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Tonks glanced down the corridor of the Misuse of Muggle Artefacts Office. It was tiny, tucked away in a forgotten dead end of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, and therefore unsurprisingly empty. She knocked on the half-open door of the lone office in the division, no larger than the broom cupboard across from it.
“Wotcher, Arthur!”
Arthur Weasley smiled without looking up at her, continuing instead to fiddle with the dial of what looked like a microwave oven.
“Hello, Tonks,” he said absently, tapping his wand on the microwave—which was starting to smoke rather worryingly from the back.
“Can’t get it to stop doing that,” Arthur muttered, vanishing some of the smoke with an off handed wave. “Would be easier to assess the damage if I knew what it was supposed to do.”
“‘S a microwave,” said Tonks, taking a seat across from Arthur’s cluttered desk. “It’s not supposed to smoke, but it is supposed to heat things up. Muggles use them to cook.”
“Do they now? Fascinating! I suppose the numbers on this dial must represent time in some fashion, then?” He beheld the still faintly smoking microwave with a renewed sense of wonder in his eyes.
Tonks nodded. “Saw an American Muggle-born transfer use one to make tea last year, poor bloke. Didn’t know electric kettles existed.”
“Electric kettles?” Arthur leaned forward. “They use electricity to heat their water? Why, that’s just like magic! Is it faster than a kettle over the fire?”
“Er, I think so. My nan only takes a couple of minutes to make tea, no fire necessary. Although she wouldn’t use an open fire anyway, she’d use the stove—but that’s not what I’m here for, is it?” Tonks shook her head, rolling her eyes playfully.
Arthur nodded, though he looked like he’d much rather continue discussing kettles and stoves.
“Of course, of course. Here, I’ve got it somewhere in my desk. Alastor only dropped it off this morning…”
Tonks lifted one eyebrow as she watched Arthur fumble through his drawers, nearly toppling a stack of parchment next to the microwave. She pulled out her wand, surreptitiously levitating the parchment to the other side of the desk, further away from the smoking appliance.
She often wished she could set her paperwork on fire, but she reckoned Arthur probably didn’t feel the same way.
Still, it was nice to see someone else in the Order shared her particular lack of organizational skills.
“Aha!” Arthur sat up, triumphant, with a small package in one hand. “Here you are.”
He slid the package across the desk, and Tonks shuffled it straight into her robe pockets. It was light, the silky cloak inside sliding loosely against the brown paper wrapping.
“Thanks, Arthur,” said Tonks. “I appreciate the swap. Mad-Eye would have given me hell if I tried to ask him for the Cloak, he hates when we switch guard duty for no good reason.”
Arthur smiled. “I suspect the only reason Alastor would consider a ‘good’ one is if you were dead.”
“Nah,” said Tonks, “he’d expect me to turn up as a ghost, and Merlin help me if I got there five minutes late.”
“Of course,” Arthur agreed, pushing his glasses up his nose with a smile. “And what time should I expect my boy, then?”
Tonks grinned.
“Well, he said he wants to fly to the Burrow like a kitschy git, so he’ll be Flooing into my flat at six o’clock. Fourth floor, number 17, in the white building right across from the visitor’s entrance. Password is ‘Badger Pants.’”
Arthur chuckled. “Very creative.”
“There’s a sofa facing the fire,” Tonks continued. “I reckon if you just sit there when he comes through, the look on his face will be worth a thousand of Fred and George’s finest moments…” She leaned back in her chair with a triumphant toss of her bouncy blue curls.
Arthur blinked a few times, pushed his glasses up again, and said, “Er, Tonks…not that I don’t enjoy a good joke, but…why do you want to ruin Charlie’s surprise again?”
Tonks crossed her arms, smirk disappearing. “He offered his unasked-for and unappreciated opinion on something that was none of his business.”
“Ah!” Arthur folded his hands on the desk and smiled awkwardly. “Something to do with a certain former professor, I take it?”
