Had We Never Loved So Blindly

A/N: Thank you to Tippie and Jessica for your reviews!

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Had We Never Loved So Blindly
by MahsaFF

Chapter 7

To say that Tonks stalked down the hall in high dudgeon would have been an overstatement, but not by much.

What she was feeling was a ridiculous overreaction to a trivial incident, and of course she realised it. True, Sirius and Remus had been having her on, teasing her, baiting her, attempting quite successfully to put her out of countenance. But it had been all in good fun, as she'd assured both them and herself. That much, her intellect insisted on. So she accepted it.

Grudgingly.

Her heart, however, reported quite a different story, in which a man she cared for--loved, if you cared to put it that way, and she did--chose to keep her both literally and figuratively at arm's reach while flaunting a close and affectionate relationship with his best mate. Flaunting it in her face. Not that she believed for a minute that anything like that was going on between them, but still, it was obvious that he had no commitment problems in his friendship with Sirius.

Put it another way: Here she'd been, tiptoeing around--for months!--never pushing him further than he was ready to go, taking care to respect his boundaries, and admittedly hoping for some return on her investment. Some reward. Possibly a bit of trust. A little more openness. Not much to ask for, is it? her heart whinged to her brain. And meanwhile there Sirius was, blundering in, behaving towards Remus however he chose, taking the piss, walking roughshod over his privacy. And to what result? Warm, unguarded smiles that Tonks would have killed to have for herself.

All bestowed on a Sirius, who had done nothing at all to deserve them. That you know of, replied her brain.

With an irritated grimace, Tonks ordered her mind and her heart to shut up and sort things out behind the scenes for a bit. There was, after all, actual work that needed doing for the Order.

She pushed open the kitchen door to find Molly at the centre of a controlled whirlwind of supper-related preparations. A quick survey at the ingredients being pummelled into submission led Tonks to conclude that tonight's meal would feature quiche and salad. Her mouth watered. It had been a long time since her carrot lunch.

Molly, her robe sleeves rolled to the elbow, glanced Tonks's way long enough to offer a quick smile of greeting and then went back to competently flicking her wand this way and that. She moved like the conductor of a well-trained orchestra or a general with her army. Everything around her hopped to it under her brisk direction: Two pie crusts submitted to their rolling pins on the scrubbed tabletop, a block of cheese parted into cubes beneath its chopper, salad greens shivered under the cold tap, and a whisk agitated the contents of a blue enamelled bowl.

The ingredients had apparently concluded that it would be easier to give way to authority than to rebel, and Tonks wondered whether Molly had been born with the natural abilities of a despot or if it was the result of mothering seven children. Not wanting to cause any disturbance to this admirable but rather alarming efficiency--which was, sadly, all too likely with her--Tonks edged her way along the wall to the far corner of the kitchen.

Here was the area set up by Mad-Eye to coordinate the often chaotic activities of the Order, christened by him their Command Centre. Not that this name was used by anyone but himself; to the rest of them it was simply the "drop-off".

A cork board had been attached with more enthusiasm than skill to the wall above a cheap card table. The board held the week's assignment roster as well as a curling schedule for guard duty at the Ministry, which no one had bothered to remove after Arthur's attack. There were also scribbled messages for various Order members, some folded with a name written on the front, others open for the world to see, such as the one in Hestia's round penmanship that complained, "Wash up your own tea things, none of us is your scullery maid. This means YOU, S. B.!!!" Another note had Bill's name printed painstakingly at the top followed by several lines of Remus's crabbed, all-but-indecipherable manuscript.

Tonks automatically scanned the messages but found nothing meant for her. She turned her attention to the table, on which various items had been deposited to pass along to others in a sort of round robin exchange. A Foe-Glass that Moody had thoughtfully labelled to Dumbledore was still there, collecting dust. One of Emmeline's scarves had a note pinned to it saying, "Found after last meeting. E?" in Molly's handwriting. A lumpy package wobbled furtively as she looked at it; on the brown wrappings Dung had scrawled, "for H don't nobody touch." Tonks glanced over the rest of the objects on display, but didn't locate the unexciting stack of papers she was meant to pick up.

