The Marauders - Order of the Phoenix - Part One

VI: 1 September, 1993

King's Cross Station was frightfully busy, the crowd jostling hurriedly in the cool early morning air. Pale and thin, Remus Lupin stood before the building of the station, clutching his briefcase. His thumb ran subconsciously over and over the little brass plate that bore his name.

Professor R. J. Lupin.
Professor R. J. Lupin.
Professor R. J. Lupin.

Remus's heart seemed to beat the syllables in a tattoo against his chest as he stared up at the grey London clouds looming above him. A sprinkle of rain fell against his face and all around him a hum of umbrellas opening up thrummed as people felt the drops coming down. Remus closed his eyes, welcoming the cleansing coolness, some part of him hoping it might wash away the anxiety that thrummed in his ears like a constant, barking laugh...

"Wotcher, Remus!"

Remus opened his eyes to find a sprite, pixie like young woman standing before him, her pinched nose and wild eyes offset by the most violently pink hair anyone had ever seen sported about London. He moved quickly, catching her as she managed to trip over her own two feet, tumbling into him and making him drop his briefcase, the worn handle snapping clean off as it dropped to the pavement. Nymphadora Tonks smashed headlong into Remus's chest.

What an odd pair they must look from those who knew no better, passing by. She, with her brightly saturated hair and clothes, a neon billboard of youth and energy, and he with his ragged sepia-toned browns, eyes rung with dark bags that revealed the nights of restlessness he'd passed through, ever since that strange encounter in the dark cemetery in Godric's Hollow. 

"Nymphadora!" Remus said in surprise, quickly straightening her up and withdrawing his hands from her the moment she seemed steady enough to stay upright on her own "What are you doing  here? I --" Then, a sigh of frustrated understanding flitted across his brow. "Was it Albus or Alastor who's sent you, then?" he demanded.

Tonks blew a chunk of bubblegum pink hair from her forehead with a twist of her mouth and a gasp of breath, then looked back at Remus with slightly narrowed eyes. "Don't call me Nymphadora," she warned him. "You above all people know how much I hate being called that."

"I do, yes," Remus replied. "But you're tailing me, and you above all people know how much I hate that." He turned and bent down, plucking his briefcase's handle from the ground with a sigh, avoiding her gaze altogether as he looked it over as though surveying the worn out thing for damages. 

"You ought to just get a new one," Tonks admonished him, taking the handle out of his hand before he could make a fuss and, with a quick glance about her to be sure no one was watching, she rapped the handle against the top of his briefcase with a flick of her wrist and a muttered, "Reparo!" The briefcase handle magically reconnected smoothly with its body and she lifted it up, turning to him as her fingers tightened around it. "This looks as though it could do with being replaced."

"There is no replacement for it," Remus murmured, shaking his head and taking the case from her. She'd repaired it very well, he acknowledged, testing it out with a few twists of his wrist. He looked up at her. "So?" he pressed, "Mad Eye or Dumbledore? To which wizard do I owe my objections?"

Tonks flushed, her cheeks burning as Remus's eyes turned to her and she crunched up her face to hide the blush, turning her features to resemble Alastor Moody's. "CONSTANT VIGILANCE," she said in a grumpy tone, jutting out her lower lip, and mockingly placing her fists to her hips. 

"Ah," Remus murmured, "Of course."

"But not in the way you're thinking, Remus," she added quickly, the Moody impersonation melting back to her own face. "He's only got the Station surrounded by about a dozen of the top Aurors, you know, watching out for the Weasleys and --" she looked around, then said in a stage whisper, "Harry."