Fortune/Misfortune

LB Beck

Story Summary:
Throughout OotP and HBP, Remus and Tonks eat far too much takeaway food from the Chang Family's Mo Shu Magical Kitchen. Fortune cookies are a bit different in the Wizarding world, but are the tiny slips of paper capable of reading minds? Find out.

Chapter 01

Posted:
04/19/2006
Hits:
1,417


The front door closed, and those already settled in the kitchen waited with bated breath.

However, the new arrival had been cautious enough to not trigger Mrs. Black's screams, and by the time Remus Lupin arrived in the basement kitchen, bearing a box filled to the brim with takeaway containers, the thought of the portrait of the old hag had been pushed to the backburner; only the urge to dig into the fragrant food remained.

"What's the word from the Changs?" Tonks asked, her mouth full of shrimp in lobster sauce.

Remus swallowed his bite of garlic-and-chili-flavoured beef before answering. "Wa Chen's up in arms about the Defence appointment...Small wonder, that," he added, a tinge of bitterness slipping into his tone but quickly disappearing, as Sirius appeared to be on the verge of exploding into yet another rant, something nobody wanted (except perhaps Sirius, who was all for venting his frustration at being trapped inside in any way possible). "He seems to think this is dangerous, and understandably, he is worried for the sake of his daughter's education."

Tonks nodded, and because they discussed it over the summer, when she first came back to Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place laden down with boxes from Mo Shu Magical Chinese Kitchen, and Remus connected the Changs in ownership of the establishment with the young Ravenclaw fourth-year he'd taught, she asked about Cho.

"Lian says that from the owls she's received thus far, Cho seems somewhat less depressed."

"Hopefully getting back to school will help," Tonks agreed, and for a while there was nothing more said, as they were all famished, and even if they weren't, the food was too good to go to waste.

The leftovers magically sealed when they push their plates away, too full to eat another bite (though Sirius was likely to raid the icebox and have finished off the rest by morning).

"All right, you lot - look alive," Tonks said, coming back from the icebox to rummage through the box, having come up with three fortune cookies. She tossed one to Sirius, one to Remus, and threw her own into the air and caught it in one hand as she slid onto the rough wooden bench.

"Showing off those Auror reflexes, eh?" Remus murmured, then gestured to Tonks. "Ladies first."

Tonks grinned as she opens her fortune cookie, which broke in half with a sound like a door creaking open (Sirius flinched and glanced reflexively at the open doorway, beyond which rested his mother's portrait).

"Reshape one's foot to fit a new shoe," she read aloud, giggling. "Appropriate, wouldn't you say?"

Remus and Sirius laughed as well as Remus split his cookie, which emitted a noise not unlike a slide whistle, and deftly picked up the slip of parchment as it fluttered gently toward the tabletop.

"Judge not a horse by its saddle."

"Rather like 'Don't judge a book by its cover', that is," Tonks agreed.

"Or, the opposite of 'The clothes make the man'," Sirius said placidly, eyeing his own tattered robes, and the frayed sleeve of Remus's overcoat, ignoring the slight flush in Tonks's cheeks as he quickly rapped his own cookie against the table. It split in two with what sounded to be a noisy fart, and the three had had enough good food and strong mead to find that much more amusing than any three self-respecting, dignified adults would under most circumstances.

Sirius scanned the fortune, and his face darkened.

"What's it say?" Tonks inquired, eyes wide.

Sirius scowled. "Oh, yes, this is brilliant."

Remus palmed the slip of paper, and sighed before reading it aloud. "If you have never done anything evil, you should not be worrying about devils knocking at your door."

"Right, then, I'm off to take a walk," Sirius said, pushing away from the table. "The cookie wills it so."

"Yes, Sirius, but who do you trust more: a cookie, or Dumbledore?"

Sirius whirled to face Tonks. "At this point, little cousin, I don't know."

Remus grabbed Sirius by the elbow, stopping him before he could get more than two steps up the stairwell. "Come on. I know you're frustrated, but it is simply not safe for you to leave the house." He searched his friend's eyes, then said abruptly, "Come on. Buckbeak must be hungry. Think he'd like some Kung Pao chicken?"

"Only if you're volunteering to clean up the inevitable hippogriff diarrhoea," Sirius muttered.

"Ew." Tonks wrinkled her nose as she reached into her robes, pulling out a small, charmed package. "That reminds me - Mrs. Skower's Vermin-Tempting Rat Traps."

