Prompt 7 - The Noble Art of Werewolf Baiting
Title: The Noble Art of Werewolf Baiting
Author: jesspallas
Format & Word Count: Short fic - 2561 words
Rating: PG
Prompt: Seven - (picture) girl sitting oddly in chair.
Summary: Desperate to get revenge after a spate of Remus Lupin’s practical jokes, Tonks goes to Sirius for lessons in the noble art of werewolf baiting…
Author's Note: The original version of this fic was scribbled out on scrap paper during a time of intense boredom last September. It was promptly forgotten about until I found it by chance a few weeks ago and when I saw a new rt_challenge was starting, I decided to scour the prompts and see if any would help me out in creating an updated version of it. When I saw this one, I laughed out loud because it gave me a completely daft idea for the hitherto rather unimaginative denouement! Oddly enough, it’s also my first attempt at writing Sirius, so let me know how you think he works. I would like to stress - yes, I know that one particular character's reactions are highly unlikely and the conclusion is probably not possible even in HP but this fic is meant to be pure silliness from start to finish and is more about me messing about and (hopefully) humorously venting my spleen on something in fandom that drives me potty than anything else. I hope you like it all the same! :) Oh, and anyone who knows where I stole the idea of a small dachshund called Colin from gets a cyber bar of Honeydukes Best. :)
Number twelve Grimmauld Place was silent.
A flickering fire danced in hearth of the hushed and darkened kitchen, casting wraith-like shadows across grim Black walls. The slow drip of a leaky tap rippled through the quiet air with monotonous regularity. Mutterings and shufflings from behind the boiler cupboard door implied that Kreacher was currently in residence.
Smiling slowly, dangerously, with a wicked curl of the lips that had struck fear into a generation of his fellow Hogwarts students, Sirius Black leaned forwards, cupping his chin in the palm of his hands and shaking his long dark hair out of his eyes as his features creased with silent but mischievous laughter.
“You really want to know?” he said softly.
Settling determinedly down against her chair, spiky pink hair casting sharp silhouettes against the wall behind her, Nymphadora Tonks rested her elbows on the table and mirrored her cousin’s gesture.
“I wouldn’t have asked if I didn’t.” she replied.
Sirius’ grey eyes gleamed. “You understand that this is big,” he informed her, tone grave but eyes dancing. “I’m about to share a Marauder’s greatest secret with an outsider. I’m risking life and limb in even telling you.”
Tonks’ eyes glinted by the light of the fire. “Or a trip to the vets,” she suggested with a smirk, chuckling openly as her cousin winced. “That is, if this secret of yours is for real.”
Sirius retaliated with a broad grin. “Oh it’s real, believe me. It’s a lesson James, Peter and I learned the hard way.”
Tonks frowned, a first hint of uncertainty touching her features. “And it really annoys him? Winds him up? Properly?”
Her cousin steepled his fingers in front of his nose as he settled back once more into his chair. “More than anything on earth. Trust me, dear cousin. Sit back, listen and take notes. I’m going to teach you the three great steps in the noble art of werewolf baiting.”
* * *
It was not until she heard the front door close with an emphatic thud that Tonks began to wonder if she was doing the right thing.
Perhaps going to Sirius for tips on how to ruffle Remus Lupin’s feathers had been a little extreme. But it was his own damned fault. It had been one comment she had made, just one, offhand and barely considered. And it had been her honest opinion. The Remus Lupin she had come to know in the two months since she had joined the Order was a quiet man, an intelligent man, a man with a gentle efficiency and an understated sense of humour. True, she had never spent much time with him. True, she probably didn’t know him as well as she might. But had it been so unreasonable to respond to Sirius’ wild tales of their school days by saying that Remus Lupin didn’t seem the practical joking type?
In hindsight, the words staid and sensible might have been a mistake. Maybe. And perhaps boring, straight-laced and dull had possibly been a little extreme.
All right, definitely. And yes, she’d had a lot of firewhiskey that evening. But still…
Was that any reason to spike her pumpkin juice with swelling solution?
Was that any reason to hex the bathroom door so that when she rushed in desperate, she found herself back in the parlour?