With a sniff and a pointed frown, Tonks tilted her head as if to say, What do you think?
“Charlie means well, Tonks,” said Arthur, shaking his head fondly. “Perhaps he’s just realizing that he missed his own chance at a relationship with a cool, charming Auror when he ran off to those dragons of his.”
Tonks snorted. “Trust me, Arthur, that was never going to happen... Anyway, it’s a win-win. I get a laugh, and you two get to surprise Molly together.”
“The best of both worlds,” said Arthur, and he stood as she did. “Be careful tonight, Tonks.”
“Yeah, of course.” Tonks offered a little mock salute as she moved to exit the office. “Gotta be vigilant, or I might find myself attacked by bloody bedsores after sitting on the cold hard floor all night.”
Arthur raised his hands with a chuckle. “You asked to switch.”
“Alright, that I did,” she conceded. “I’ll complain another time, then! Give Charlie my love—or my annoyance, you decide.”
His body felt smooth, powerful and flexible. He was gliding between shining metal bars, across dark, cold stone... he was flat against the floor, sliding along on his belly... it was dark, yet he could see objects around him shimmering in strange, vibrant colours... he was turning his head... at first glance the corridor was empty... but no... a figure was sitting on the floor ahead, a woman… arms wrapped around her knees, chin resting on her upturned palm, her outline gleaming in the dark...
He put out his tongue…he tasted the woman’s scent on the air…she was alive but drowsy…sitting in front of a door at the end of the corridor…
He longed to bite the woman…but he must master the impulse…he had more important work to do…
But the woman was stirring... a silver Cloak fell from her legs as she jumped to her feet; and Harry saw her vibrant, blurred outline towering above him, wand already drawn... he had no choice... he reared high from the floor, narrowly avoiding one jet of light from her wand and slamming into a shimmering shield conjured by another wand wave…a third beam of light struck him a glancing blow, burned over his sleek skin like cold fire, and he hissed, retreating for a moment…
But he couldn’t stop, he knew he couldn’t… he slipped forward again, ignoring the burn along the length of his body, rose up with flashing movements again and again until he finally managed to strike a blow, plunging his fangs deeply into the woman’s flesh, feeling her ribs splinter beneath his jaws, feeling the warm gush of blood...
The woman was yelling in pain... she slumped backwards against the wall, wand still raised, but she was fading... blood was splattering on to the floor....
“Harry! HARRY!”
Harry woke with a jolt, twisted in his sheets, layered with cold sweat, forehead burning white-hot, and he barely had time to register Ron’s face above him before the pain in his head had him retching over the side of his mattress.
“He’s really ill, should we call someone?”
Harry didn’t have time for the extra voice, only for Ron who was still calling his name. He had to tell Ron, they had to tell someone to get help…
“Tonks,” he gasped. “Tonks has…been attacked…”
Harry was desperately grateful that Dumbledore had allowed Ron to accompany him through the portkey to Grimmauld Place. While he had expected to be comforted by Sirius’ presence amidst the chaos of the night, Sirius was more than a little distracted when Harry and Ron slumped into two of the chairs around the dimly lit kitchen table.
He’d been wearing a deep, knitted frown since Harry relayed the terrible details of his vision for a second time that night—his time omitting his unfortunate point of view during the attack.
“I don’t understand,” Sirius was muttering. “She wasn’t supposed to be there, it was Arthur’s shift…but where else could it be?”
“What d’you mean, it was my dad’s shift?” asked Ron with a sharp voice.
“Sirius,” asked Harry weakly, glancing over at Ron’s pale face and forcing the words from his mouth, feeling wooden as he spoke them, “is Tonks going to be alright?”
Sirius looked up from where he was pacing on the dusty wood floor, frown deepening further.
“I don’t know, Harry. You said she was taken to St. Mungo’s? Dumbledore’s portraits saw her?”
