Under the Table

Remus looked up when he heard the noise again. He wasn't entirely sure what it was - a shuffling, interspersed with thunks. He'd been hearing it for nearly ten minutes. At first he'd assumed it was Kreacher, and then had put it down to the creaking of the old house as it settled around him, but there had been something more disturbing about the last thunk, as if it was getting closer. He got to his feet, abandoning the book he had been reading unceremoniously on the table, and went to investigate. He drew his wand and opened the kitchen door, and Tonks promptly fell through it, shushing herself and giggling furiously.

For a second he wondered if she'd just tripped, but as Remus regarded her on the floor with an amused smile, and she grinned up at him from his shoes, another, altogether more likely explanation presented itself.

"How nice of you to join me, Tonks," he said, offering her his hand. She struggled onto her knees, using his legs for balance and nearly pulling him down on top of her in the process. He braced himself against the doorframe with one hand, still offering her the other. She stared at his hand for a moment as if she wasn't quite sure what to make of it, and then pulled heavily on it, grabbing him around the waist with the other one and pulling herself to her feet. She slumped against him for a moment, steadying herself, and then moved away. She swayed slightly and squinted at him.

"Wotcher," she said, grinning.

"Tonks - "

She put her finger to his lips and muttered "Shhhhhh", and then clamped her hand over her mouth, and staggered to the table, clinging to it for support.

"I'm going to take a wild stab in the dark and say that you've been drinking," Remus said. He watched for a few moments as she hovered over a chair, going to sit down and then changing her mind at the last minute and clinging tighter to the table, as if she didn't quite trust herself to make the transition from standing to sitting.

He allowed himself a brief chuckle at her expense, and then put his hands on her shoulders and eased her down into the chair.

He crossed the kitchen and took a pint glass off the draining board, filling it with water, and placing it on the table in front of her. "You should drink that," he said. "It'll take the edge off in the morning."

"Edge?" she said, staring straight through him and screwing up her forehead, her eyes glassy and unfocused. He pulled out the chair next to her and sat down, trying not to laugh.

He rested one elbow on the table and leant on his hand, trying to hide his amusement as best as he could behind his fingers. "What are you doing here?" he said softly.

"I went to the pub," she said, slurring her words and gesturing over her shoulder with a loose jerk of her thumb.

"I think we'd established that," he said.

"I only had a little drink," she said, pulling the pint glass towards her and holding it with both hands. She lifted it to her lips and slopped some down her front, missing her mouth completely. She looked down at the wet patch on her T shirt with confusion, wiped at it in annoyance and then took another, more successful, gulp.

He pressed his fingers more firmly against his lips to try to stifle his laugh, thinking what an adorable drunk she made.

"Were you supposed to report something?" he said, trying to keep the amusement out of his voice, and he suspected, not that she would notice, failing. She shook her head violently.

"I went for a little drink with Tim from work, and then I started to feel all funny."

"Funny?"

She rubbed her face with annoyance and then looked at him with a piercing sincerity. "Remus?" she said. "I think I'm rat-faced."

Remus couldn't hold it in. He let out a rather uncharacteristically loud peel of laughter. "What?" she said, slowly drawing her features into an expression of confusion. For a moment he was laughing too hard to answer.

"It's - it's rat-arsed," he said.

"What is?"

"The expression," he said, still chuckling slightly. "It's rat-arsed, not rat-faced."

"Oh."

She sat back in her chair and let out an exaggerated sigh. He rested his head back on his hand and peered at her. "How did you end up here?" he said.

"I couldn't Disapparate," she said, stumbling over the word, "and I couldn't think what to do so I walked here."

"Did you want to see Sirius?" Remus asked, thinking of the other member of the Black clan he'd seen drooling and delirious that evening and what a pair they made.

She pursed her lips in thought. "I don't think so."

"Did you want to see me?" he asked quietly. She bit her lip, and his skin prickled in anticipation of her response.

"I always want to see you. You're like a - like a homing beetle," she said, pointing at him, believing she'd made a valid point, even as she swayed in her seat.

He knew she was drunk and that he shouldn't take anything she said seriously, but he couldn't help smiling. "Right," he said, sitting closer to her and propping her up as she started to slide towards the table. "Do you want to go home now?"

She leant closer to him, clutching his arm and resting her chin on his shoulder, smiling widely. "I think I might need to spend the night," she said. She moved closer, nestling in the crook of his neck, her eyes drifting closed.

"If you tell me where you live, I'll take you home," he said.

"I want to stay," she said, forcing her eyes open, only to have them close again instantly. "With you."

"Why?" he said, and the word was so faint he wondered if she'd even hear it.

