Remus walked into the flat in East London, dropped his briefcase on the coffee table, and went for the kitchen, passing directly by Nymphadora Tonks sitting on the couch, and opened the refrigerator. He took out the litre sized glass bottle of chocolate milk from the shelf, popped off the lid, and proceeded to chug about half of it before he even paused to take a breath. He gasped as he lowered the bottle from his mouth, swiping a palm over his lips to wipe away the excess that had gotten out 'round the edges. He took a deep breath, drank a bit more, then replaced the cap and returned the bottle to the fridge calmly.
Walking back out to the living room, Remus stopped this time in front of the couch.
Nymphadora Tonks looked up at him.
"Wotcher, Remus."
"What are you doing here?" he asked, then, looking around and confirming Sirius's leather jacket and boots were gone and that Peter's trainers weren't by the door either, he added, "How did you get in here?"
Tonks pointed at the floo.
Of course Sirius didn't shut the floo when he left. He never remembered to bloody shut the floo. Remus sighed. Always left the floo opened so anybody could just go waltzing into the flat any time they wanted on a whim! Might as well leave the front door gaping and a sign out on the main road that said "hey come check out our flat while we're not home" too.
Remus looked at Tonks then. "Wait, you know how to floo?"
Tonks nodded.
"And does your mum know you're here?"
Tonks hesitated. "I should think she might figure it out if she used her mind a bit."
Remus sighed, "Nymphadora, I know that you --"
"Don't CALL me ---"
"Tonks! I'm sorry... Tonks. I know you think I can somehow talk to your mum about the whole hair situation but I honestly don't know what to --"
"I'm here to see Sirius."
Remus paused, thrown off. "Wait. What?"
"Is Sirius around?"
"You're here for Sirius?"
"Yes," Tonks answered.
"You're not here to see me?" he asked.
Tonks shook her head, "No. I'm here to see Sirius."
Well this was new. Remus was so thrown off by this development that he simply sat down in the chair. "Well, Sirius is at work for... well, a couple more hours at least." Honestly, he was probably off within the hour or so, but who knew how long he'd be at the Grindyswallow following?
Tonks frowned and slid off the couch and onto her feet. "Alright. Well. Where does Sirius work, then?"
Remus stared at her - this little spitfire had every intention of hopping the Knight Bus or flooing off to wherever Sirius Black worked without so much as a hesitation. Bloody hell were they ever related.
"He works for a company called Gomer's Degnoming, but --" and Remus caught her as she was grabbing up her little traincase in her hands and pulling out a small bottle of green powder she must've stolen from Andromeda and Ted's mantel somehow, "That means he works all over the place, degnoming people's gardens, so there's no telling where he is from day-to-day. He works all over... could be anywhere."
Tonks frowned and put her train case down.
"How about I take you home for now and I'll tell Sirius you were here and he and I will pop over soon and visit you?" Remus suggested.
"No, I wanna see Sirius!" Tonks whined. "I wanna see him! I made him a present!"
"A present?"
"Yes! I drawed him a picture!" Tonks popped open her train case, reached inside, and pulled out a folded up parchment. She held it out to Remus, who took the paper and unfolded it, revealing a childish drawing of a big, shaggy black dog holding a record in it's mouth. It had a big red collar around its neck and as Remus watched, the dog's tail thumped back and forth.
It wasn't fine art, by any means, bit it was cute and about average for a six year old.
"He'll love it," Remus said.
"I didn't make you one," Tonks said, "Because I got bored of drawing after that."
Remus nodded. "That seems fair enough."
"But if you don't make me go home right away, I'll make you one," she suggested. "I have my crayons."
Remus considered. "Alright. But can I tell your mum you're here at least so she doesn't worry?"
"As long as I have brown hair and grey eyes, she doesn't worry nothing about me," Tonks said, shrugging.
"You've got pink hair right now, Tonks."
She paused and pulled a lock of it to the front to see.
"Right I do," she said. "Maybe don't tell mum that bit?"
So it was, Remus sent out two patronus messages - one to Andromeda and one to Sirius - letting each know that Nymphadora Tonks was at the flat in East London. He let Andy know she was welcome to stay if Andy didn't mind she'd come and he told Sirius to come right home from work instead of going to the Grindyswallow.
Ted Tonks answered, rather than Andromeda, saying that Dory was permitted to stay as long as Remus and Sirius were willing, and to floo them up when it was time for her to go. Remus could tell from the clipped tone of the patronus's voice that he and Andromeda were probably having a bit of a row over the incident.