“Yeah,” Ron answered for him, looking faintly sick. “Covered in blood, though. They said…they said she looked bad.”
Sirius flinched, and Harry along with him.
“St. Mungo’s is the best place she can be,” said Sirius, but it was a weak platitude and they all felt its transparency. None of them were reassured.
How long would it be before they knew?
They remained in silence for some time, Sirius continuing to pace while Ron leaned over his arms on the table, face down as if he were sleeping—but even Ron couldn’t sleep through this tension, Harry was certain.
Harry couldn’t even unclench his fists in his lap.
A flash of light shimmered to his left, and he looked up startled to find Sirius whispering to a great dog Patronus.
The silver dog bounded away through the ceiling, off to deliver some sort of message, Harry supposed. He’d ask about it later, if he remembered.
If he hadn’t just witnessed a murder.
Committed a murder, you mean, he thought darkly, shrinking into himself.
The silence continued between them for many more minutes, long and drawn in the near darkness. Sirius’ nervous pacing slowed, shadows dancing over his unshaven face in the sputtering firelight.
Tonks was his cousin, Harry remembered with a surge of guilt. Would Sirius forgive him after this, if he admitted the truth—that he’d not just seen the snake, but had been the snake?
“What happens…” said Harry in a shaky voice, wondering distantly if he was going to be sick again. “What happens if she doesn’t make it?” he whispered.
Sirius let out a slow sigh, cheeks puffing out as he breathed. He pushed a hand roughly through his hair as he dropped into a seat next to Harry.
“This…” he said slowly. “…this is how it is. This is how it was last time, too. The waiting, it’s always…always the hardest part.”
Harry nodded, clinging to the idea that this sort of thing had happened before; they’d held vigils, paced, waited for news before…
But none of them were the attacker…
“Tonks knew the risks when she signed up for the Order,” Sirius continued. “You must understand, Harry…there are things worth dying for.”
A figure appeared in the doorway at the foot of the staircase, stumbling, gripping the doorframe with shaking hands.
“No,” said Lupin, still wrapped in a heavy patched traveling cloak. His hair was windswept over his bloodless face, and he looked at Sirius with wide eyes. “She’s not…”
“We don’t know yet,” said Sirius quickly, leaping from his chair toward his old friend. “We’re still waiting to hear. Come on, let’s have a seat…”
“It wasn’t even her night,” Lupin mumbled, sweeping a hand across his lined face as Sirius pushed him into a chair. “Arthur was on the schedule, I’m sure of it.”
Ron flinched again, dropping his head back to the table from where he’d been peeking up at Lupin.
Harry imagined having the same vision of attacking Mr. Weasley instead of Tonks, and he had to breathe very carefully though his nose to avoid vomiting again.
“She hurt it,” said Sirius suddenly, staring hard at Lupin’s lowered face, hands braced on his shoulders from where he stood behind Lupin. “She hurt the bastard snake before it got her, Harry said so.”
Lupin looked up sharply, fixing Harry with an awful stare that made him wish Sirius hadn’t mentioned it.
“You saw?” Lupin whispered.
Harry could only nod, his throat stuck. He didn’t think he could retell the story again.
“He’s the only reason they found her in time, I’d guess,” said Sirius lowly. “Sounds like she put up a hell of a fight, but it’s…you know what it’s like down there. If Dumbledore hadn’t raised the alarm with his portraits…”
Lupin seized the edge of the table with trembling fingers just as the fire burst into life behind Harry. With a swirl of emerald flame, three more people whooshed their way into the grim kitchen—Mrs. Weasley, Mr. Weasley, and Charlie, whom Harry had met twice but who lived in Romania.
“Oh, Ron!” whispered Mrs. Weasley, shuffling over to her son’s chair to squeeze him in a brief hug. “Harry! I’m so sorry, dear, you must be so frightened…”
She moved on to give Harry a hug as well, which he accepted numbly. She didn’t know, yet, did she—that he was dangerous? When she found out…the one woman in the world who treated him like a proper part of a family would be afraid of him.