She leant back, steadying herself on his shoulder, holding his gaze, and for a moment he was utterly lost in the way her eyes glittered like black diamonds. "I know you think I don't like you," she said, "but I do."

She rolled her eyes, breaking whatever spell she'd apparently had him under. "Or I would if you weren't such a git," she said, poking him in the ribs for emphasis.

"I'm not," he said, chuckling his way through a protest.

"You are."

"Am not," he said, because he couldn't resist it.

"Are."

"Am not."

"Are. If you weren't a git you wouldn't be arguing with me."

He smiled. "Alright," he said. "You're right. I am a git."

She rested her head back on his shoulder. "Can I stay, then?"

"Are you sure you wouldn't rather go home?" She shook her head in answer. "You know," he said, "after the last time you fell asleep on me, you told me that I should keep my shoulders to myself."

"Did I?"

"Hmm."

"Well that was stupid," she said. "You have very comfy shoulders."

"Thank you," he said, smiling. "You're welcome to them any time."

She was quiet for a moment, and then sat up straighter, her nose inches from his. Her eyes roved his face, and he desperately wanted to look away, but daren't. She raised her hand, and when her fingertips came to rest on his temple and then slowly trace their way down his hairline, he was surprised by how gentle they were. "You've got a very nice face, you know," she said. "I bet people don't say that to you very often."

"Almost never," he said. "In fact, I think you might be the first."

Her gaze flickered to his lips, and he figured out a fraction of a second before she started to lean in what she was going to do. He closed his eyes and turned his head just slightly, and when her lips made contact, they found his cheek. She pulled away.

"What?" she said, voice little more than a whisper.

"Tonks," he said quietly. "I'm not about to let you do anything drunk that you wouldn't do sober."

She considered him for a moment, and then dropped her head back onto his shoulder, nestling into the crook of his neck and tickling his skin with her pink hair. "Who says I wouldn't do it sober?"

He let out a soft snort of laughter at her indignant tone. "Well, let's see in the morning, shall we?" he said. He peered down at her and out of the corner of his eye he could just make out her biting her lip against their slight upward curve. A second later he found out why she was smiling, when her fingers came to rest just above his knee and then started making their way up his thigh. "And I'm certainly not going to let you do that," he said, laughing as he stilled her hand with his.

"Spoilsport," she said, giggling.

"Alright," he said before she could say - or do - anything more incriminating. "Let's get you to bed."

Over the last few months, Remus had become quite used to dealing with the inebriated, but as he put his arm round Tonks' waist and lifted her out of her chair, guiding her arm around his shoulder, and they began the long stagger down the hall, he couldn't help thinking that Sirius was considerably more co-operative. Tonks dragged her feet along the floor and kept threatening to topple forwards and deposit them both on the carpet.

He looked up at the two flights of stairs that stood between them and an unoccupied bedroom, and decided to take drastic action. "Do you feel sick?" he asked, wondering how on earth he managed to get himself into these situations. She shook her head, her eyes tightly closed as she clutched the banister to stay upright. He ran a hand over his face and made a decision.

He picked her up and threw her over his shoulder. She let out a rather short-lived mini-shriek of surprise, and he tightened his arms round her thighs, feeling her hands scrabble on his shirt for something to hold onto. He expected her to protest, but she didn't, so he set off up the stairs before she changed her mind.

After one flight he'd had enough, and rather than proceeding up the next flight to one of the spare rooms normally reserved for the Weasleys, he opened the door to his own room and plonked her on the bed.

She moaned and rolled onto her side, muttering something about him being a git for making the room wobbly. He looked at her for a moment, desperately fighting the urge to laugh. "Are you going to be alright?" he asked. She hummed in reply. It didn't sound like a commitment either way.

He undid the laces on her boots and slid them off her feet, letting them fall to the floor with a heavy clunk. He draped a spare blanket loosely over her, and moved the waste-paper basket closer to the bed, just in case. She opened her eyes and gazed at him as if she wasn't quite sure he was real. "Get some sleep," he said, and she nodded, pulling the blanket further up to her chin.

For a moment she seemed to be thinking about saying something, but then her eyelids flickered closed. He waited a moment to see if they would open again, and then whispered "goodnight," and went upstairs to one of the bedrooms that had been designated safe for human habitation, or that of teenage boys at least.

After six hours of tossing and turning on a bed that was presumably designed for a man roughly half his size with no feeling in his back, Remus gave up on the idea of sleep and staggered to his feet, rubbing his eyes against the daylight that was streaming through the threadbare curtains. He checked his watch, wondering what time Tonks had to be at work and, rather more warily, if she'd been sick in his bed.