She turned to Molly and waited, in vain, for some discernible break in the flurry of activity going on around them.

"Um, Molly?" she said hesitantly.

With a reaction time that would have done credit to a duellist, Molly paused her symphony in a comprehensive sweep of her wand and turned an enquiring face to Tonks.

"Yes, dear?" she asked, wiping a streak of flour from one flushed cheek. "I didn't mean to ignore you, but I did want to get things in train before Arthur, Bill, and Alastor arrive. Bill hasn't been eating properly, you must have noticed how thin he's getting, and what with one thing and another I expect he doesn't--"

"I'm sure Bill will be ever so glad to have another home-cooked meal, Molly," Tonks said hastily. Bill had been generously stuffed with spaghetti just yesterday, after all, in this very kitchen. It was a wonder he could still fit through a door. "And I'm sorry to interrupt your preparations," she went on, with an fleeting glance at the floury rolling pins, hovering knife, and dripping greens. They seemed to quiver slightly with impatience. "Um. Did Arthur happen to mention anything about the incident reports he wants me and Kingsley to look over tonight?"

"Oh, goodness yes. I'm sorry. He gave them to me at lunch at the Burrow, and I have them just here." She bent down to a canvas shopping bag near her feet and pulled out a sheaf of spinach ("Fresh-picked from my garden"), a half-knitted sweater hanging by its needles, and finally a large, string-tied bundle of parchments.

There were far more than Tonks had been expecting, and the half formed plans she'd made for enjoying the upcoming weekend fled under this weighty load of bureaucracy.

Misinterpreting her dubious look, Molly said defensively, "Arthur has very good instincts for this sort of thing, for sensing when something isn't right. People don't always realise that. I know he's not the most dynamic of men, doesn't always present himself as well as he could, but--"

Tonks opened her mouth to protest but Molly was on a roll, "For weeks now he's been telling me, telling Alastor as well, that the general trend of reports coming through his department show something worrisome. Very worrisome. He hasn't been able to put his finger on it just yet--so kind of you and Kingsley to offer to help--but his intuition is as sound as a bell."

"I'm sure it is, Molly," Tonks put in as soon as she could. Even to her own ears she sounded more reassuring than convinced. She tried again. "Arthur has a loads of experience in his office--senior man, isn't he?--and we all listen to him and respect that. That's why Kingsley and I are so grateful he was able to smuggle these files out to us for the weekend."

This wasn't strictly true, but she hoped it would do to satisfy Molly.

In fact, she and Kingsley had been planning to go over the last three months of Auror incident reports, in the probably vain hope of finding something that indicated where the Azkaban escapees might be hiding out. They were quite reduced to scraping the bottom of the barrel after all these months. Arthur, overhearing, had volunteered, quite insistently, to provide them with his own annotated copies of reports from Misuse of Muggle Artifacts. Kingsley, with his usual instinct for keeping everyone happy--the man was a politician to the bone--had been too polite to refuse. And far from being smuggled out, which had been Arthur's word for it, Tonks seriously doubted if the reports were under any kind of confidentiality seal at all.

Tonks's words seemed to have reassured Molly that she understood the importance of her undertaking, however, and Molly handed the bundle to Tonks, who hefted them into her arms.

Molly examined Tonks's face with motherly concern. "And are you feeling quite well, dear? You're flushed."

"Oh. Well, anyone would be after-- after running the gauntlet of those two merry pranksters in the library." She rolled her eyes and did her best to suppress a scowl. "Someone got a bit reckless with the Cheering charms in there or something."

"My, are they still at it, then?" Molly nodded and patted her shoulder understandingly. "They've been carrying on in there for hours. Sirius did warn me, but of course I already knew what to expect after Halloween."

"Oh? Uh. Right." Tonks was mystified, but did her best to sound casual rather than completely in the dark. But Molly was giving her a sharp look, probably the same one that kept the twins from putting more past her than they did.

"Don't you--? Only I... I thought Remus might have mentioned to you?" Molly fished delicately.

It had happened more than once over the past few months, someone assuming that she knew more about Remus than she did. And of course she ought to know more, so she didn't really like to disabuse people of the notion.

