Dawn Breaking

A/N - Sorry it has taken me so long to update this story. I have been caught up in EPU and writing the Polylove challenge from WIKTT and a couple of other stories. Sigh, not that I am ambitious or anything. EPU is my main concern, though and as I got to an emotionally heavy segment I felt the need to write some comedy. So here you go!

Kate was able to beta this chapter, so I am reposting it with corrections.

Chapter 5 – Under the Sea

Ian’s quarters were deep in the bowels of the castle, near the kitchens. They slipped into the room with relief, as they hadn’t been seen by any of the students. Ian had felt a little like a student herself, sneaking around the castle.

His rooms had an underwater theme. The windows looked out under the lake and the walls were enameled in green and aqua to look like a continuation of the view. A sunken fire pit was in the center of the floor surrounded by low couches covered in sand colored velvet. The carpeting was decorated with a seashell pattern and a table near one of the windows had gilt sea horses for legs and a top made of green glass.

It was breathtaking and even with a disheveled and gorgeous man to fondle, Tonks paused to stare at it.

“This is amazing!” She breathed.

“Yeah, they were Salazar Slytherin’s rooms and they go to the DADA teacher, which is one of the reasons that Snape wants to chew my ears off. I was a Gryffindor and it drives him absolutely mad to think of me living in Sal’s old rooms.” Ian had a mischievous, little boy grin as he said this and it distracted Tonks completely from the décor.

She crossed to him in two steps and wrapped herself around him. His mouth opened under her assault and his arms held her against the smooth muscle of his body. They both lost track of everything as they kissed, arms entwined around each other and mouths seeking each other’s pleasure.

Ian felt an aching in his groin as he ground himself against her; she roused him more than any woman he had ever been with, just with her kisses. He bent and lifted her in his arms, turning to head for the bedroom.

“Quirs Sls Slatero Ianthorpe Quirrell, I know you are in there, now open that door!” A shrill voice cut through the room, enhanced no doubt by a charm and Ian froze, Tonks still in his arms.

“Who the hell is that?” Tonks asked in shock.

“My mother.” He responded in a flat tone.

“Can she be ignored?” Tonks looked at him, her lips swollen from his kisses and her hair mussed. She looked delectable and he fought the certain knowledge that gnawed at his belly.

“Not without dire consequences.” He groaned and set the lovely witch on her feet.

“Quirenius! OPEN THAT DOOR!” The banshee howl filled the room and Ian stomped to the door and unwarded it with a fierce scowl.

“For Merlin’s sake, woman!” He was pushed aside as a form of Wagnerian proportions strode into the room and turned on him.

“And when were you going to tell me that you had been resurrected?” Her fiery red hair had more to do with Charms than nature, but her snapping blue eyes had lost none of their sharpness and her bosom heaved with the same majestic rise that had killed his father.

“Hopefully about the time Hell froze over.” He responded dryly, noting the absoluteness with which his mother ignored Nymphadora Tonks, who was staring open-mouthed at the horrific apparition.

“I had to hear about you third-hand from Mrs. Broomworthy down the alley. There she comes as bold as brass to tell me about my own son!” A large meaty hand was clamped to the heaving bosom to demonstrate the shame and distress of its owner.

“Meddlesome harpy.” Ian mentally dispatched the Mrs. Broomworthys of the world to a small private hell with lots of sharp spiky things all over it.

“And if that wasn’t bad enough, your brother, who married that trollop - may she rot for the things she says to me - told me that he had thought you were lucky to be dead and away from me.” The last bit was said with the addition of a hysterical rise of voice.

“And I thought he never liked me, how wrong I was.” Ian commented thoughtfully. “I’ll have to send him a Yule card this year.”

“Oh well, my heart just broke with that, and that whore he married – may her tongue fall out – won’t let me near my OWN grandchildren. She says I FRIGHTEN them, can you imagine?” Racking sobs caused the jellied planes of her figure to undulate in a manner that had always made him vaguely seasick.

“Quite easily.” Ian reded,ded, knowing full well that the editing system in what passed for a brain in Rosamunda Quirrell’s head would replace whatever he said with the appropriate sound bite that she conjured for the occasion.

“But you are alive, my dear, dear, boy! I am so happy! What a mother suffers, thinking that she has outlived her precious children, you cannot imagine.” The massive arms that draped themselves around his neck were a crushing weight, but he merely executed a simple maneuver that extracted him from her embrace. He had learned it from a Japanese Wizard some years ago and it had always con han handy when dealing with his mother.

“Probably not, Mother.” He answered with bland good humor. She had long ago mistaken his sarcasm for compliance and his humor for love and he had never bothered to correct her assumptions.

“Why do you have a girl in your rooms?” Mrs. Quirrell homed in on Tonks finally, as though she hadn’t seen her the entire time and been merely ignoring her.

“Oh, the usual reasons, I suppose.” Ian responded with a wink at Tonks, who was still trying to get her brain to encompass his mother. There was, he had to admit, a great deal to try to encompass.

“Do I know your mother, dear?” Tonks looked a little taken aback as the bulk of Mrs. Quirrell bore down on her.

“Andromeda Tonks is my mother.” Tonks got out as she was examined from every angle by the looming matriarch.

“Don’t know the family.” The unnerving gimlet stare was riveted on poor Nymphadora who looked quite shell shocked.

“I was just having some tea, Mother, with Miss Tonks. Alone.” He knew even before he said it that subtlety was wasted on his mother, but she had boxed his ears until manners were an ingrained habit. Just because she had none didn’t stop her from insisting that he ought to. The lesson had stuck and been added to as he watched how people responded to her.

“Tea would be lovely, my darling boy.” He sighed in resignation and went to rescue Tonks.

“I’ll put a kettle on.” He admitted a temporary setback in his romantic plans.

He stepped between his mother and Tonks and guided the slender and now, rathide-ide-eyed young woman away from the quivering mound of maternal solicitude that was watching her with reproachful eyes.

“I can’t imagine how you could have forgotten to inform me that you were alive.” Four months, he sighed; four months of peace and blissful quiet. He thought longingly of his bedroom and of Tonks spread across his bed her hair fanned out on the pillows.

“I suppose it slipped my mind.” Ian gave Nymphadora an amused look and she smiled back rather weakly.

“I suppose you had other things to think of.” His mother was now giving Tonks a beady-eyed stare that implied a level of understanding of her that only God could rightly claim. Tonks was flushed and Ian sighed in exasperation.

“I had to adjust to having been dead for seven years. Sorry if that took precedence, Mother.” There was more than a little aggravation in his tone and it served to distract her from Tonks. He offered himself up on the sacrificial altar, though Tonks would have to learn to bite back hard with his mother if she wanted to seriously date him.

“She’s quite right, Ian, you should have owled her immediately!” Tonks interrupted with a frown and Ian gave her a look of shock. “What could be more important than your mother’s welfare?” Ian stood flabbergasted, but his mother transformed from harpy to woeful in a nanosecond.

“What a kind, good girl you are -- Miss Tonks, is it?” Ian watched as Nymphadora flung her arms around the distraught woman.

“You poor, poor woman, how thoughtlessly everyone has behaved towards you!” Ian stood, jaw slack, teapot in hand, and stared in dismay. Over his mother’s shoulder Nymphadora gave him a slow wink and a wicked smile and understanding dawned.

He turned to to the kettle with a smile. The beautiful young Witch he had been kissing seemed quite able to handle his mother The thought made him feel happy and warm.