(no subject)

[metamorphical]

Day passes into the evening quietly on the street with the accidental numbering convention, sunlight receding upon Numbers 11 and 13 just as it does any old evening. But there, snuggled just as it should be, good old Number 12 is also sitting there in the dusk hours. People just didn't know it. They didn't see it. Unless, of course, they knew what they should be seeing.

A currently blonde-haired woman stands in front of the empty space, ignored just as much as the invisible house is, and thinks about exactly what she should be seeing. After a moment, it's as if the small area yawns wide open, spitting out 12 Grimmauld Place as it does.

The door opens, allowing her entrance, and a gruff old man greets the woman with a grunt. "Wotcher, Mad Eye!" She replies cheerfully, scooting past him in a blithe manner and proceeding promptly to be tripped up by an old (and ugly as sin) umbrella stand fashioned from what looks like a troll's leg. "Rude, that, isn't it?"

Moody rolls his good eye, the magical one remaining on the youthful Auror as she straightens herself and motions that she should follow him for the grand tour. "Tonks, the wretched house. Kitchen's there. Don't break things." That is the end of Moody's grand tour as he points down the hall and towards the kitchen. Tonks, undaunted by her mentor's attitude, grins and heads down the direction he pointed in.

As she moves down the hall, only minding the wall after bumping into it already, she enters the kitchen and takes a good look around. Grimmauld Place is something out of half-told stories from her childhood. It doesn't seem as scary now that she's older. Only sadder. Pity.

Comments

[metamorphical]

Tonks fancies herself a people watcher, and a fairly good one at that. So while she notes that his demeanor doesn't change, she sees it change. Something that she can't put her finger on, something akin to the proverbial itchy tag once more.

"Have a biscuit, Remus." She encourages him, breezy in the offer even if she has ulterior motives. It's chocolate. And chocolate is always good for the soul. And he needs it, she decides. Also, they were quite good. They remind her of-- "Is Molly Weasley feeding us?" It dawns on her that the Weasleys could very well be a part of this. "Cripes. I haven't seen her since leaving Hogwarts."

As for what she's been assigned to, Tonks shrugs and chuckles. "Same thing I'm assigned at the Ministry. Just...not for the Ministry." Believing it easier to show than tell -- or more fun, at least -- she morphs her features into those of Sirius. "Did you know that Sirius Black has been seen in Ireland? And France. And once in Wales." She doesn't sound quite like him. Not yet. Tonks needs to study for that part.

But then she shakes her head and comes back into focus as just herself, voice and all, though her hair is now a bright pink shag. "Hard not to be recruited when you're a natural decoy." It's her own unique contribution to both her job and now the Order, being able to use her Metamorphmagus ability for what's needed.

[lumenrelegandus]

"We really ask too much of her," Lupin confirms with a nod, "but… I think a lot of us have been confronting a lot of assumptions this past few weeks. One of them was, a woman like Molly's choice to become a housewife, when in the past we might have said: 'she could have put her magical talent to 'better' use'. We're coming up against just how very much talent managing a house—even without this one's challenges—can require. And how exceedingly good she is at it, so how it was as considered and empowered a choice it was for her as any other career. More of us would be laughing at seeing the likes of Moody at his wits' end groveling for her help, if we weren't limping right behind him to also do so."

Tonks's transformation into Sirius had Lupin fumble his cup, catch it in one hand to cover his eyes with the other and laugh-moan, "Oh, crumbs…" and only look up most briefly and furtively until she'd become herself again. Yes, as students, then-Remus and then-Sirius had fulfilled the entire school's rumour mill and snogged a few times; but as such different people to one another now… seeing current Sirius's appearance on a person he was really fancying finding-attractive-without-intent was still a bit difficult to process.

What she was actually saying caught up to him with a worried frown. He forced himself not to be that guy and thought it through a step further. "…and then your ability to completely vanish a moment later," he too-sluggishly finished. "That's quite good. …Do you mind? That as your mission?"

[metamorphical]

In the span of confirming that he was the Remus she remembers from her childhood to now, Tonks has all but forgotten that there is a gap in between them -- both in age and apprarently in viewing people as the likes of one Molly Weasley. Because the woman Tonks remembers could whip anyone into shape with just a look. But too, Tonks only knows Molly already in a that sort of take-charge way she has, having been friends with Charlie Weasley.

So she may have said something about that, but poor Remus' reaction delights her too much. "I'd say I was sorry.." she says before smiling impishly, "but I'd be lying."

As for whether she minds, Tonks tilts her head then, thinking about it. She understands what he means immediately, and is trying to put her thoughts about a complicated matter into words that make sense to people not in her brain. "No. I signed up as an Auror knowing full well me being..well, me.." she motions to herself with a wry smile, "made for a unique case. And the same with the Order. I've got an ability that can do good. It's going to put me in some shitty situations -- putting on the face of a Death Eater sympathizer to get in close with Death Eaters is quite shit -- but it's also something that I can do. And I don't have to worry about the danger someone else would be in if their Polyjuice failed. And that's why I joined up, isn't it? To do something?"

It's her turn to pick up her cup, holding it to her face as she regards the man for a moment. She squints for a second, mouth screwing up at the idea that her next question could fuck things up. But, as she does, she carries forward anyway. "How do you feel about it? I'd wager your own.." She doesn't know what to call it without calling it what it is. Is that a thing? Do people do that? Does he want to talk about it? Her free hand moves around as she looks for the word that isn't the word. "..I'm sorry. I don't know how you'd like it to talk about it. Situation? Is a bit similar?"

[lumenrelegandus]

Irony… So innocuous a concept as a clothing label had pushed him away… Now the most actively treacherous crux of his life—literally dangerous as well as psychologically… Her saying it head-on makes him raise his eyes to her in a new way.

…a so much more unshielded, equal, open, relieved, way, than he's so far been.

Closer.

"I didn't know if you knew," he said. Yes, definite relief. What an overturn it makes—when the worst has already happened—twice. …And this time actually is better.

"But, yes. …Sorry, I admit, that's exactly why I asked. It can be difficult. When the thing that makes you best able to serve… isn't something you've chosen to do, to become good at, to try to give to others, but just something… you are. Issues of how much one wants to be 'defined' by or 'limited' to a thing, even when it can be put to the good…

"To my extremely biased outside eye, yours seems a much more positive attribute you can inhabit and share than I tend to think of my own, but I still wouldn't presume to know your own relationship to it. …I don't know. I think things of myself that I would never think of or say to someone else. I'm projecting, of course, we don't know each other enough. But if you ever feel that way… I don't know. I'd be around, to talk."

[metamorphical]

She looks back at him in surprise,
wide eyed and, truthfully, curious.

"Back when you repeated your name." She should have the grace to look sheepish about it, but doesn't. Instead, she states that piece of information simply. After her initial determination, Tonks had already deemed the fact that Remus is a werewolf as simply that. A fact. She still doesn't know him, of course, but already he's infinitely better than those awful books in her youth made werewolves out to be.

Without really thinking about it, she reaches out and taps his hand gently. "The same goes for you. I know I won't fully get it--" She doesn't presume that their situations are at all the same. But she doesn't think they're entirely dissimilar either. "But I'll hopefully be able to relate, yeah? And remind you that we are who we are, what we are. But that's not the entirety of us."