Werewolves Are Not Popular Dinner Guests

Werewolves Are Not Popular Dinner Guests

Part the First:

In Which a Wolf, Like In So Many Muggle Fairy Tales, Is Foiled Again

Remus Lupin liked to think that he did not ask for much from life. Was it so difficult to want to be able to read the Daily Prophet and have a nice hot cup of tea during the evenings?

It never had been. He'd been sitting in the parlor in Grimmauld Place on a pleasant Wednesday evening in mid-August. The window was open and a cool breeze floated in, making the room almost pleasant to him as he sat with said newspaper and cup of tea.

Ron and Hermione were in front of the fireplace having a heated argument. Remus had long since lost the thread of what they were arguing about and doubted very much it would matter if he did. He had learned to regard it as the rest did, more as a perpetual background noise than anything else. Ginny was spread out on the floor groaning in frustration at her summer-break homework while Harry next to her was having a heartfelt reunion with his newly recovered Firebolt. Things were, all in all, how Remus liked them. Granted that he wouldn't have minded Sirius sitting next to him mumbling irately about being kept inside on a beautiful day like this, what a crime that was, but Remus had also decided worrying about things like that continually wouldn't help anyone in the end. Certainly he had a job that could result in the loss of his life at any moment, but he liked to think that the time in the parlor was pleasantly detached from all that.

A purple head appeared in the doorway suddenly. "Remus," it said in an all-too suspiciously cheerful manner, "can I speak to you in the kitchen?"

Remus must've looked worried, so Tonks grinned reassuringly. "Gee, Remus, I was only planning some mild torture for you, there's no need look so grim about it." The Weasleys, Harry, and Hermione all laughed, and Remus tried very hard to go along with them. He then tried to mimic Tonks' reassuring smile and failed quite miserably, so he was left with a very stupid sort of half-grin on his face that made him look altogether too much like a Jack-O-Lantern. He followed her down to the kitchen, where he sat down at the table and she faced him, leaning on the sink.

"Remus," she began, now sounding far too serious. "Let's say you had a friend who is the most wonderful, kind, and thoughtful person you know who never asks for a thing from anyone. And let's say that you asked this friend a huge favor. I mean a gigantic one, even though he, mind you, has never asked anything from you. Would you feel desperately unseemly for asking this huge favor?"

Remus considered his answer. He cleared his throat.

"That," he said, "depends on the gravity of the favor. If it's of the lend-me-a-few-coins variety I shouldn't think my friend would mind much, unless of course he was an excessively greedy and unpleasant person, but I believe we've already stressed he's not. If it's a more human-sacrifice category favor, well, I imagine I might find it a little awkward to ask my friend for such a thing."

Tonks shifted uncomfortably. "What if it sort of falls in the middle of those things?"

Remus shrugged. "Again, what exactly the favor is would matter a great deal to my friend."

Tonks sighed. "Let's say," she said, "that your parents were hosting this dinner party--"

"Ah, you see, there is the downfall in your logic. My parents have never, ever hosted a dinner party, as they've never had proper silverware for the event..."

Tonks, however, didn't seem to care much about the highly interesting story of why Remus' parents didn't have any suitable silverware for any sort of fancy party, for she waved a hand impatiently. "Listen, Remus, Saturday, my parents are having a dinner party, and of course they're inviting all their old, crusty friends, and I was hoping--"

"To invite some old, crusty friends of your own," he finished for her, and she grinned.

"Believe me, Remus, you're the fountain of youth when it comes to some of my parents' friends. Can't you please come? No one else can, Hestia and Emmeline and nearly everyone else are all on patrol, and Kingsley, the little bugger, he heard me talking about it to my mother and actually volunteered to work for me so I could go to the damn thing. And it's not a full moon, I already checked, so don't use that excuse."

Now Remus shifted uncomfortably. He was beginning to think that he would've preferred a favor from the human sacrifice category. He opened his mouth to speak, but Tonks cut him off.

"And don't pretend you've got somewhere to go, Remus. I know. All the evenings you're not working you're in the parlor there playing chess with Ron or reading the paper or something boring like that."

He folded his arms indignantly. "I can't imagine why you're besmirching the good name of the Lupin/Weasley Chess Wars. Personally, I find them quite enjoyable."

"Do you?"

"Well, yes, I mean, I'm about this close to actually beating him one of these times."

"That close?"

"Well, maybe that estimate is a little biased..." In fact, Remus suspected he was several miles away from beating Ron at chess, but these thoughts seemed unimportant. "And, well, you know, I told Ginny I'd help her with her Potions homework, I know she had a very difficult assignment from Severus on, er, Diluting Potions." Remus had never been a natural liar, that had been more of James and Sirius' forte, but looking at the one he had literally just pulled out of thin air he thought it rather well done.

Before Tonks could respond to his utter fabrication, Ginny chose the very inopportune moment to enter the kitchen. Remus had hoped, for one glorious moment, that he might be able to salvage the situation somehow by communicating to Ginny his little lie by the use of many extravagant gestures behind Tonks' back. Unfortunately, Ginny chose this moment to proclaim to both of them her relief at finally completing every single bit of her summer schoolwork and was there any of that pudding left from the other night? After discovering that there actually wasn't, that it had all been eaten by Ron some time the previous night, she looked on in surprise at the reactions of her previous statement on the two in front of her, from Remus, who had buried his face in his hands, to Tonks, who was smiling joyously. "Something wrong?" she asked through the bit of Harry's birthday cake she had dug out of the back of the icebox.

"Nothing's wrong," said Tonks cheerfully, walking up to Remus' chair. "Remus here," she said, clapping a hand on his shoulder, "was just consenting to coming to my parents' dinner party on Saturday. Weren't you, Remus?"

Seeing that he had dug himself into a hole that he couldn't claw his way out of without the aid of several pieces of advanced climbing equipment, Remus nodded from behind his hands.

"Well, that's nice," said Ginny brightly. "Now you can let someone else get murdered by Ron in chess."

Remus agreed from behind his hands that this was true.