It was nine o'clock. He thought that he should probably wake her up, and went downstairs and made her some strong coffee before climbing the stairs and knocking softly on the door.

No response. He knocked a little louder, and was answered with a groan. "Tonks?" he said. She groaned again.

He opened the door slowly and peered into the room. She was face down on the bed, moaning, his pillow clamped over her head. He couldn't quite think what, but something was very wrong with the picture. His eyes roamed over her naked shoulders...yes, he thought, that's it.

He took in the trail of clothes down one side of the bed, and smiled to himself.

It had been a while since he'd had women's clothes strewn about his bedroom, and he'd forgotten how much he liked it - the sight of unfamiliar garments, tossed aside haphazardly. The bright orange underwear was definitely a first, though, he thought.

"Tonks?" he said, setting the coffee down on his bed-side table. He crouched down next to the bed and touched her lightly on the shoulder, wondering how, when she couldn't even attempt stairs, she'd managed to wriggle out of all of her clothes and climb between his sheets. She moaned again, but crawled out from underneath the pillow and squinted at him anyway.

"What are you doing here?" she said. Her hair was no longer arranged in spikes, but more a kind of pink fluffy mess that he had to fight the urge to reach out and ruffle. Adorable, he thought. She had the remains of some dark make-up around her eyes, which he thought probably should have lessened the effect, but, worryingly, did not.

"You're in my room, Tonks," he said. She rubbed her eyes, making the displaced make-up even more smudged.

"Oh," she said, sitting up and gathering the sheet around her. Then her eyes widened. She peeled the sheet away a little and glanced beneath it, her eyes widening further. "I don't think I've got any clothes on."

"Apparently not," he said, casting his eyes over the trail of discarded clothes on the carpet.

"Did you take them off?" she said, her eyes narrowing in accusation.

"Don't you remember?"

She swallowed. "Not really," she said.

For a second he considered playing some kind of joke on her, but in the end he didn't quite have the heart. "I only took off your boots," he said. "I assume you did the rest after I left."

"So we didn't -" She gestured between them.

"No," he said, raising an eyebrow at her. "But thank you for assuming I'd be utterly forgettable."

She offered him a vague, weary, grimace, and then flopped back down onto the pillows, her hands over her face. He decided to take pity on her. "I made you some coffee," he said, straightening up. "Why don't you drink that and get dressed and I'll see if I can't make you something to eat?"

She lifted one hand away from her face and peered at him with one eye. "I didn't say anything too embarrassing, did I?" she said. "Or - you know - do anything?"

"No," he said, smiling to himself, "you didn't."

He was almost at the door when she asked: "Would you tell me if I had?"

"No," he said, and closed the door, just hearing what he presumed was the sound of a pillow hitting it behind him.

Tonks rested her head on the table and moaned. Remus had made her some toast and insisted that she drink another pint of water, but so far all she'd really done was moan in response. "How are you feeling?" he said, suspecting that he already knew the answer.

"Like someone turned my brain inside out," she said.

"Well I hope you've learnt your lesson," he said.

She raised her head off the table and glared at him. "I'm fine," she said.

"You won't be needing any of this, then?" he said, producing a small brown bottle marked Henry Horshome's Hangover Cure from his pocket and waving it at her.

"Aww," she said, making a grab for the bottle. "You're a life-saver."

He snatched the bottle away. "I thought you said you were fine?" he said, raising an eyebrow at her.

"I'm not fine, Remus," she said. "I'm dying."

He suppressed a laugh with some effort. "Alright, then," he said, dropping a few drops into her pint of water. "Now drink up."

He watched as she valiantly attempted a large gulp of the potion, and then gagged. "I think I'm going to be sick," she said, but she took another large gulp. Then she laid her head back on the table and moaned.

A few moments later she tentatively raised her head off her arms and looked at him, blinking furiously as the potion took effect. He tried not to smirk. Having been there too many times himself, he felt it would be hypocritical. "Better?" he said, raising his eyebrows at her. She experimentally sat up.

"Yeah," she said. "I think so."

She did look a little perkier. "You know," he said, not even bothering to hide his smirk this time, "if you can't hold your liquor, you probably shouldn't go out drinking on a work night."

"Can't hold my - " she started. "I'd drink you under the table any night of the week."

He answered her with another raise of his eyebrows. "You want me to prove it?" she said.

"I think I saw all the evidence I need to make my mind up on the matter last night," he said. She gave him an indignant glare. "I just hope you learned a valuable lesson about the evils of alcohol."

"Oh shut up," she said, standing up. "Why do you always have to be so bloody sensible?"

"Because," he said, pulling out The Daily Prophet and disappearing behind it, before she could see the amusement he knew was written right across his face, "somebody has to be."

