The Marauders - Order of the Phoenix - Part Two

LIX: 23 June, 1994

Remus Lupin sat on the floor in his office in front of the fire, leaning against a couch he had conjured up and rubbing his knees. Beside him, pink haired and grey-eyed, sat Nymphadora Tonks, using her wand to bedazzle her pink hightop trainers as she sat there, tapping them with her wand, making tiny pink rhinestones appear in every spot her wand touched.

"He just looked so much like James," Remus was saying, "Laying there under that tree like that." He paused. "We spent so much time in that tree in precisely the way that Harry, Ron, and Hermione were doing, it - it simply took my breath away. I couldn't stop staring at them. It was like seeing me and my friends from outside of myself."

"Charlie used to climb that tree like that, too," Tonks said. "He liked to feed the Giant Squid toast."

"Sirius did that, too."

Tonks looked up at Remus with interest. "Did he?"

Remus nodded.

Tonks smiled.

"God. I wish I could just figure out this whole thing. It just doesn't make sense... and I know there's some - some small bit of information that's missing, some key to the whole thing that I'm simply overlooking that will just --" Remus mimed turning a key in a lock, "-- and then it'll be all clear."

Tonks nodded. She lay her legs out flat and wiggled her feet so the rhinestones caught the flickering of the lanterns over their heads and grinned. She glanced at Remus and he looked over at her trainers and nodded, "You're quite talented at that. Have you ever considered selling things like that?" he asked.

"What? Bedazzled trainers?" 

"Yeah. Surely there's a market for things like that."

"Half the fun is doing the bedazzling! Buying them pre-dazzled would be a heinous crime against having fun!" Tonks said, shaking her head, "I refuse to be a contribution to the downfall of society in such a way!"

Remus laughed and shook his head, "You are truly something else Nymphadora."

"Don't CALL me Nymphadora," she said.

"I am sorry. Tonks."

"Thank you. Bleeding hell." She tucked her legs up to her chest and hugged her shins and resting her chin on her knee. 

"You always let him call you Nymphadora," Remus mentioned.

"Sirius didn't say it in the same tone everyone else does," she said.

"Tone?" Remus asked.

"Yeah. You know. Nymphadora," she said and her voice sounded very condescending. 

"And how did he say it?"

"Nymphadora," she said it with a slight upbeat tone. 

"Nymphadora," Remus tried.

Tonks shook her head.

"Nymphadora?" Remus tried again.

"Now it's like a question," she accused.

Remus leaned back and looked up at the ceiling. 

"How do you know for certain that Peter Pettigrew is alive?" Tonks asked, looking over at him, her cheek now resting on her knee. He'd told her about his belief that Peter may be alive and they'd both been thinking on what that could mean as far as how the narrative of what happened on Halloween 1981 and the days that followed would change.

"Because I saw him on the map and the map does not ever lie."

"The map?" Tonks sat upright, her arms still hugging her knees, but more alert. "The Marauders Map? I've heard stories about that. There was... sort of a legend, I guess, about the Map, back when I was in school. Supposedly the Map was handed down ages and ages from the time of the founders..."