Remus Lupin woke feeling sluggish and stiff, his legs tight and his joints creaked as he pushed himself up onto his elbows. He was freezing, chilled all the way to the bone, it seemed, his entire body quaked almost feverishly. He looked around, evaluating his situation. He was laying on a hideabed in Tonks's living room, piled high with at least four thick blankets, wearing his time worn blue striped pyjamas, a thick jumper, and not one but two pairs of socks, yet still cold shook him from deep within his bones - typical of Remus, with his furry little problem. The fact that the cold came from the inside of his bones sometimes was something that Remus could never quite get anyone else to understand when he was piled with jumpers and still complaining he was cold, even in the midst of warm weather.
The blankets, the cold, the sweat - none of that surprised him, really.
But what did surprise him was the slim, bare arm that wrapped around the blanket that covered his torso... and the long pale leg that wrapped over where his were under all those layers.
Tonks lay beside him in a small pair of pyjama shorts and a white tank top that left her midrift bare. Her pink hair splashed over the second pillow.
Remus was so cold he couldn't move. His heart was in his throat as he stared at her.
Nothing happened, obviously. There were far too many layers on him for anything to have even remotely occurred.
But he felt like he'd been gut punched anyway.
It didn't matter that nothing happened.
Nymphadora Tonks did not belong in his bed.
Or any bed that he occupied, that is, seeing as his bed was thousands of miles away in Costa Rica, empty.
The only person that ought to be in his bed was Godric-knew-where.
He had to get up. He had to move. If it killed him because his bones all shattered like ice, it didn't matter - he couldn't stay there. He'd made a mistake, a big mistake, and Remus felt quite dizzy at the magnitude of it... The night before played in his mind, them laying in the bathroom curled around each other, her whispering in his ear as he sobbed... It was all too intimate, it was all too much.
"Little late, aren't you?" Charlie Weasley's voice echoed in Remus's mind suddenly.
"Late?"
"What do you mean by it? Getting her hopes up like this?"
"What are you on about?" Remus asked, confused.
"Don't be stupid," Charlie hissed, leaning forward, accusing. "You know how she feels about you!"
"That's in the past. She and I have become very good friends, Charlie. Just friends."
"Yeah, alright. She has fire in her eyes like an Andipodean Opaleye when she looks at you and you think it's just good friends. So either you're blind or you know better!"
Tonks had returned and asked what they were talking about, Remus remembered, and Charlie's eyes had zeroed in to meet his - something, he knew, was very rare for Charlie Weasley. "Andipodean Opaleyes. They're kiwi dragons, from New Zealand that is. Sometimes they migrate as far as southern Australia but it's rare and they're not seen anywhere else in the world." And suddenly, Charlie was no longer talking about dragons for once... "They're very endangered and they're extremely precious so we have to be very, very careful not to hurt them because if they get hurt then.... then I'd be right pissed off about it and make whoever hurt them really sorry."
Remus was already really sorry.
He struggled to slide off the side of the bed, so stiff that he fell to the floor like a rock and he let out a short yelp when his bones crunched against the floor. "Fuck," he hissed, rolling onto his hands and knees and grabbing hold of the coffee table that had been pushed aside for the hide-a-bed to pull out. He used it to push himself up off the floor.
"Remus?" Tonks murmured into the pillow, feeling him moving.
He couldn't answer, the cold was too settled in his bones.
"Rey?" Tonks stretched, her legs elongating the length of the bed, the tank top riding up so that the bottom curves of her breasts were just visible - a hot pink bra the color of her hair, all lacy and delicate, nearly revealed and Remus turned away, his heart thrumming and face flush with embarrassment. He hurried to pluck his things up off the floor as she yawned, a wide-open mouth kind of yawn and stretched, her arms, rolling onto her back...
He moved so fast, despite the cold settled in his limbs, and was out the door on the landing of the stairs before she had her eyes opened, thanks to a whispered accio and the wheels on his trunk. He stood, gasping, on the landing, back against the wall, staring at the ceiling, counting to ten, allowing himself those ten seconds to panic, and then shoving away every single feeling he'd had in those brief seconds.
He glanced at his wrist where the old worn watch Newt Scamander had given him was strapped. He had to be at Chase Volsung's office by half twelve at the latest, and he had to go and see Albus Dumbledore before that - see if there was anything Dumbledore could do to help him to get out of it. If anyone could stop Volsung, it was Dumbledore... It was already nine-thirty.
He looked at his things and muttered the shrinking spell Sirius was so fond of and shoved them into his pockets quickly. "Alright. Hopefully I get there in one piece," he murmured, and he turned on the spot and with a crack he was gone - reappearing on the train platform in Hogsmeade. He was breathless and ached immensely and it was a good deal colder in Hogsmeade than London, and he was still in pyjamas and jumpers and he slapped his hands all over himself, feeling to be sure he hadn't splinched anything, but he was all in one piece.
He sighed and stared up at the castle looming overhead and reckoned he'd have to find some place to change his clothes - he could probably stop by the Three Broomsticks and change in their loo real quick, he reckoned Rosmerta would be alright with it... and then... He sighed, looking at the long path from the village up to the castle.
Well, he'd better get started - he thought - and hope that Dumbledore would let him floo to the Ministry so he wouldn't have to walk back or else he'd never make it by half twelve. If he made it at all, he thought, as his knees cracked on the first step.