Was that any reason to charm her boots so that her leg plunged in up to the thigh when she pulled them on?
Was that any reason to transfigure her wand into a small dachshund that promptly ate her breakfast and left its calling card on her robes?
No, it most certainly was not.
She had no proof, of course. The git was far too clever for that. And when she had confronted him on the matter, he had simply smiled serenely and claimed not to know what she was talking about. The wicked glint in his eyes, however, told a very different story.
And what annoyed her most was that a secret, irritating little part of her mind found his mischief making oddly appealing…
That was the limit. He was victimising her, for pities sake! It wasn’t funny, it wasn’t clever and it definitely didn’t make him intriguing. Such thoughts had to be stopped.
Revenge. It was the only way. He had to be humiliated.
She needed to see his dark side, to convince herself once and for all that he really was a pain-in-the-arse disguised as a nice bloke. She needed to annoy him.
But that was proving easier said than done.
It wasn’t as though she hadn’t tried to get him back. But the man seemed to be insufferably immune to her attempts at retaliation. When she had charmed his bedroom mirror to gurn at him as he combed his hair, he’d smiled and said he thought it was an improvement. When she enchanted his mug to repel liquid, he’d simply laughed, brushed off his damp robes and swigged his butterbeer from the bottle. And when she’d slipped a potion into his morning coffee that made his stomach gurgle out the tune to the Weird Sisters latest hit, the bloody man had hummed along.
Was there nothing in the world that hacked him off?
She had needed to know his secrets, what there was in the whole wide world that could make Remus Lupin lose his cool. And there was only person to whom she could turn for such privileged information.
Sirius.
And now, she knew.
This was her time. This was her moment.
This was her revenge.
The trouble was that when Remus Lupin walked into the kitchen at Grimmauld Place, he didn’t look so much like the practical joking Marauder git who’d plagued her life for the last few days. Instead, he looked like a man who’d had a very long day.
“Are you all right?” The words slipped out almost before she’d realised that she was asking them.
Sirius grinned broadly at her expression of sudden concern. She fought down a sudden, irrational urge to rise up and slap him with something soggy.
“Yeah, Moony,” he greeted, lolling back in his chair, but to Tonks’ eyes, his features were stained by a distinct edge of anticipation. “Have you had a bad day?”
To Tonks’ surprise, the expression that crossed the werewolf’s face was oddly…irritable. “Today was my annual check up at the Werewolf Registry. Always a joyful experience. And then to add to my pleasure, I apparated into a puddle just outside.” He shook the bottom of his robes briskly, which were indeed, on a second glance, dripping wet. “Not the best day I’ve ever had.”
I can’t do it.
The thought had flashed across Tonks’ mind before she could stop it. She tried to squash it, tried to fight it down, tried to remember standing, trousers half undone in a parlour full of sniggering Order members instead of the toilet, remembered having to get Bill Weasley to haul her out of her own boot, remembered how long it had taken her to shrink her face back to normal size. But Remus was standing there, his robes dripping, tired and frustrated and in spite of herself, she found herself feeling sorry for him.
Damn!
Across the table, Sirius caught her eye. He smirked.
And then, with a twist of his wand arm, he conjured a chicken leg and sank his teeth in.
The meaning was obvious.
Tonks grasped the edge of the table. I am not chicken! But he looks so…so…
Damn you Lupin! Damn, damn, damn, damn…
“Oh. Tonks?” The young Auror nearly jumped a foot - she had not heard her prospective victim’s approach. He was staring down at her with one eyebrow sardonically - familiarly - raised. “I found this by the hall table. I think it might be yours.”
He extended his hand.
In it, sniffing tentatively at his fingertips, was a small dachshund.
The small dachshund.
Tonks froze.
My wand. I left my wand on that table…
And Remus… and Lupin was smiling at her.
“I’ve no idea how he got in here again,” he remarked with infuriating casualness. “But he’s rather sweet, isn’t it? I thought we could name him Colin.”
Colin? He’s turned my wand into a dachshund again and now he wants to name it Colin?
