Pairing: some Remus/Tonks, more of an OT3 fic though
Rating & Warnings: PG for sexual innuendo and swearing
Prompts: [i]No, I get by with a little help from my friends/I get high with a little help from my friends/Oh, I'm gonna try with a little help from my friends.[/i] - The Beatles
Author’s Notes: This was a really difficult prompt. ^^; I could think of loads of Marauder ideas for this fic, but one that centered on Remus and Tonks? Not easy at all. The plan was to come up with two stories around this prompt: this one, which is based on The Beatles' cheery version; the other would have been based on Joe Cocker's version, which has a much more desperate feel. Sadly, lack of time and inspiration meant I could only write one. Sirius calling Tonks "coz" is an affectionate shortening of 'cousin'.
For Remus’s birthday that year, Sirius insisted on having a big party. Molly immediately volunteered her services to cook the birthday dinner and slightly unnerved Remus with her list of questions about whether he wanted a buffet or a proper dinner, Gloucester Old Spot or Saddleback for the sausage meat, the colour of the table cloth, the cutlery, his favourite kind of cake…
“Really, Molly,” he repeated, feeling like a broken record, “I don’t want you to put yourself out for me.”
She gave him a reassuring smile, quill hovering over paper. “I just need to know if you like blackberry or apple crumble, Remus.”
“Blackberry, but-”
“And would you like custard or cream?” She paused, frowning. “Maybe I should provide both…”
“Molly, really, this isn’t…”
“Blackberry with custard or cream as preferred,” she decided. “Thank you, Remus, you’ve been so much help.”
He watched her trot off with a dazed feeling. “You’re welcome?”
Having lost the battle over the food (it had been pointless to even try and fight that one, really), Remus decided that a small gathering in the kitchen would be fine, but Sirius talked over his protests and declared that the ballroom might as well be used for [i]something[/i] and his best friend’s birthday was the perfect occasion. “Not to mention that Kreacher will hate it,” he added with a glint in his eyes.
Nymphadora was no help. She thought the plan was a great idea and decided that she would be in charge of the decorations. Fortunately, she did not bombard him with questions as she already had a pretty good idea of his taste. But as someone with a full-time job, she had to delegate some of her tasks. So Remus found himself on a Saturday morning cleaning the ballroom with Sirius. For once, Sirius wasn’t hungover. In fact, he was so clear and sharp that Remus found tears pricking his eyes once or twice, it was so like old times. Sirius directed the dusters with lazy flicks of his wand while Remus mopped the floor and checked for extra doxy nests. It was a shame the room had been neglected so long, he thought: the wallpaper that was emerging from the grime was a shimmering aquamarine, complemented by sprigged silver constellations. Sirius had already found his own from memory and cleaned it; he was currently working on Andromeda’s. The floor was pale marble, with veins of grey and blue: this made it a lot easier to mop than the wooden floors in the rest of the house, but also much easier to slip.
The door opened and Nymphadora wandered in, conjured herself a deckchair and flopped backwards, making the frame creak in warning.
“Oi!” Sirius called. “Aren’t you going to help?”
“No,” she replied, “I was on a night shift and I’m knackered, which makes me fatal to anything delicate.” She pointed at the pier glass on the wall. “The last thing I need is seven years’ bad luck.”
“If you’re that tired, you should be in bed,” Remus said, walking over and noticing how pale she was.
She opened her eyes slightly and smiled up at him, yawning. “Why, you going to join me?”
Sirius let out a bark of laughter while Remus felt his cheeks turn red. “Your sleep is more important,” he said, shooting Sirius a glare that only increased the other man’s mirth.
Nymphadora waved a hand. “I’ll catch up… next weekend. Speaking of which,” she pointed at Sirius, “if I hear you scratching at my door or whining for someone to come and play with you…”
Sirius widened his eyes in outraged innocence and began to sing mockingly, [i]“Please don’t spoil my day, I’m miles away, and after all, I’m only sleeping…”[/i]
“That’s The Beatles!” she exclaimed. “How do you know The Beatles?”
“Coz, we [i]grew up[/i] with The Beatles,” Sirius retorted. “In fact, I’ve still got my old LPs under the loose board in my bedroom. And I think I saw my parents’ gramophone in that cupboard over there.”
Before either of them could stop him, he’d raced out of the room, so excited that he didn’t even pause when his footsteps woke his mother’s portrait. Remus crossed the room and closed the door so that her shrieks turned into faint caterwauling.
Nymphadora rolled up her sleeves, seemingly energised. “Better have a look since he’s gone for the records,” she remarked, going to the cupboard.
“Maybe not,” Remus pointed out as she tried to pull open the doors. “Reminding him of the past isn‘t always a good idea.”
“Maybe he‘s doing it for you, Remus, ever think about that?” She tugged again, but the doors stood fast. Although Harry, Hermione and the Weasleys had cleaned out the cupboard the previous summer, the winter damp had made the wood stick again.
“Let me help…” Remus walked over and slid his arms around her waist. He wasn’t prepared for how the warmth and softness of her body would make him feel. He could see the white curve of her neck turning into the shoulder and it made him shudder inside. She was so young, so delectable, so very close that he wanted to groan out loud.
[i]You want her. She wants you. What’s the problem?[/i]
“Remus?” She turned her head and looked at him, eyes wide and dark. Remus wanted to forget about the ballroom, forget about the fact that Sirius would be coming back at any minute, and kiss her until she forgot about those things as well.
“On the count of three,” he said, his voice sounding strangled. “One… two…”
On ‘three’, they both pulled hard. The doors flew open and Nymphadora jerked backwards, her full weight landing against him. Remus staggered, his feet finding little purchase on the slippery marble, then gravity took over and they both crashed to the ground. He yelped, and Nymphadora whooped with laughter.
