Why Remus Won't Shag Tonks

A/N: To SortingHat47, who inspired me by an off-handed comment...

"...And then, she says--" Sirius once again nearly fell off the chair, his entire body giving in to the fit of laughter that overtook him. "--she says--"

Kingsley looked over at Remus and raised his eyebrows.

Remus just smiled. If it gave Sirius that much joy to tell the story, who was he to take this chance from him?

It had been something unexpected. Albus Dumbledore had asked Remus to meet with a woman in the park not too far from Grimmauld Place. She was in possession of a document that Dumbledore very much wanted, possibly something he could use in the fight against Voldemort. What it was exactly, Remus didn't know. Dumbledore hadn't told him, and he hadn't asked. It was always safer that way.

What had surprised him, however, was that Dumbledore had allowed Sirius, in his Animagus form, to accompany Remus.

"She has a love of dogs," Dumbledore said. "So between your patience and charm--yes, Remus, I said charm--," he smiled at the werewolf, "--and a dog--," he paused to give Sirius a smile in turn, "--hopefully a well-behaved, charming one--the two of you can persuade her to give the scroll to us."

So, the two had gone to the park and spent an hour romping and eating hot dogs. And they met with Esmee Gruber, who had fallen in love with the big, charming, somewhat well-behaved black dog...

"--she says, oh, Merlin! No, that's not what she said! She said--" Sirius was laughing maniacally now. Remus was beginning to seriously question his friend's sanity. It hadn't been that funny.

"Are you ever going to tell us what she said?" Tonks asked impatiently.

"Sirius, if you don't finish the damned story, I'm going to get Remus to tell it," Kingsley announced in his deep voice.

"Then it won't be nearly as funny," Sirius said, trying to bring himself under some modicum of control.

Remus rolled his eyes, then put his elbows on the table and leaned forward. "Well, she asked me if I knew why Dumbledore wanted the scroll--"

"Oh, Gods, Moony, you're killing it already!"

"Then tell it!" Remus said.

"Alright, alright. She asked if Moony knew why Dumbledore wanted the scroll, and he gave her the typical Lupin answer, it's not even important what he said," Sirius said, waving an impatient hand in the air. "But, then she asked him what he was going to do for her in order to get the scroll. It seems, boys and girls, lads and lasses, that she wanted to see Remus' 'little phoenix' rise!" And again, Sirius went off into gales of laughter until he rolled off the chair and onto the floor.

Kingsley and Tonks exchanged glances, then looked across the table at Remus. The laughter under the table continued, and Remus could see it was all the two Aurors could do to keep from laughing.

"Go ahead and laugh," Remus said after a minute. "It's not like it isn't moderately funny." He leaned back in the chair and used the opportunity to kick Sirius--hard.

"OUCH!"

Tonks started giggling, and once she started, Remus knew it was only a short matter of time before she'd be on the floor with her cousin, rolling with laughter. Kingsley, however, surprised him by laughing loudly enough to drown out Sirius' howls.

With a sigh, and an amused smile at his own expense, Remus got up and went to get a piece of chocolate cake.

"You should have seen his face!" Sirius said, when he had composed himself enough to crawl out from under the table. "It was priceless!"

"So, what did he do?" Tonks asked, completely ignoring the fact that Remus was standing five steps away from her and could have answered the question for himself.

"Oh, he was his typical gentlemanly self. Told her he was flattered and all, but he didn't want to besmirch her honor."

" 'Besmirch'?" Kingsley repeated, looking at Remus.

"I said nothing of the kind," Remus said, deciding to take the conversation back under his control. "I did tell her I appreciated the thought, but that I just couldn't compromise her in any way."

"See?" Sirius asked. "Who talks like that?"

"Remus does," Tonks said, her eyes resting on the werewolf admiringly.

She seemed to be doing a lot of that lately. Actually, if Remus was reading her eyes correctly, she--no, he wasn't going to think about it. It was completely out of the question. No matter what Sirius thought about it. And said. And he had plenty to say about it...

"So did you get the scroll?" Kingsley asked. "Even if you didn't--ahem--besmirch her reputation?"

"Yes," Remus said smugly. "We--I--got it."

Kingsley nodded approvingly. "If you'd like, I can take it to Dumbledore. I have to meet him later."

Remus didn't think Dumbledore would have a problem with that, so he went up to his room to fetch the scroll.

When he returned to the kitchen, Kingsley, Tonks, and Sirius were in the middle of a conversation he would have been just as glad to miss.