Harry swallowed thickly.
“Alastor is with her now,” said Mrs. Weasley, bustling over to the counter to fetch the kettle. “I’m sorry, Remus, dear—you understand why it can’t be you, of course…”
She patted him on the shoulder as she passed, and Harry thought his former professor looked as startled as Harry at the idea of him being the one by Tonks’ bedside. Wasn’t Mad-Eye Moody her mentor, anyway? Surely it was obvious that he was the right choice.
“He’s brought her parents there as well,” said Arthur quietly, leaning against the mantel with his arms folded over his chest. “In case…in case of the worst.”
That thought settled heavily, one that was already weighing on their minds in the most painfully obvious way, but which became entirely too real when it was so nearly spoken aloud.
In case she dies, Harry thought miserably.
The tea and biscuits Mrs. Weasley set on the table a few minutes later had never looked less appetizing. No one reached for them, though Mrs. Weasley seemed not to notice as she settled into a chair next to Charlie.
“It’s my fault,” Charlie mumbled, looking down at his folded hands. His ashen face was as contrasting as Ron’s, the sea of freckles stark against pale worry. “She only switched with Dad because she wanted to get me back for…” he trailed off, glancing awkwardly, strangely, at Lupin.
“For what?” asked Sirius sharply, still hovering behind Lupin. “What did you do?”
“Sirius!” hissed Mrs. Weasley, rubbing her son’s back. “It’s not your fault Charlie, of course it isn’t…”
“No, I mean it,” Charlie insisted. “Just ask Dad! She was hacked off with me. She knew I was planning to surprise you two for Christmas, so she sent Dad to intercept me and ruin my stupid grand entrance. All because I was a prick about him in my last letter.”
Charlie looked at Lupin again, jerking his head at the former professor with a sullen expression.
“I’m sorry,” Charlie muttered as Lupin met his stare.
“Don’t be,” said Lupin evenly. “All we’ve established is that if it wasn’t Tonks, it would have been Arthur. No offense, Arthur, but I suspect Tonks was rather more suited to the fight.”
Harry thought of Tonks’ quick spellwork, of that crawling, burning agony rippling over his skin; he thought of the way he—the snake—had struggled to keep fighting, to deal the decisive bite…
In the uncertain silence, the roar of the fire was louder than ever, and they all turned to the green flames with anxious hope.
Moody emerged from the Floo, brushing off his robes and stomping a few steps into the room before looking around at every pained, waiting face.
“She’ll be alright,” he said gruffly.
The tension released itself from the room with a great, palpable rush. Harry slumped back in his chair as Ron and Mr. Weasley both reached for a biscuit.
Sirius fell into the chair beside Lupin, who was staring hard at Moody, as if trying to discern whether he was real or not.
Moody met Lupin’s stare with his good eye and tilted his head back toward the fire.
“Come on, lad,” Moody muttered. “Ted and Andromeda just left. She’s asked for you.”
There was a hint of a scowl on Moody’s face as he said it, but it didn’t seem mean-spirited—was that just his normal resting face? And why would Tonks ask for Lupin? A strange picture was beginning to form, one that was as surprising as it was gut-wrenching—another person whom Harry looked up to, who had loved Harry’s parents; and another person whose loved one Harry had just attacked.
So Sirius and Lupin would both hate him, then.
But when Lupin had disappeared through the Floo with Moody stomping after him, Sirius came back around the table to squeeze Harry’s shoulders.
“Alright, Harry?” he asked softly, too quietly for the Weasleys to hear over their own hushed conversations and the crunching of Mrs. Weasley’s biscuits. “You know you can tell me anything, right?”
And Harry decided to trust him.
The bright baubles and garlands strung up around St. Mungo’s were gaudy and unwelcome.