Sirius's reply was a simple, "OK" and nothing more. Remus realized only when he got the answer back that he hadn't mentioned Tonks being there in Sirius's message and that Sirius likely though he, Remus, was mad at him, Sirius - especially since he'd finally acknowledged the trips to the Grindyswallow.
Good, let him sweat it out, Remus thought.
Remus was sort of thankful for the presence of Nymphadora Tonks that afternoon. Instead of wallowing about in his misery over the university, he was distracted drawing with Tonks and using her messy crayons. Half of them were snapped and there was a pink one that she pointed out and proudly declared she ate half the crayon once.
"Did it taste pink?" Remus asked.
Tonks shook her head. "No."
"Pity," Remus murmured.
Sirius came in the door of the flat a prompt ten minutes after his shift ended and Tonks was off her feet and running across the room before he'd even gotten his boots and jacket off. Sirius looked surprised and looked up at Remus, but Remus was still looking down at the page he was coloring without having looked up at Sirius's arrival.
"I drawed you lots of pictures," Tonks announced, taking Sirius's hand and dragging him across the room.
"Your mum know you're here?" Sirius asked her.
"Yes, Remus told her!" Tonks said excitedly. She plunked herself back down next to Remus at the coffee table and grabbed for the original picture she'd drawn at home and brought to give to Sirius in the first place. "I drawed this for you!"
"Wow, look at that, it's Snuffles and --" Sirius squinted, "Is that the Blondie record I gave you?"
"YES!" Tonks giggled happily.
"Excellent job, Nymphadora."
She grinned.
Remus blinked at her - she didn't correct the name, he noticed, and he looked at Sirius, who didn't even notice the lack of correction. He'd kicked off his boots and tossed his jacket on the chair and sat down at the coffee table, too, and grabbed a crayon.
"What the bleeding hell happened to this?" he asked, looking at the half eaten crayon.
"She tried eating it once," Remus answered.
Tonks grinned at Sirius.
"Did it taste pink?" Sirius asked.
Tonks cracked up and shook her head, "Noooooo!"
"Are you sure?" Sirius asked.
"I'm SURE!" Tonks answered.
Sirius licked the crayon. "It tastes pink to me."
Tonks laughed and said, "It doesn't taste pink!"
"It does!" Sirius answered, "I can taste the colors."
"You cannot!"
"Can!"
Tonks got up and demanded, "CLOSE YOUR EYES."
"Alright." Sirius closed them.
She looked at the table and selected a blue crayon and handed it to him. "Taste this one."
Sirius got lucky. "Blue?"
Tonks thought a moment ,then grabbed an orange one and handed it to him. "THIS ONE."
"Green."
"NOPE. You can't taste them!" she accused.
Sirius laughed, and the three of them settled back to coloring again. Sirius looked over at Remus's drawing. It was a wolf, sitting in a desk, doing his homework, and looking rather panicked. As Sirius watched, Remus was adding a woman apparently yelling at the wolf, her finger pointing in accusation.
"You okay?" he asked, nodding at the picture.
Remus looked up. "My university believes very much in supporting basic human rights."
Sirius and Remus locked eyes.
"I maded you another picture Sirius, look, I maded you this one where the doggy is PINK with pink hair like me! It's funny! Look, Sirius, look. It's funny, see?" Tonks was waving a sheet.
Sirius, broke the gaze with Remus long enough to look, "That's incredible Nymphadora. Hey the dog doesn't have a record in that one. Accio Night at the Opera!" Sirius's eyes re-met Remus's as the record flew out of the box and across the room. He caught it, handed it to Tonks, and said, "Here. Make the doggy hold this one. Would you like something to eat? Of course you would. While you make the doggy hold a record, me and Rey are gonna go make you food real quick. BE RIGHT BACK." Sirius leaped to his feet, then, still never dropping gaze with Remus, and yanked him to his feet and out of the room.
Sirius pushed Remus through the door of the kitchen and waved his wand, silencing the kitchen from the rest of the apartment.
"What the ever-loving fucking hell did you just say?"
Remus drew a deep breath, holding onto the back of one of the chairs at the table.
"I went to see my academic advisor today, to sign up for classes for the summer and fall. I took that art class you wanted me to, by the way, at the muggle college."
"Excellent. Get to the part where I want to rip that woman's throat out?"
"Sirius."
"Did she SAY that? about the human rights?"
"Yes... in... well, in exactly those words, yes." Remus frowned. "They... they noticed my absences line up to the full moon cycle, Sirius."
"Ballocks!" Sirius cursed.