"Buckbeak thanks you," Remus said, accepting the traps and escorting a sulking Sirius up the stairs, leaving Tonks to shake her head sadly at Sirius's predicament and to ponder her own fortune.

Somehow, she doubted that her cookie could know she was a metamorphmagus: Rather, the fortune had a much more figurative meaning.

She pulled pensively at a lock of pink hair, wondering at possible situations in which she'd find herself changing her core self in order to suit a situation.

Shrugging, feeling secure in herself as ever, she Banished the plates and cutlery to the washbasin and set them to scrubbing.

** ** ** ** **

New Year's Eve found the musty old house in a state of chaos. The Weasleys were still in residence, and the children - who will not be children much longer, though Remus secretly thinks Molly will never resign herself to this fact - were playing a raucous game of Exploding Snap in the parlour. The kitchen has been graced with dozens of takeaway containers. Sirius had glanced at the food as it arrived and made the error of asking Harry if he knew Cho Chang within Ron's earshot. Ron, with his typical knack for subtlety, began making loud kissing noises. Harry had blushed a remarkable shade of red and raced from the kitchen, and Sirius, grinning wildly, had chased Harry down minutes later to get the full story.

Now, in the kitchen, Sirius was shaking his head ruefully as he related the tale in low tones. "Poor kid - he's going to be forever scared off from kissing girls."

"Ah, it'll get better for the lad," Tonks said, suddenly feeling much older than her twenty-three years in the face of sixteen-year-old romance.

Remus had excused himself, listening from across the kitchen as while rummaging through the now-decimated contents of the box in which Tonks brought the feast.

"Cookies," he said simply, bringing three to the table.

"You go first this time." Tonks smiled, catching Remus's eyes for a moment, and as both of them hastily turned their eyes to the tabletop, Remus broke his cookie in half.

When the obnoxious sound of a blaring Muggle car horn died down, Remus read his fortune aloud. "One cannot fast for fear of choking."

"Give that one to Harry - Maybe he'll figure out he can't stop kissing girls just because the first time was a bit miserable." Tonks winked.

"That's sound advice at any age, you know," said Sirius, shooting a pointed look in Remus's direction.

Remus glared back.

"All right, then, I'll go next, shall I?" Sirius asked. He gave a barking laugh in response to the barking-dog sound as his cookie broke.

His brow furrowed. "Kill one to warn a hundred."

A pensive silence fell around the table.

"That's what's going to wake up the Ministry, you know - It'll be that first killing, the one right under their noses that they can't ignore, that'll make them see that You-Know-Who's really back." Tonks bit her lip as Sirius's eyes took on a faraway, haunted look, and Remus pulled at his bottom lip.

"Well, won't be me, as apparently I'm too much of a coward to leave the house," spat Sirius, still smarting from the insults he had collected through the past months from Snape's snide comments.

"Look at all of us, sitting here and enjoying takeaway when we know damn well there's a war on, even if we're among a precious few who will admit it. Perhaps that makes all of us cowards."

Nobody answers his pronouncement, and when the quiet feels too thick, Remus nudged Tonks. "Open yours. Maybe it's better tidings."

Tonks's cookie emitted a loud cluck as it fell open. "Who're you calling chicken?" she asked teasingly, giving the cookie a sharp look, succeeding in making the men smile.

"A weasel comes to say Happy New Year to the chickens?" Tonks read, puzzled.

At that moment, the Muggle neighborhood erupted into bangs and cheers and the clang-clang-crash of spoons on metal pans, and Molly Weasley came through the kitchen door.

"Happy new year," she said, smiling, and after fetching a bottle of sparkling cider, she headed back up the stairs.

All three of the kitchen's occupants glanced at one another, and burst into wild laughter.

** ** ** ** **

Her eyes had barely fluttered open when Remus, longing to stay but knowing he had other things to which he needed to attend, took his leave from her bedside at St. Mungo's and returned to the house to pack up his meager belongings.

Stopping in the kitchen to fetch a canister of tea, Remus's eyes fell on the fortune from two nights before, taped to the icebox with Spellotape.

Upon opening it, Sirius had howled with laughter and immediately affixed it in a place of honour.

If you see in your wine the reflection of a person not within your range of vision, don't drink it.

"Aye, lad, you've had enough," Mad-Eye Moody said, eyeing the empty bottles scattered about the kitchen.