Tonks tried to decide how to elicit details without admitting too much ignorance. "Oh, he... might have mentioned something, but if so I've forgotten. What did Sirius warn you about?"

"Just that the meat--the steaks he made today, you know--that it might make Remus a bit... well, the phrase he used was 'giddy as a girl'. But the same thing happened back at Halloween, so I remembered-- Except then Sirius pinched an entire roast I'd been planning for supper later in the week." Molly glared in the direction of the meat keeper, as if it had somehow been complicit in this theft. "The two of them finished off most of it that afternoon. When I came in--" Molly laughed indulgently. "Such carrying on, right here in my kitchen." Apparently Molly had annexed the Grimmauld Place kitchen as her own. "Like a pair schoolboys. And the mess in here, just like today's! Next morning I gave him a piece of my mind--Sirius, that is, of course I don't blame Remus in the least--for taking my roast without permission, but when Sirius explained..." Molly trailed off, looking uncomfortable.

'What did he say?"

"Well. Halloween night has been a-- a particularly sad time for them, for Remus and Sirius, dear, as I'm sure you're aware. Not at all the occasion for celebration it's been for most of us these past fourteen years. And as this year it fell just at Remus's... special time, you know... Sirius explained that on the spur of the moment, as it were, he decided that Remus could benefit from... that the meat would in some way help with... Well, dear, I really don't know the details of it and... To tell you the truth, I didn't like to ask."

Two spots of red appeared on Molly's cheeks as Tonks tried to take in what Molly was suggesting, unsure of exactly how to interpret this aspect of Sirius and Remus's friendship. Or this insight into... what? Werewolf physiology? It was something to file away for later thought.

"So," Molly went on. "Today when I-- when I heard them, I didn't like to disturb--though it is my day for dusting the library--not when Remus sounded so jolly, because Merlin knows he deserves any happiness he can find, and sometimes the pair of them remind me that much of Fred and George, you know, the way they set each other off, and if it isn't one thing it's another--with Fred and George, that is--although what a thoughtful, polite man like him--Remus, I mean--sees in someone as-- well, in Sirius, I'm sure I don't know, because there's a man who wants watching if ever I saw one."

Molly paused for breath and indicated the chairs at the table. "But sit down, please, Tonks." She summoned the teapot, saying, "This pot isn't too old if you fancy a drop before you go."

Tonks hesitated, but when a plate of iced lemon biscuits followed the teapot onto the table, she decided to take a seat. "Well, just for few minutes. Kingsley's expecting me soon. Ta, Molly," she added taking the proffered cup.

Once paused from her labours, Molly seemed in no hurry to resume. Slipping off her shoes, she leaned back in her chair beside the pie crusts and wiggled her toes luxuriantly. "Tell me about your day, dear. Were you able to get outside at all? Such lovely spring weather."

"Matter of fact," Tonks answered, sipping her tea, "I was outside today. All day. Got a bit of a bone to pick with Arthur about that as it happens."

"With Arthur? How--"

"Yeah, because of one of his reports," Tonks affirmed. "That is, my friend Ann said 'Wesley,' but it must have been his all right because it was from Misuse of Muggle artifacts. Got me sent out on the most idiotic assignment of my illustrious career. Stakeout at a public urinal." Tonks grinned as Molly's eyes widened. "Ann and me, we reckon we'll never see as many willies in the rest of our lives put together as we saw today."

"Wi-- Well! I'm sure Arthur would never--"

"Yeah, and the shock, I'm telling you, Molly, the shock of seeing how men behave as if-- well, let's just say that if it had been target practise, most of them wouldn't have been able to hit the side of a barn with a Confundus. You wouldn't believe--"

"You're forgetting I've raised six boys. Seven, if you count Arthur." Molly smiled briefly at her own witticism. "But I'm sure that if Arthur had had any say in the matter..." Molly trailed off, looking faintly appalled. Tonks hastened to set her mind at rest.

"Nah, it wasn't in any way Arthur's fault," Tonks reassured her, biting into a biscuit. "My own, more 'n likely, 'cos I ended up coming in late to our staff meeting this morning, and old Scrimmie decided I was taking the piss, so he gave me some back--literally!" She giggled through the biscuit crumbs, and Molly's frown wavered a moment before her disapproval reasserted itself.