Perhaps for the patients who were confined here for long periods of time, Remus thought fleetingly, the grand Christmas trees with their twinkling lights might bring some much-needed joy to the season, but with his head full of anxious what-ifs and doubts and worries, they seemed nothing but a mockery of what Christmas should have been.
It was a week away, and Remus hadn’t even decided what to get Dora for Christmas, but here he was running ahead of a grumbling Moody to see how badly she was hurt. Would she really be alright? Would she be out soon?
“She killed the snake,” said Moody suddenly as they walked, and Remus winced even as he felt a surge of pride. Tonks gave as good as she got—or better, in this case. (Worse?)
“They found it lying in the hall, dead as a flobberworm. She was crawling for the exit.”
Remus didn’t know how to respond to that dreadful image, so he didn’t. He spent the rest of the way down trying to erase it from his consciousness.
When they finally arrived at the bites ward, he was met with a small flash of pink hair that made his chest leap. It sank again in the very next moment as he stood frozen in the doorway, taking her in.
She looked tiny against the white sheets and the knitted cotton blanket, her skin paler than ever, cheeks and eyes sunken in. There was a typical spark in her dark eyes, though, when she caught sight of him standing there.
“Remus,” she said softly, though he thought with a stutter of a heartbeat that she’d tried to say it brightly and only managed a weak sort of facsimile of brightness.
She looked exhausted.
“Nymphadora!”
Moody shoved past Remus and into the room, smacking his walking stick against the hard floor for emphasis.
“Alastor,” replied Tonks with a challenging arch of her brow, though just as quietly as before.
“You’re not to morph for at least forty-eight hours,” growled Moody. He lifted his walking stick and jabbed it in the direction of her pink hair, as if it wasn’t clear what he was referring to. “Healer’s orders! And Healer’s orders are bloody Dumbledore’s orders.”
“Alright, alright,” sighed Tonks. “Untwist your knickers, will you? I just wanted to see if it worked.”
Instead of screwing up her eyes as she usually did, Tonks simply relaxed her body against the soft pillows behind her and let her eyelids slip closed. Immediately, the pink hair melted into a soft mousy brown.
“Are you coming in, Remus, or are you just going to stand out there all morning?” Tonks rasped, eyes still closed.
Remus took a shaky breath, stepping forward.
It took him a few steps to notice the other presence in the ward—a wizard in the bed across from Tonks, curtains drawn around his bed so that he was only visible through a small gap in the curtains. He appeared to be sleeping.
“Werewolf,” Moody grunted, and Remus jumped—then he realized Moody was looking at the sleeping patient with a pitying frown. “Might need a talking to, before the other side gets to him. Vulnerable buggers, the new turns.”
Remus bristled. “Yes, thank you, Alastor,” he snapped, but Moody only clapped him on the arm.
“Good man, Lupin,” he said brusquely, nodding at him and then at Tonks. “I’ll leave you two alone. Be sensible,” he added, good eye narrowing.
“Constantly and vigilantly,” Tonks muttered, rolling her eyes with affection. “Night, Mad-Eye. Thanks for fetching Remus.”
Moody grunted and made his exit, leaving Remus to stare down at Tonks’ too-white face.
There was a length of bandage peeking out from the open neck of her St. Mungo’s dressing gown. Remus’ eyes trailed over the material, throat catching as he wondered how heavily she was bandaged. Had they gone through a lot of gauze? How much blood had they had to vanish? He imagined claret stains on the white floor and the white sheets and the white bandages, like streams of blood in fresh soft snow…
“Remus.”
Tonks’ voice was tender, but insistent. It called him back to her face, so pale, but so clearly alive. Her eyes were alight like new wicks—burning with a steady clear fire, unwavering as they held his gaze.
“I’m fine,” she said.
He jolted, frowning. “You are not fine.”
She blushed, stark rose against her pale cheeks, and she couldn’t morph it away from him as she usually did.