"And it always has to be you, does it?"

He met her eyes briefly and then turned back to his paper. "It does rather seem that way," he said.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Nothing," he said, scanning the lines of print in front of him without taking in a single word. "Just that it's hard to be the sensible one when you're drooling on the table."

"Drooling on the - I wasn't drooling on anything."

"I've got a damp patch on my shirt that says otherwise," he said, attempting to sound utterly bored and distracted.

"What?"

"I suppose you've conveniently forgotten needing to be carried upstairs?"

"I didn't need to be carried upstairs. I just - "

"Let me do it for fun?"

She let out a quick sigh of irritation. "I did not need carrying upstairs."

"Yes, it did seem that way," he said, lazily turning an unread page, "when you were drooling on the table."

"I was not - "

He took a peek at her over the top of his newspaper, and she glared at him, hands on hips, and let out an exasperated sigh. "I don't have time for this now, Remus," she said. "Thanks to you I'm going to be late for work."

"Thanks to me?" he said. "How do you work that out?"

"Would it have killed you to set me an alarm charm?"

"Probably."

He could almost feel the irritation radiating off her, and he wondered if he should tell her that it was having everything but the desired effect. "You're - "

"Infuriating," he said. "I know. It makes a nice change from boring, don't you think?"

Her irritation waned, and she looked at him with unreserved confusion. "I haven't called you boring for ages."

"No," he said, "but you did just call me sensible, which is just a slightly less pejorative way of saying boring."

The irritation was back. "I've got to go," she said.

"I'm sure you have," he said.

"You just think I'm leaving because I don't know what pejorative means," she said, scowling. He pressed his lips together in the effort of not grinning.

"The thought never even crossed my mind."

She folded her arms and glared at him, but he could tell that she was desperately trying not to smile. "You know," she said, "if I die today, it'll all be your fault."

He abandoned the pretence of being engrossed and looked up from the newspaper. "How so?"

"Because if I do die, it'll be because I'm too busy thinking of witty things I wish I'd said to you now, rather than concentrating on a life or death situation."

He smirked and went back to pretend-reading. "Lilies or roses?"

"What?"

"If you die, do you want me to send you lilies or roses?"

"Neither," she said, huffily, clearly infuriated that he wasn't more overtly concerned about her imminent demise. She stuck her jaw out slightly, and then rolled her eyes at him and offered "I like sunflowers."

"Duly noted. Have a nice day. And do try not to die."

"As if you'd care if I did," she muttered.

"Of course I would," he said. "You've still got my copy of Jane Eyre."

She offered him one of the slack-jawed glowers he thought she probably saved especially for him before turning on her heel and marching for the door. He felt a sudden and rather acute stab of guilt.

"And I would miss you," he said, quickly. As she turned back to face him, Tonks looked genuinely shocked. He met her eye. "Very much," he added, softly. "So I'd consider it a favour if you didn't get distracted and came back in one piece."

For a second he considered adding a quip about only saying that because he couldn't afford sunflowers, especially extravagant, guilty, funeral sunflowers, but the look in her eyes swallowed his words.

"Oh," she said.

She seemed frozen for a moment, a rather startled expression on her face, only her eyes moving, flickering about the grimy basement and pausing everywhere but his. She bit her lip for a moment, and then came back over to where he was sitting. He neatly folded the newspaper he was holding, and placed it on the table in front of him, not really knowing why he'd done it, even as he did it.

"When I had my head on the table before," she said, "I remembered something about last night."

"What did you remember?"

"That I tried to kiss you," she said. He searched her face for any trace of nervousness, but she was a picture of calm.

"Right."

"And I remembered that you wouldn't let me."

He placed his elbow on the table and covered his mouth with his hand, leaning on it heavily. He offered her a brief nod. "And I was thinking about it," she said, slowly, "and I could only come up with two reasons why you wouldn't."

"Ok," he said, eking the word out for as long as humanely possible.

"Well the first one," she said, "is that you really don't fancy me at all, and you just didn't want me to."

"That would be a reasonable conclusion to draw, given the evidence."

"That's what I thought," she said. She leaned forward slightly, and her dark eyes sparkled, and then narrowed. "But then I thought that the other reason you might not have wanted me to do it was that you do fancy me, and you do want me to kiss you, you'd just rather I was sober and fully in charge of my faculties when I did it."

Under his fingers, his lips twitched into a smile. "Another reasonable conclusion," he said. "Hats off to your deductive powers."

"So which is it?" she said.

He considered her, and the question, for a moment.

And then for another one, during which an ice age seemed to pass.

The more he thought about it, the more there seemed like only one thing he could say. "I thought you said you were going to be late for work?"