All hint of sympathy, of hesitation vanished in an instant. Oh, she was going to make him suffer for this…
Slowly, deliberately she arranged her face into the mirror of Sirius’ wicked and mischievous smirk. Her cousin’s voice echoed within her mind, extolling the wisdom that she was sure would end this war once and for all in an emphatic victory for the House of Tonks.
“Now the first step isn’t too dangerous…”
“I’m not sure he looks that much like a Colin…Ree.”
The effect was satisfyingly instantaneous. Remus froze, his features locking like stone, his eyes a vibrant cocktail of shock, surprise and horror. With a small yelp, Colin the dachshund twisted, hardened and dropped to the table with a wooden clatter, a wand once more.
Tonks grinned even harder. Thank you Sirius…
Remus’ voice, when it came, was tightly incredulously. “Did you just call me…Ree?” The last word almost seemed to choke against his throat.
“Ree was the one that Lily always managed to get away with….”
“Yep.” Leaning back in her chair, Tonks picked up her wand from the table and began to twiddle it idly between her fingers, fighting down a powerful urge to grin like a lunatic at her tormentor’s obvious discomfort. “I don’t know what it is, but the sight of a man holding a small dachshund gives me this strange urge to abbreviate.”
“Resist it.” With a dark glare, Remus turned abruptly, marching stiffly over to the counter as he grasped the teapot in one hand and tapped it sharply with the end of his wand. Without turning, his suddenly hard-edged voice rang out once more.
“I’m going to let you off for calling me that on the ground that you probably…” he broke off briefly to fix Sirius with a glare that could have melted down the door of a Gringotts vault, “…didn’t know any better. But I don’t expect you to do it again.”
“And he always said that was only because Ree was at least phonetic…”
Tonks tapped her wand against her smirking lips. “You really don’t like being called Ree?”
The wince was distinct. “No.”
“Oh, okay then.” She glanced over at Sirius who nodded with a wicked smile.
“So usually Ree will see you getting away with just a warning. But that’s a lot less likely with…”
“Thanks for telling me…Rem.”
The counter shook violently beneath the crunching impact of Remus Lupin’s mug descending down with some force upon it. His shoulders locked solidly. Fingernails scraped slowly across the wooden surface.
“Now Rem falls midway…”
“Don’t ever call me that again.” Each word sounded as though it was being laboriously ground out through gritted teeth. “I would have thought, Nymphadora,” Tonks shuddered deeply at the unexpected onslaught of her despised moniker, “that you of all people would have understood and appreciated hatred of a name.”
“It is, at least, a shortening…”
Tonks bit her lip. Remus had a point. Was this mode of attack a bit hypocritical for someone who clung so desperately to her surname?
And he looked mad. Really mad.
Yes, she’d wanted to piss him off. But she wasn’t so sure about infuriating him.
Suddenly this whole business was starting to look like a very bad idea…
“But since it’s nothing to do with the way his name’s pronounced, he’s not desperately fond of it…”
But Remus had not finished. “And since my belief in your ignorance is waning rapidly,” he added with acid deliberateness, “I can only assume that Siri there has been telling tales.”
Sirius winced sharply, fingernails scraping sharply along the table in response to his friend’s returning salvo. His eyes abruptly narrowed although the smirk did not stray from his lips.
Oh no. Tonks felt a weight of sudden fear and guilt press down upon her chest. This wasn’t how she had imagined it would be. The satisfaction, the amusement she had expected to derive from seeing Remus discomforted had never truly materialised - instead she found sympathy and shame shivering through her body. She knew what it was to loathe a name; he’d had a bad day and now she was making it worse.
No more. I’m not going to call him…
But then she saw Sirius’ face. Uh oh….
No, Sirius, it’s time to stop. Don’t do it…
But apparently, he either missed her look or simply chose to ignore it.
“But the big one…”
“Come on mate,” he drawled with forced casualness.
“The most hated…”
Remus’ eyes were almost glowing with menace. “Don’t say it, Sirius. I’m warning you…”
“…most dangerous…”
But Sirius was either oblivious or unconcerned by the threat. “Mate, it’s just a bit of fun…”
“…absolutely guaranteed to make even the most mild mannered of werewolves explode…”
“I mean, what’s so bad about being called….”
