That's an exceptionally kind reaction," Remus said, sincerely, at the end of this long speech. "But ... I'm not like your colleagues, or even like you, Dora. Even with the whole panoply of career options open to me, I wouldn't have been an auror in a thousand years. I don't like conflict, or violence." He spread out his hands in a gesture of resignation. "You know me. I like reading and flying over woodlands in autumn and drinking earl grey tea from good china on a sunny morning. I'm handy in a fight, with a wand or without, because I've had to be and because I know damn well I'll have to be again, but it's not who I am."

"I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend," Tonks said, suddenly and surprisingly, looking up at him intently. Then she blushed. Remus was fascinated and delighted. In all this time, and with all the things she had said (and done) to him, in bed and out of it, he'd never seen her blush.

"It's from this muggle book my Dad used to read to me," she explained, sheepishly. "It's got some mad stuff in it, and obviously it's not highbrow like some of your stuff, but I bloody loved it. I still do, to be honest."

"Dora, I know the Lord of the Rings," Remus said. "I don't only read poetry, you know."

She stared up at him in absolute glee. "No way! I've never known anyone apart from my Dad and me that like it! I tried getting my friends to read it when we were in sixth year but they couldn't get into it. Too many descriptions of trees."

"I've read it several times," Remus told her. "And you're absolutely right. What Faramir says in that passage is exactly how I feel. If we lived in a time of peace, you'd never hear a curse on my lips. I'm sorry." He looked down. He asked himself what the hell he was doing, when he had the woman of his dreams - beyond his dreams, because the riotous, hilarious and adorable details of her, which were the things he loved the most, were far beyond the scope of his imagination to have come up with - by some crazy quirk of fate actually in love with him, to tell her that he isn't what she thinks, what she's fallen in love with? It seemed mad, it was mad, particularly when it was unlikely that they would both live long enough to get disillusioned. But still he felt that this thing between them was too important to tainted by any lie.

But when he looked up at her again, still sitting on the kitchen counter, she was smiling at him fondly. "Remus. I know that. That's what I'm saying, you great prat. Part of the reason why I've read that book so often is because Faramir's my secret crush." She gave him a wink. "If we ever get a time of peace, I'll chase baddies by day and come home and let you read me poetry by the fire at night." There was a pause. Tonks didn't usually allow herself to refer to any future more distant than next week with Remus, knowing full well that he couldn't bring himself to contemplate the wreckage he still considered he couldn't help but bring to her life.

So, to distract him, she added, "Remus. I know we're not on the walls of a high tower and we sure as hell aren't under a sunlit sky but will you just put me out of my misery and take me in your arms and kiss me?"

He could not possible have refused. He lifted her gently off the counter and onto the floor where, despite his careful placing, she contrived to stsnd on his foot. She opened her mouth to apologise but he had already stopped it with a kiss. The kiss was deep and insistent, and Remus tried to pour into it everything that he didn't dare to say.

By the time Sirius came loudly down the passage to the kitchen, Tonks's lips were swollen and Remus's hair was dishevelled, and they were both slightly breathless as they greeted him.

"Still a bit messed up from that mission, I see," he remarked slyly, smoothing Remus's hair down with a wink. "Hestia's cracked the charm, by the way. The notes are maps. Detailed maps with instructions in some kind of code on the back. Everyone knows you're a good man for a code, Remus. I bought you as much time as I could, but -". He spread his hands in a gesture of defeat and deftly took the tray of glasses that Tonks had seized out of her hands.

Remus and Tonks followed him, only letting go of each other's hands when they reached the door of the drawing room.