"Still. Scrimgeour, you say? Rufus Scrimgeour? I find it difficult to believe--shocking even--that a man like that of all people--" Molly stammered, disconcerted. "He has ambitions to be Minister of Magic someday, you must have heard the rumours. Why he would ever assign two girls--young ladies--well, I know you're grown women, but--on an assignment in which men's private parts--"

"Don't give it another thought, Molly," Tonks soothed her. "No permanent harm done to our tender sensibilities. I'll probably look back on it in my declining years for a bit of a laugh, so it wasn't a dead loss. And it's not as if we'd never seen--"

She stopped, a hair's breadth away from putting her foot firmly in her mouth. That was the sort of joke one might make to a mate like Ann, but definitely not to the matriarch of the Weasley clan who, as rumor--well, Charlie--had it, was easily provoked into rants about Scarlet Women. She closed her lips and attempted to look as if she'd never started that last sentence.

"Oh, no. Well. Of course, dear," Molly said gamely, looking everywhere but at Tonks. Her face had gone quite pink. She began fussing with the teapot, peering in and stirring the stewed contents, while Tonks rearranged the remaining biscuits symmetrically on the plate and cast around desperately for a topic of conversation that didn't feature men's bits. She had just resolved to ask Molly for her lemon biscuit recipe, when Molly said briskly--

"Well, I mustn't keep you all day, dear. Kingsley will be impatient for Arthur's reports. And of course you'll be wanting to stop in on Remus before you go--" Molly stopped, seeming to realise the train of thought that had brought her to this remark. "Oh! That is-- Not that I meant to imply--"

And turned, bless her, even brighter pink than before. Unable to help herself, Tonks buried her head in her arms and gave way to mirth, snorting in such an unladylike way that she was sure Molly must think her entirely mad. With an effort of will, she regained her composure and peeped up at a distressed Molly, who had risen from her chair and looked as if she might like to sink through the floor.

As Molly seemed to be working up the effort to apologise again, Tonks forestalled her by saying heartily, "Thanks for that, Molly. I needed a good laugh just now." She pushed her own chair back and stood to wrap Molly in a hug. "And you're right, I do need to run. I'm just going upstairs for a moment, and then I'll, er, stop in to say my goodbyes to Remus," and his bits, "on my way out."

At least she wasn't the only one in the house today who'd had a moment of wishing that the world would go away, or at least have the decency to swallow her up. She grabbed the last remaining biscuits from the plate, slipped them into her pocket, and winked, leaving a flustered Molly to resume conducting the supper preparations with her usual martial precision.

Taking the stairs two at a time and ignoring a creaky protest from the heel of her boot, Tonks ascended the four flights that ended in a cramped landing at the top of the house. To the left was the attic door; to the right, three other doors led to small dormer rooms that had probably been occupied by lowly retainers in the house's glory days. She pushed open the door at the southwest corner and entered a room lit brightly by the sinking sun.

Tonks had never been in Remus's room before without Remus. And when there, being generally otherwise occupied, she rarely had time to notice a lot about the place beyond the obvious: poky and rather bare. She'd originally intended simply to pop in and locate the trainers she'd left here last week and rid herself of her wobbly boots. But as Remus was off trading schoolboy insults with Sirius, she had a few minutes to indulge in her snoopiness--that is, in her natural curiosity. Or even better, in an Auror's instinct to sleuth.

Looking around, she saw that she hadn't missed much. To call it spartan would have been a compliment. Her own flat was spartan, with its utilitarian sofa and one chair, narrow bed, seven pieces of cutlery, two plates, and a mug. But it held her life: her old Auror course books, some training weights, the fuzzy orange pillow she'd made when she was nine, pictures of her family, a drawing from her niece tacked to the wall by her door.

This room was simply... haphazard, as if the items scattered here and there had no purpose, knew no owner. A dozen people might have lived in this room, each leaving behind some uncherished item. But taken as a collection, the items that didn't add up to any personality at all: an unmade narrow bed, a dusty water glass collecting cobwebs on the window sill, a comb missing several teeth on the floor in a corner, a yellowed Daily Prophet half-visible under the wardrobe.