“Alright, not fine fine, but fine enough. Two days’ observation, then I’m out of here. I’ll even have time to wrap your present!”
He couldn’t help reaching for her then, finding her hand where it rested atop the blankets and threading his long fingers through her chilled, calloused ones. Auror’s hands, she’d joked once when she held his on a chilly overnight stakeout. He squeezed her fingers tightly, cold with the knowledge that he nearly lost the chance to hold them ever again.
“You’re freezing,” he said softly.
She shrugged. “Blood loss,” she said casually, and then seemed to regret it when his own face drained of colour. “‘S alright, the blood replenishing potions are working wonders. Only one wound, they just need to get it shut properly. Should have it sussed in no time.”
Remus knit his eyebrows together. “They don’t know how to close the wound?”
“Not entirely, not yet,” said Tonks. “But that’s not important now. I need you to warm me up.”
That was easy enough, Remus thought numbly. He drew his wand to cast charms on her blankets—but her pale hand lifted from the bed, closed around his wrist, and she shook her head with a gentle smile.
“Dora—”
She scooted to her left, slowly and carefully, until there was a space next to her on the bed. A space just wide enough for a very thin wizard to slip into. Her eyes continued to hold his, her intention clear, and he swallowed tightly again.
She’d invited him into her bed a few times before, under drastically different circumstances. He’d always resisted.
He’d always wanted to give in.
And why had he denied her? To protect her reputation? It was clear tonight that the rest of the Order were well aware of their connection.
To keep her safe, then?
Here she was a week before Christmas, savaged by Voldemort’s fucking snake. And she’d bloody well held her own, hadn’t she? Killed the thing that tried to kill her.
They were at war. No one was safe, nothing guaranteed.
Nothing was certain anymore, except that Tonks was still looking up at him with bright pleading eyes, asking him to do something for her.
Warm me up.
Good sense abandoned (Moody be damned), Remus climbed up next to Dora and did as she asked.
“Sensibility is in rare supply this time of year.”
Moody was scowling under a silver paper crown a week later, persuaded by a still-off-duty Tonks to join the Christmas festivities at Grimmauld Place.
“Is that your Christmas cracker joke?” asked Fred, looking over curiously. “Not exactly a belter, is it?”
“Sounds more like a fortune cookie written by Snape,” George agreed.
Moody shook his head, eyes fixed on Remus and Tonks across the table from him. Tonks had taken to rubbing Remus’ thigh with her foot beneath the table, despite the obvious discomfort it was causing to her healing wound—and the discomfort it was causing to Moody, the only one who had the misfortune of bearing witness to it.
He suspected the latter was more a motivation than a deterrent. She’d been seeking out ways to annoy Moody since he stomped into St. Mungo’s in the quiet hours of the morning and tore their heads off for doing something as daft as cuddling when he’d specifically requested sensible behaviour.
Remus was trying to walk a fine line of indulging Tonks without getting himself hexed by Moody. After the chaos of Tonks’ attack, it was an almost peaceful way to get his thrills.
Besides, he couldn’t very well ruin the Christmas spirit of a convalescing woman, could he? Even if it was becoming a bit of a hands-on sort of spirit.
“Are you sure your parents won’t miss you?” He murmured later, when she was curled up on his chest in the library.
They had retreated there to open their gifts in private, and now they were continuing their pursuit of the insensible by lounging on the sofa while Remus read softly from her gift, a well-worn book of poetry.
He’d stammered a shy apology when she tore off the brown paper wrapping, wishing he’d thought of something more fitting, something brighter—but she had smiled so sweetly that he regained some confidence and admitted the book had belonged to his mother.
She’d clung to him tightly for a few minutes after that before declaring that he would be an even better cuddler after opening his gift. In her exuberance, she had nearly torn the shiny red paper from the gift herself, and Remus was left holding a beautiful new jumper in a warm shade of brown flecked with green—the kind of jumper that fetched a premium price in Muggle department stores.