“…is…”
“…Remmy…”
BOOM.
The cacophony of sound all but ruptured Tonks’ eardrums, the furious bellow, the smash of a cup, the whine of a hex, a screech of horror and then the heavy, irate slap of footsteps and the slam of the kitchen door accompanied by the accompanying screams of the suddenly woken Mrs Black. A moment later, she heard the distant sound of Remus Lupin’s footsteps stomping furiously up the stairs.
Well. He was angry. She’d done it.
Or rather Sirius had…
Tonks blinked. Tonks stared.
And then she burst into hysterical laughter.
He’d obviously tried to duck and cover. But it was far too late. Sitting at the table, arms and head locked against the table by some kind of intense sticking charm, was a dark haired woman dressed in a badly fitting blouse and skirt that had clearly been transfigured out of the tatty set of robes her cousin had been wearing mere moments before. The women’s grey eyes were wide and filled with horror. The mouth was sewn firmly shut.
And across the forehead, written large in bold pink letters was a single word.
SIRIKINS
Grasping her stomach as she tried to hold back the furious laughter that was battling to burst free, Tonks rose and wandered over to inspect her newly feminized cousin. In terms of the details, the workmanship was excellent - Remus had even found a moment in his enraged spell-casting to pin both feet to the floor and glue the backside to the chair - not to mention the neatly carved words of warning bored into the table in front of her immobilised cousin’s gaze.
CALL ME THAT AGAIN SIRIKINS AND I’LL MAKE YOU A FLOBBERWORM
Tonks shook her head. He’d been absolutely furious. He’d been steaming. But yet somehow he’d still managed to cast a series of complex charms impeccably and with distinct panache.
Slowly, she smiled. She had seen his dark side. But it hadn’t cured her.
It had made her want to know more.
Oh yes, Remus Lupin. There is so much more to you than meets the eye…
Thoughtfully, almost absently, she patted her wild-eyed, silenced cousin on the head. “Thanks for the tips, Sirikins,” she remarked with a smirk. “But from now on, I’ll think I’ll leave the noble art of werewolf baiting to you.”
Author: jesspallas
Format & Word Count: Short fic - 2561 words
Rating: PG
Prompt: Seven - (picture) girl sitting oddly in chair.
Summary: Desperate to get revenge after a spate of Remus Lupin’s practical jokes, Tonks goes to Sirius for lessons in the noble art of werewolf baiting…
Author's Note: The original version of this fic was scribbled out on scrap paper during a time of intense boredom last September. It was promptly forgotten about until I found it by chance a few weeks ago and when I saw a new rt_challenge was starting, I decided to scour the prompts and see if any would help me out in creating an updated version of it. When I saw this one, I laughed out loud because it gave me a completely daft idea for the hitherto rather unimaginative denouement! Oddly enough, it’s also my first attempt at writing Sirius, so let me know how you think he works. I would like to stress - yes, I know that one particular character's reactions are highly unlikely and the conclusion is probably not possible even in HP but this fic is meant to be pure silliness from start to finish and is more about me messing about and (hopefully) humorously venting my spleen on something in fandom that drives me potty than anything else. I hope you like it all the same! :) Oh, and anyone who knows where I stole the idea of a small dachshund called Colin from gets a cyber bar of Honeydukes Best. :)
Number twelve Grimmauld Place was silent.
A flickering fire danced in hearth of the hushed and darkened kitchen, casting wraith-like shadows across grim Black walls. The slow drip of a leaky tap rippled through the quiet air with monotonous regularity. Mutterings and shufflings from behind the boiler cupboard door implied that Kreacher was currently in residence.
Smiling slowly, dangerously, with a wicked curl of the lips that had struck fear into a generation of his fellow Hogwarts students, Sirius Black leaned forwards, cupping his chin in the palm of his hands and shaking his long dark hair out of his eyes as his features creased with silent but mischievous laughter.
“You really want to know?” he said softly.
Settling determinedly down against her chair, spiky pink hair casting sharp silhouettes against the wall behind her, Nymphadora Tonks rested her elbows on the table and mirrored her cousin’s gesture.