Remus stared at the table. "They are looking the other way through the rest of this term. So this month won't be an issue if I'm absent - which of course because the moon is on a Saturday this month so why would they care. Then apparently the muggle college doesn't give a damn about the cycle - of course they wouldn't, they don't believe werewolves exist, do they? - but in the Fall, she all but said that if I continue to have absences on the Full Moon, they'll be monitoring closely and they'll..." he paused.
"They'll what?" Sirius's voice was cold and hard.
Remus swallowed nervously. He didn't like how Sirius's voice sounded. It was too much like his father's. Remus shuffled feet.
"Remus. What did that HAG threaten to do?"
"....report me to the Ministry for Magic..." whispered Remus.
"Mother fucking lizards! Cack-licking dogs! The penniless whores!" Sirius shook, drew his wand from his hair, cast a teacup onto the table, grabbed it and smashed it on the floor. "Ignorant arsholes! Spineless maggots!"
Remus blinked, watching the handle of the broken teacup spin across the room as Sirius continued his colorful diatribe.
"Brainless, dickless, tongueless, orange-bellied, rhinoplastied, red-headed step child bastard children of the she-devil!" Sirius kicked the cupboard.
"Alright, I'm not even sure what you're saying anymore, but let's take it down about four notches, darling," Remus said, shaking his head.
"How could they!?" Sirius demanded. "YOU ARE THE BEST STUDENT IN THAT ENTIRE FUCKING SCHOOL!"
"I don't meet their standards."
"FUCK THEM AND THEIR STANDARDS!"
Remus's grip on the chair tightened.
"Oh bloody hell I'm so pissed I could hex the entire school from top to bottom and every orifice in between." Sirius was pacing now. "How could they even say that to you? How could they?"
"Technically, it is in their student handbook. They do not permit non-human, half-breed, or any form of magical creature to attend."
Sirius shook his head and let out a frustrated breath. "YOU ARE HUMAN."
Remus's voice was small and he didn't think it would break like it did when he spoke - "Not according to any-anyone else."
Sirius turned around quickly. "Uh-uh. You don't say that. Don't you dare. I've spent way too long --"
"Sirius! I'm NOT a human by definition. By definition of ANY book, ANY magizoologist - including Newt - I'm NOT." Tears were suddenly pouring over Remus's face and he couldn't stop then, he sank into the chair he'd been leaning against and he covered his face, "I'm not even human according to my own standards, a human doesn't just say nasty things to their --" and he folded down onto the table. "Doug said I'm human because I make mistakes and that's what I did was, a mistake, but it wasn't a mistake, I knew what I was saying and I said it anyway and I was horribly unashamed until -- and I'm -- I'm not -- so inhumane - I -- am -- I'm sorry -- I --"
Sirius was on his knees, his torso wrapped around Remus so tightly and so quickly that Remus felt the wind press out of him at first.
"And you kn-know it a bit too, you do, you know it because you don't - you haven't - you've been g-g-gone and I f-fucked everything up and it's n-not u-us against - against the w-world anym-more it's just you and it's ju-just m-m-me and I - I m-m-miss - I miss - us -"
"Moony... Moony, hey... Of course it's us against the world. It's us. It's always us, Moony."
"And me!"
Sirius and Remus both looked up.
Nymphadora Tonks was standing in the kitchen, hands on her hips and holding her latest picture in her fist.
Remus wiped his eyes quickly and sniffed.
"When did you come out here?" Sirius demanded.
Tonks thought about it, then announced, "Fuck them and their standards!" She then proceeded to repeat this line - again and again.
Sirius looked up at Remus. "From the mouth of babes --"
"Oh God, Andromeda's going to kill us."
"C'mere Nymphadora," Sirius said, extending an arm and she ran over and smashed herself between Sirius's chest and Remus's knee and grinned up at the pair of them.
"You're not to repeat that word, okay?" Remus said, "Sirius said a bad word. Bad dog."
"Yes I'm a bad dog," Sirius agreed. "I say bad words only grown ups should say."
"Yes," Remus agreed. "Bad words. Bad dog."
Sirius nodded.
"I drawed another dog." Tonks held up the latest picture. She'd added the Queen record to the pink dog's mouth and drawn a second dog beside the first. "So he's not lonely."
Sirius took the picture. He smiled, then showed Remus. "See?" he said. "It's always us." He looked at Tonks. "This one's going on the fridge, Nymphadora."
She grinned and nestled into Sirius's chest all the harder. Then giggled and said, "Fuck the standards! Bad dog! Woof!"
Remus groaned and shook his head, "Andromeda's going to kill us."
"But it will still be us, Remus."