He’d swallowed his protests at the richness of the cable knit, the obvious value of her gift compared to his, when she’d said earnestly, “It’s just like the colour of your eyes—there’s green mixed in with the brown sometimes, did you know?”
And now they were lounging on the sofa, cuddling vastly improved by the softness of his new jumper, if Tonks was to be believed. She was still wearing her paper crown, charmed to shift colours in counterpoint to her hair. Since the curls brushing her shoulders were midnight blue, the crinkling paper glowed the precise shade of a satsuma.
“My parents had me for breakfast, and for Christmas Eve,” she hummed in answer to his question, nuzzling into his chest with a contented smile. “They can share me tonight.”
He peeked down his nose at her, the curve of her cheeks lit languid by the orange glow of street lamps through the front window. It was snowing softly, blanketing even the inside of the house in a meek silence.
The silence was helped by the exodus of the children into the back garden, where Sirius had doubled the snowfall until there was enough heavy powder for snowball fights and snowmen. It was good to see Sirius smile, to see the ghost of Azkaban fade from his eyes—and the ghost of Voldemort from Harry’s eyes, too, if only for a short while.
“Have you ever been to Lochnagar?” Tonks whispered into his jumper.
He looked down at the pages held aloft in his left hand, the faded words of Lord Byron flickering by firelight from the hearth.
“A few times,” he murmured. “It’s very near the Muggle queen’s favourite castle.”
“Favourite castle, hm?” Tonks sniggered so gently it was more a huff. “How many castles does she have?”
“Oh, a few, I’m sure,” said Remus with a quiet smile. “Surrounded, no doubt, by gay landscapes and gardens of roses.”
“And none of the rocks where the snowflake reposes,” Tonks finished.
“Perhaps that’s why she likes Balmoral best,” said Remus.
“Well, you’re a much better place for reposing anyway,” said Tonks. “No landscapes or gardens or rocks for me, thanks; just one Remus in a cozy jumper.”
He tightened the fingers of his right hand where they rested on her hip, careful to avoid the tender spot on her abdomen, and glanced down at her again.
She was draped over him like a cat in a lazy ray of sun. Her dark stockinged legs intertwined with his, and she wore a slim black dress of knit cotton that ended beneath her chin in a sleek turtleneck. It was a far cry from her usual fashion, except that she’d topped it with a ripped crop top bearing the garish logo of The Hobgoblins.
He got the impression that she’d dressed ‘properly’ for her parents in the morning, and then made a point of finding something fun to throw overtop before Flooing to join the party at Grimmauld Place, just because she could.
He was struck with the sudden radical notion that he was quite in love with her.
“It’s very warm in here, isn’t it?” she mumbled, heedless of his startling revelation.
She lifted her wand and with a languorous swirl, a tuft of white cloud drifted above their heads and began to dust them with broad flakes of snow.
He was enchanted, transfixed, when a perfect flake touched upon the gentle slope of her nose. Book forgotten, dropped carefully to the floor, he raised his hand to turn her face up.
Another flake graced her cheek as she smiled at him, and another.
“And on that cheek,” he murmured, “and o’er that brow, so soft, so calm, yet eloquent—”
It was quickly apparent that she had no more time for Byron, and instead of letting him finish the verse she dug her toes into the sofa and pushed upward until she could cover his lips with hers.
Though he hadn’t thought it was warm when she mentioned it a moment ago, now Remus was forced to agree. The warmth was spreading, all-encompassing; it bloomed from the point of contact where her tongue brushed over his lips, surging with heat to the tips of his ears, down the back of neck, through his chest, and straight to his core.
He thought of another poet, of soft adorings upon the honey’d middle of the night, and then she turned so that her front pressed against him, and he thought of nothing at all.
Her hair flashed pink, her cracker crown forest green, and the snow continued falling feather-light outside.
Update: Please accept this half-arsed illustration of these lovelies.