“I wouldn’t have asked if I didn’t.” she replied.
Sirius’ grey eyes gleamed. “You understand that this is big,” he informed her, tone grave but eyes dancing. “I’m about to share a Marauder’s greatest secret with an outsider. I’m risking life and limb in even telling you.”
Tonks’ eyes glinted by the light of the fire. “Or a trip to the vets,” she suggested with a smirk, chuckling openly as her cousin winced. “That is, if this secret of yours is for real.”
Sirius retaliated with a broad grin. “Oh it’s real, believe me. It’s a lesson James, Peter and I learned the hard way.”
Tonks frowned, a first hint of uncertainty touching her features. “And it really annoys him? Winds him up? Properly?”
Her cousin steepled his fingers in front of his nose as he settled back once more into his chair. “More than anything on earth. Trust me, dear cousin. Sit back, listen and take notes. I’m going to teach you the three great steps in the noble art of werewolf baiting.”
* * *
It was not until she heard the front door close with an emphatic thud that Tonks began to wonder if she was doing the right thing.
Perhaps going to Sirius for tips on how to ruffle Remus Lupin’s feathers had been a little extreme. But it was his own damned fault. It had been one comment she had made, just one, offhand and barely considered. And it had been her honest opinion. The Remus Lupin she had come to know in the two months since she had joined the Order was a quiet man, an intelligent man, a man with a gentle efficiency and an understated sense of humour. True, she had never spent much time with him. True, she probably didn’t know him as well as she might. But had it been so unreasonable to respond to Sirius’ wild tales of their school days by saying that Remus Lupin didn’t seem the practical joking type?
In hindsight, the words staid and sensible might have been a mistake. Maybe. And perhaps boring, straight-laced and dull had possibly been a little extreme.
All right, definitely. And yes, she’d had a lot of firewhiskey that evening. But still…
Was that any reason to spike her pumpkin juice with swelling solution?
Was that any reason to hex the bathroom door so that when she rushed in desperate, she found herself back in the parlour?
Was that any reason to charm her boots so that her leg plunged in up to the thigh when she pulled them on?
Was that any reason to transfigure her wand into a small dachshund that promptly ate her breakfast and left its calling card on her robes?
No, it most certainly was not.
She had no proof, of course. The git was far too clever for that. And when she had confronted him on the matter, he had simply smiled serenely and claimed not to know what she was talking about. The wicked glint in his eyes, however, told a very different story.
And what annoyed her most was that a secret, irritating little part of her mind found his mischief making oddly appealing…
That was the limit. He was victimising her, for pities sake! It wasn’t funny, it wasn’t clever and it definitely didn’t make him intriguing. Such thoughts had to be stopped.
Revenge. It was the only way. He had to be humiliated.
She needed to see his dark side, to convince herself once and for all that he really was a pain-in-the-arse disguised as a nice bloke. She needed to annoy him.
But that was proving easier said than done.
It wasn’t as though she hadn’t tried to get him back. But the man seemed to be insufferably immune to her attempts at retaliation. When she had charmed his bedroom mirror to gurn at him as he combed his hair, he’d smiled and said he thought it was an improvement. When she enchanted his mug to repel liquid, he’d simply laughed, brushed off his damp robes and swigged his butterbeer from the bottle. And when she’d slipped a potion into his morning coffee that made his stomach gurgle out the tune to the Weird Sisters latest hit, the bloody man had hummed along.
Was there nothing in the world that hacked him off?
She had needed to know his secrets, what there was in the whole wide world that could make Remus Lupin lose his cool. And there was only person to whom she could turn for such privileged information.
Sirius.
And now, she knew.
This was her time. This was her moment.
This was her revenge.
The trouble was that when Remus Lupin walked into the kitchen at Grimmauld Place, he didn’t look so much like the practical joking Marauder git who’d plagued her life for the last few days. Instead, he looked like a man who’d had a very long day.
“Are you all right?” The words slipped out almost before she’d realised that she was asking them.
Sirius grinned broadly at her expression of sudden concern. She fought down a sudden, irrational urge to rise up and slap him with something soggy.