“Sorry about that, you’ll get used to it if you stick around,” she remarked, flipping onto her stomach. Her face changed as she saw him. “Remus? You okay?”
“Fine,” he said, pushing himself to his knees, grimacing. “Fine.”
She reached out and put a hand on his arm, and he almost threw it off. “I’m fine, Nymphadora, I can stand up by myself.”
“I realise that,” she said, rising with enviable ease. “God forbid I worry about you, that anyone worries about you. Remus Lupin can do everything by himself. Isn’t that right?”
She walked into the cupboard before Remus could answer. He pushed himself to his feet, feeling like an idiot and walked forward. She was examining the gramophone with fascination. The box was lined with green velvet and the horn and handle were made of chased silver. Remus knew he should apologise but first of all he had to stop feeling so sick with guilt. “I’m sorry,” he whispered.
“Okay.”
“No, I mean it, I really am, I shouldn’t have…”
“I said it’s okay, Remus,” she answered, without a single glance or smile, which made Remus feel even worse. He stepped forward, wanting to touch her, to hold her again, but too late, Sirius was walking through the door with a stack of LPs.
“Found them!” he declared, carefully setting the stack down and taking the top LP to show it to Nymphadora. “What do you think of that, then?”
She took it, eyes wide with shock and respect. [i]“Sergeant Pepper‘s Lonely Hearts Club Band!”[/i] She turned the sleeve over and looked at the issue date. “The original vinyl! Do you know how much this is worth in the Muggle world, Sirius?”
“Doesn't matter how much it's worth, it won’t buy me a way out of this house, so I don’t care,” he said flippantly, taking the album back and sliding the record out of the sleeve. Remus and Nymphadora looked at each other for a moment, their spat put aside as they recognised Sirius’s mood. Sirius placed the record on the gramophone, pointed his wand and made a little circling motion. The hand came down and there was music and cheering. Sirius’s eyes lit up.
“It’s your song, Moony!” he crowed, grabbing Remus’s arm and swinging him around.
“His song?” Nymphadora questioned.
Sirius grinned at her. “We all had Beatles songs and this was Moony’s. It perfectly describes him! Go on,” he urged, poking Remus in the side as he swung them about in a crazy dance, “sing it!”
Remus coughed and began to sing along with Ringo. [i]“What would you think if I sang out of tune, would you stand up and walk out on me?”[/i]
Nymphadora laughed with Sirius and sang along. [i]“Lend me your ears and I’ll sing you a song, and I’ll try not to sing out of key!”[/i]
They all joined in the chorus, Sirius practically howling, then poking Remus in the side again. “That’s you all over, except you do your very best not to accept any kind of help whatsoever!”
“Did you get high then?” Nymphadora asked, her eyes twinkling in anticipation.
Sirius adopted a lofty expression. “I will not pollute your young mind with such information. Suffice to say that we were not strangers to the Hog’s Head.”
She snorted. “Which means ‘yes’.”
“[i]He[/i] got high, I was always the lookout,” Remus corrected, not wanting her to imagine him stumbling around Hogsmeade with black eyes and a dopey smile.
She gave him a smirk and changed the subject. “What was James’s song, then?”
“Oh, we sang all kinds at him,” Sirius said with a chuckle. “[i]From Me To You[/i] was a good one, he kept trying all kinds of things to make Lily notice him, but I liked [i]She Loves You[/i], mainly because it really pissed him off.”
“Yes, I wonder why,” Remus said dryly, planting his feet firmly so that Sirius would stop using him as a merry-go-round.
“And what was your song, Sirius?” Nymphadora asked, catching his hands and trying to waltz around the room. It didn’t exactly work because she kept tripping over her feet and Sirius preferred swing to waltz.
“His song was always [i]Fixing a Hole[/i],” Remus called out, and the needle jumped at his words, finding the song as he said it. Sirius stopped laughing, the happiness draining out of his face.
[i]“And it really doesn’t matter if I’m wrong, I’m right where I belong, if I’m wrong, I’m right where I belong,”[/i] he said softly. [i]“See the people standing there, who disagree and never win…”[/i]
Remus felt cold suddenly. He went to his friend and put his hands on Sirius’s shoulders. “We’ll win, Padfoot,” he said softly, looking into the grey eyes, bleak as winter. “We’ll keep on disagreeing and we’ll win.”
Sirius blinked, and it was as if the moment had never happened. “Of course we will!” he said with a grim smile. “But we have to keep morale up, don’t we, Moony?”
“Yes,” Remus agreed softly.
“And a party is the best way to do that.”
“It certainly is,” Remus answered, looking at Nymphadora over Sirius’s shoulder and seeing the soft approval in her eyes.
“Excellent. So you’ll be singing for us tonight,” Sirius declared, slapping him on the shoulder.
“I - what? No - Sirius -!”
“Let’s go and have some lunch, I’m famished.” Sirius marched out of the room, whistling Fixing A Hole.
“How is me singing raising morale?” Remus asked faintly, turning back to Nymphadora.
“It’ll cheer everyone up,” she answered, walking forward and putting her arms around his waist. “And let you feel you’re helping people, which is obviously important to you.”
He hugged her back. He wasn’t quite sure when and how she’d forgiven him, but this was one gift Hippogriff that he wasn’t going to look in the mouth. “I forget that it’s important to other people, I suppose.”
“Which is why I’m here to remind you,” she said, and kissed him on the lips. Remus happily forgot everything and kissed her back. Lunch could wait.
DISCLAIMER: I own neither the lyrics to these songs or these characters, because if I did, I would be a multi-billionaire.