A furtive glance through the drawers of the bedside table showed that Remus's possessions were not grouped by function, at least not by any sane definition of such. Inky quills shared space with a worn toothbrush, a large ring of keys, and a drawstring bag. A second drawer held an old black t-shirt--or rag?, a chunk of bath soap, a smoothed and carefully folded paper sack from Honeydukes, and a peeling leather journal that she did not open, her nosiness having some bounds. Remus seemed to have disorganisation down to a minimalist art form. A place for nothing and nothing in its place.

Recalling herself to her original mission, she opened the wardrobe door as a likely starting place for her search. There might even be time to drop the boots at the cobbler's before she met Kingsley.

The wardrobe held less than a dozen hangers, upon which were a motley collection of robes, trousers, jumpers, and shirts, all in more or less threadbare condition. A few had been quite skillfully mended or patched. Tonks thought this must be Molly's work or--worrisome thought--some unknown woman in Remus's life, because it certainly hadn't been Remus himself: She'd once seen him repair a rent in the elbow of his jumper with a Sticking charm that even she had known wouldn't last five minutes.

A number of far more costly robes were heaped carelessly on the floor of the wardrobe. Tonks recognised them as the armload of cast-offs that Sirius had collected from the attic one night. Tonks had enlisted his aid in cajoling Remus to attend her Ministry dinner party, and Sirius had tossed this bundle of luxury materials onto the bed where they'd lain untouched as Remus steadfastly refused even to look at them. In the end, Sirius had walked out muttering that Remus could keep the damned things or burn 'em, but he wasn't taking them back.

Tonks knelt down and ran an admiring finger over a carved ivory clasp. Victorian, she guessed. All of the robes were richly made in velvets and silks of muted colours. Someone in the Black family--or had it been a house elf?--had had very good taste. There were beautiful fastenings and linings, and subtle hues were set off with glimmers of intricate embroidery. In short, nothing that Remus would ever be caught dead in.

She spied a bit of orange clashing with the scarlet silk lining of one of the cloaks and triumphantly plucked out one of her trainers. A fat brown spider, startled by the movement, scuttled across the silk. With a shudder, Tonks drew her wand and sent the spider sailing through the open window into the square below. With the tip of her wand, she searched the rest of the pile with a few cautious stirs until she located the trainer's mate.

She sat in the old armchair to change her shoes, its worn velvet seat wheezing and settling beneath her. She took her time pulling off her boots. She wasn't in any hurry to go back downstairs. Not yet. Not when her heart and brain were still grumbling at each other about Remus and Sirius. She didn't know where she stood with Remus. Never had, really. But somehow it had been easier to deal with before she'd seen the two of them together being... old friends. Merlin. She was being so uncharitable. She knew that. What was wrong with Remus, or anyone, having old friends? She had them herself.

The sinking sun splayed its golden rays across Tonks's chair, turning it into a burnished throne. The old orange trainer in her hand glowed like the magic boot in that old Beedle story. And thinking of one tale reminded her of another, the one where the old crone warned the young maid about Men, who wanted only One Thing.

Was that true of Remus?

She'd missed out on that warning, somehow, with Mum. Very remiss of her, she grinned to herself. But somehow, despite the somewhat circumscribed nature of her relationship with Remus, she felt that he really did care. He wanted more than the One Thing, didn't he? There were so many small signs that spoke of his unexpressed need for her, not a sexual one, but something else: a sort of yearning towards her that she ached to fulfil for him.

She was special to him. She did know that. Hadn't he made an admission to her--under a bit of duress, admittedly--in this very chair exactly two weeks ago today? And she'd made an admission to herself then as well. A smile traced her lips as she recalled the circumstances. Sex had always amazing, really, between the two of them, but that time had been memorable for entirely new reasons.

(continued in Chapter 8)

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A/N: Well... uh... rather a strange place to leave off, I know, but the flashback is very long and quite smutty. So... it's coming up next time. Tell me what you think -- I love reviews. :)