“Yeah, Moony,” he greeted, lolling back in his chair, but to Tonks’ eyes, his features were stained by a distinct edge of anticipation. “Have you had a bad day?”
To Tonks’ surprise, the expression that crossed the werewolf’s face was oddly…irritable. “Today was my annual check up at the Werewolf Registry. Always a joyful experience. And then to add to my pleasure, I apparated into a puddle just outside.” He shook the bottom of his robes briskly, which were indeed, on a second glance, dripping wet. “Not the best day I’ve ever had.”
I can’t do it.
The thought had flashed across Tonks’ mind before she could stop it. She tried to squash it, tried to fight it down, tried to remember standing, trousers half undone in a parlour full of sniggering Order members instead of the toilet, remembered having to get Bill Weasley to haul her out of her own boot, remembered how long it had taken her to shrink her face back to normal size. But Remus was standing there, his robes dripping, tired and frustrated and in spite of herself, she found herself feeling sorry for him.
Damn!
Across the table, Sirius caught her eye. He smirked.
And then, with a twist of his wand arm, he conjured a chicken leg and sank his teeth in.
The meaning was obvious.
Tonks grasped the edge of the table. I am not chicken! But he looks so…so…
Damn you Lupin! Damn, damn, damn, damn…
“Oh. Tonks?” The young Auror nearly jumped a foot - she had not heard her prospective victim’s approach. He was staring down at her with one eyebrow sardonically - familiarly - raised. “I found this by the hall table. I think it might be yours.”
He extended his hand.
In it, sniffing tentatively at his fingertips, was a small dachshund.
The small dachshund.
Tonks froze.
My wand. I left my wand on that table…
And Remus… and Lupin was smiling at her.
“I’ve no idea how he got in here again,” he remarked with infuriating casualness. “But he’s rather sweet, isn’t it? I thought we could name him Colin.”
Colin? He’s turned my wand into a dachshund again and now he wants to name it Colin?
All hint of sympathy, of hesitation vanished in an instant. Oh, she was going to make him suffer for this…
Slowly, deliberately she arranged her face into the mirror of Sirius’ wicked and mischievous smirk. Her cousin’s voice echoed within her mind, extolling the wisdom that she was sure would end this war once and for all in an emphatic victory for the House of Tonks.
“Now the first step isn’t too dangerous…”
“I’m not sure he looks that much like a Colin…Ree.”
The effect was satisfyingly instantaneous. Remus froze, his features locking like stone, his eyes a vibrant cocktail of shock, surprise and horror. With a small yelp, Colin the dachshund twisted, hardened and dropped to the table with a wooden clatter, a wand once more.
Tonks grinned even harder. Thank you Sirius…
Remus’ voice, when it came, was tightly incredulously. “Did you just call me…Ree?” The last word almost seemed to choke against his throat.
“Ree was the one that Lily always managed to get away with….”
“Yep.” Leaning back in her chair, Tonks picked up her wand from the table and began to twiddle it idly between her fingers, fighting down a powerful urge to grin like a lunatic at her tormentor’s obvious discomfort. “I don’t know what it is, but the sight of a man holding a small dachshund gives me this strange urge to abbreviate.”
“Resist it.” With a dark glare, Remus turned abruptly, marching stiffly over to the counter as he grasped the teapot in one hand and tapped it sharply with the end of his wand. Without turning, his suddenly hard-edged voice rang out once more.
“I’m going to let you off for calling me that on the ground that you probably…” he broke off briefly to fix Sirius with a glare that could have melted down the door of a Gringotts vault, “…didn’t know any better. But I don’t expect you to do it again.”
“And he always said that was only because Ree was at least phonetic…”
Tonks tapped her wand against her smirking lips. “You really don’t like being called Ree?”
The wince was distinct. “No.”
“Oh, okay then.” She glanced over at Sirius who nodded with a wicked smile.
“So usually Ree will see you getting away with just a warning. But that’s a lot less likely with…”
“Thanks for telling me…Rem.”
The counter shook violently beneath the crunching impact of Remus Lupin’s mug descending down with some force upon it. His shoulders locked solidly. Fingernails scraped slowly across the wooden surface.