"Alright, Moony," said Sirius, leaning back in his chair and propping his feet on the table. "We were wondering something. If Frau Gruber had been, say, thirty years old, and one hundred pounds lighter, would you have worried about besmirching her honor?"

"I refuse to even play this game," Remus said, shoving his friend's feet off of the table. "I was there on Order business. I wasn't there for the possibility of a, a--" Words failed him for the moment, but Sirius was there to offer, ever so helpfully:

"A good shag?"

Remus noticed that Tonks had appropriated his piece of cake, so he went to get another piece for himself. "The woman's lonely, Padfoot. I felt sorry for her."

"So, you would have shagged her!"

"Would you shut up!"

"Would you have shagged her if--" Sirius again brought his feet up onto the table, and tilted his chair back, "--if she looked like Marilyn Monroe?"

"Who's Marilyn Monroe?" Tonks wanted to know.

"Muggle actress," Kingsley replied.

"Not playing," Remus said, deciding that a glass of milk would go quite well with the cake.

"How about if she looked like--" And there was a way that Sirius spoke, an inflection of some sort, that warned Remus what the former prisoner was going to say right before he said it. "What if she looked like Tonks, here? Would you shag her?"

"No," Remus said firmly.

"You wouldn't shag this lovely, nubile, young woman?" Sirius asked, faking wide-eyed sincerity.

"Don't talk about your cousin like that," Remus said. "It borders on incest."

"The whole Black family is filled with it," Sirius remarked, waving a dismissive hand in the air. "And why can't I appreciate beauty when and where I see it? Even if it is my cousin?"

Remus shot him a look that meant, "You are dead to me now. You will die in actuality later."

Kingsley cleared his throat. "I have to be getting on. I have to go back to the Ministry and report that Remus Lupin still doesn't know where Sirius Black is. Coming, Tonks?"

"I'm going to stay here for a bit longer," Tonks pointed at her plate. "I still have this to finish."

Kingsley tucked the scroll deep into a pocket of his robes, and left.

"It really was hilarious," Sirius said to Tonks. "You would've loved it."

Tonks threw a glance across the table at Remus, and smiled warmly at him. "I'm sure I would have." And then, bless her, she changed the subject.

When she finished her cake, she stood up, and reached across the table to grab Remus' already empty plate. "I'll take that," she said. "I'll do the dishes, too."

Hopefully he could repair any broken dishes. "Really, you don't--"

"No problem," she insisted.

Remus watched her walk to the sink, thinking things that Sirius would tease him about for hours. Suddenly he felt a touch on his arm.

Sirius was looking at him intently. Slowly, he cocked his head towards Tonks and raised his eyebrows meaningfully.

Remus shook his head, and reached for his glass.

The grip on his arm became firmer, almost painful. "Go!" Sirius mouthed.

Tonks had started the dishes, humming softly to herself.

Remus got up and strolled casually to the sink, feeling like an utter fool. He was so much older than Tonks, and, honestly, what did he have to offer someone like her? Not a lot, that's for certain.

She looked up at him and smiled, and he held out his glass. "Got one more for you," he said. "And I'll dry, if you'd like."

"That would be nice," she replied. Was she blushing? Surely not...

"I'm surprised you wash dishes by hand," Remus said. "I thought since you're so good at charms, you'd use them for things like this."

She laughed, and it did something to Remus' knees, so that he leaned against the counter for support. "I break more dishes with my charms than I do when I wash them like this," she replied. "If you can believe that."

He took a wet plate from her hand and began to wipe it dry.

"So, you wouldn't shag me?" she suddenly asked.

"I wouldn't if I was only there on Order business to get a scroll from you."

She tilted her face up towards his, and looked at him from beneath thick black lashes. "So, under what circumstances would you shag me?"

He felt his mouth go dry. And then, for once he spoke without thinking: "I wouldn't shag you, Nymphadora."

He felt her shock. And her disappointment seemed to make her oblivious to the fact that he had used her first name. But before she could respond, before she could feel that awfulness for one more moment, he bent and whispered in her ear, "I'd make love to you."

She froze. And then finally, her eyes widened and her chin slowly rose until her eyes were staring right into his. "Oh, you would, would you?" she said softly.

He smiled at her.

There was a sound behind them, and Remus glanced over his shoulder. Sirius had tiptoed out, leaving them alone. There was a tug at the plate in his hand, and he let her take it and place it on the counter.

"Wouldn't you worry about besmirching my reputation?" she asked coyly.

"Should I?" he asked in return.

"I don't think so," she replied. And she threw her arms around him, raising her lips to his.