Then the call had come in, falling to the tabletop in a flash of fire and feather, and when it became clear that Sirius was not staying in the house while the others went out to fight, Remus hit him with a hasty Sobering charm on their way through the door.

Standing in the cool night, breathing in fresh air and staring up at the stars, Sirius had closed his eyes briefly, then turned to Remus with the first genuine smile in months, and said simply, "Thanks."

That was their final exchange of words.

Now, he was scheduled to meet with Dumbledore in the morning, and as he'd heard from one of his contacts in the ranks of feral werewolves in the North, he had the sinking feeling that he knew exactly what he was going to be asked to do.

He knew it was necessary, but the rumoured return of Fenrir Greyback to the country did not make his job any easier.

Throwing open the icebox door, Remus found that the contents had already been cleared, save for a single takeaway container, with a fortune cookie perched on top.

In a moment of superstitious impulsiveness, Remus grabbed the cookie and split it in two, hoping to find advice or prophesy or perhaps a treasure map and an invisibility cloak.

After the noise - a horrid warning klaxon, not unlike a Muggle air-raid siren - died down, Remus read the fortune, and groaned aloud.

Fight a wolf with a flex stalk.

"In other words," he muttered to himself, pacing the kitchen, "If you are holding a big stick, the wolf doesn't know it will not do much damage, but the threat is still there...and you have the chance to come away unscathed."

Running a hand through his greying hair, Remus stopped abruptly and sighed, pulling his wand from a pocket of his robes and Levitating his trunk up the stairs, taking his worldly possessions for a brief stopover at the new Order of the Phoenix headquarters before making yet another foray into danger.

** ** ** ** **

She found Dumbledore the next day - Apparently, he'd returned during the night, and she was desperate enough for news to chance another visit to the castle, running the risk of being seen once again. Harry probably thought she was off her nut by now.

A nagging voice at the back of her head reminded her that he very well may have been correct.

Giving the stone gargoyle the password, Tonks took the moving staircase to the Headmaster's door and, after a bracing breath, knocked once.

"Come in, Nymphadora," Dumbledore called, as the door unlatched and swung wide.

"How'd you know it was me?" she asked, standing in the doorframe.

Dumbledore winked. "Magic."

At that moment, the fireplace burst into green flame, and a box appeared. Tonks's eyes widened at the sight of its contents: It was filled to the brim with Mo Shu Magical Chinese Kitchen containers.

"Please, sit down. Won't you join me?" Dumbledore rose stiffly from the hearth, balancing the box carefully between his good hand and his right forearm.

"Here, sir!" Tonks hurried forward and relieved Dumbledore of the box, and settled it on his desk, finally sitting opposite him as he gestured to a chair and gave her an expectant look.

In other words: For Merlin's sake, sit down.

Opening containers, Dumbledore serenely commented on the convenient nature of Floo takeaway, and motioned for her to eat.

"It won't do to have you wasting away," he murmured, passing her a pair of chopsticks, conjuring a fork for his own use.

Tonks managed several mouthfuls of food before she burst forth in a riot of anxious questions.

"All in good time, Nymphadora. Eat."

An uncharacteristic note of sternness had entered the Headmaster's tone, and Tonks, cowed, ate her fill.

"Now, Miss Tonks, we come to the fun part." His eyes were twinkling again as he fished out a fortune cookie and passed it to her.

With a ringing, gong-like tone, Tonks separated the halves of the cookie and pulled the parchment from inside. "To know the road ahead, ask those coming back."

"Ah, there you have it. As I said, you would have your answers, all in good time." Dumbledore gave her a brief wink before one-handedly rapping his own cookie against the edge of his desk. The tinkling of bells sounded as he deftly separated the halves with his long fingers, and his blue eyes scanned his fortune.

"As I thought," Dumbledore said with a small smile, crunching his cookie and passing the parchment across to Tonks.

She read: "It is later than you think. Enjoy yourself."

"Alas, there was no need to muddle a good meal in delightful company with news of war, if such is indeed the case." Still with that mysterious smile, Dumbledore settled back in his chair, smoothing his sleeve over his blackened hand.

"Now, Nymphadora, tell me what it is which you need to know."

** ** ** ** **

It has been nearly two years since they first met, in this very kitchen.

Innumerable late nights, meetings, strategy sessions, mourning rites, and takeaway dinners later, something unexpected happens -

Their fortunes match.

The longer the night lasts, the more our dreams will be.

They are still talking in low tones as the blazing late June sun rises, and the first beams of sunlight to grace the room fall across their bed.