“Now Rem falls midway…”
“Don’t ever call me that again.” Each word sounded as though it was being laboriously ground out through gritted teeth. “I would have thought, Nymphadora,” Tonks shuddered deeply at the unexpected onslaught of her despised moniker, “that you of all people would have understood and appreciated hatred of a name.”
“It is, at least, a shortening…”
Tonks bit her lip. Remus had a point. Was this mode of attack a bit hypocritical for someone who clung so desperately to her surname?
And he looked mad. Really mad.
Yes, she’d wanted to piss him off. But she wasn’t so sure about infuriating him.
Suddenly this whole business was starting to look like a very bad idea…
“But since it’s nothing to do with the way his name’s pronounced, he’s not desperately fond of it…”
But Remus had not finished. “And since my belief in your ignorance is waning rapidly,” he added with acid deliberateness, “I can only assume that Siri there has been telling tales.”
Sirius winced sharply, fingernails scraping sharply along the table in response to his friend’s returning salvo. His eyes abruptly narrowed although the smirk did not stray from his lips.
Oh no. Tonks felt a weight of sudden fear and guilt press down upon her chest. This wasn’t how she had imagined it would be. The satisfaction, the amusement she had expected to derive from seeing Remus discomforted had never truly materialised - instead she found sympathy and shame shivering through her body. She knew what it was to loathe a name; he’d had a bad day and now she was making it worse.
No more. I’m not going to call him…
But then she saw Sirius’ face. Uh oh….
No, Sirius, it’s time to stop. Don’t do it…
But apparently, he either missed her look or simply chose to ignore it.
“But the big one…”
“Come on mate,” he drawled with forced casualness.
“The most hated…”
Remus’ eyes were almost glowing with menace. “Don’t say it, Sirius. I’m warning you…”
“…most dangerous…”
But Sirius was either oblivious or unconcerned by the threat. “Mate, it’s just a bit of fun…”
“…absolutely guaranteed to make even the most mild mannered of werewolves explode…”
“I mean, what’s so bad about being called….”
“…is…”
“…Remmy…”
BOOM.
The cacophony of sound all but ruptured Tonks’ eardrums, the furious bellow, the smash of a cup, the whine of a hex, a screech of horror and then the heavy, irate slap of footsteps and the slam of the kitchen door accompanied by the accompanying screams of the suddenly woken Mrs Black. A moment later, she heard the distant sound of Remus Lupin’s footsteps stomping furiously up the stairs.
Well. He was angry. She’d done it.
Or rather Sirius had…
Tonks blinked. Tonks stared.
And then she burst into hysterical laughter.
He’d obviously tried to duck and cover. But it was far too late. Sitting at the table, arms and head locked against the table by some kind of intense sticking charm, was a dark haired woman dressed in a badly fitting blouse and skirt that had clearly been transfigured out of the tatty set of robes her cousin had been wearing mere moments before. The women’s grey eyes were wide and filled with horror. The mouth was sewn firmly shut.
And across the forehead, written large in bold pink letters was a single word.
SIRIKINS
Grasping her stomach as she tried to hold back the furious laughter that was battling to burst free, Tonks rose and wandered over to inspect her newly feminized cousin. In terms of the details, the workmanship was excellent - Remus had even found a moment in his enraged spell-casting to pin both feet to the floor and glue the backside to the chair - not to mention the neatly carved words of warning bored into the table in front of her immobilised cousin’s gaze.
CALL ME THAT AGAIN SIRIKINS AND I’LL MAKE YOU A FLOBBERWORM
Tonks shook her head. He’d been absolutely furious. He’d been steaming. But yet somehow he’d still managed to cast a series of complex charms impeccably and with distinct panache.
Slowly, she smiled. She had seen his dark side. But it hadn’t cured her.
It had made her want to know more.
Oh yes, Remus Lupin. There is so much more to you than meets the eye…
Thoughtfully, almost absently, she patted her wild-eyed, silenced cousin on the head. “Thanks for the tips, Sirikins,” she remarked with a smirk. “But from now on, I’ll think I’ll leave the noble art of werewolf baiting to you.”