Fic: Charms of Concealment

[stereolightning.livejournal.com]

Author/Artist: stereolightning
Title: Charms of Concealment
Rating & Warnings: G
Word Count: 850-ish
Prompt: Malfoy Manor (perhaps Tonks spies there?)
Summary: It's not a picnic, this thing they're doing.
Notes: Another short one from me. I've been thinking about the moments leading up to the now-iconic exchange in the Pottermore bio - [Before he could stop himself, Remus had replied bitterly that he supposed she had fallen for his old friend ('He always got the women.') ... 'You'd know perfectly well who I've fallen for, if you weren't too busy feeling sorry for yourself to notice.] Here are some of my musings on it.

“They're not lupins, they're larkspurs,” said Remus, spreading out the picnic blanket in the dappled shade of the tree.

Around them, the meadow hummed with bees, and songbirds dove in and out of the tall grass in pursuit of their insect quarry. A clump of fluffy sheep grazed several hundred yards away. This was what counted for afternoon traffic in this part of Wiltshire.

“Lupins are not as pretty,” he said.

“Pfft. That's subjective,” said Tonks. “Anyway, they're both tall and purple, and I like them. And I know a certain large black dog who would kill to be out here playing in them.”

“Maybe you should pick some for him.”

Remus neatened the edges of the blanket while Tonks set about casting a suite of protective and anti-detection spells at the perimeter. She would have liked for this sunlit day to be a proper picnic, a romantic date, but it was more of a working lunch, and these days Remus was acting more like a colleague than a potential paramour. He took out a borrowed pair of omnioculars and began adjusting the lenses.

When she had completed the last wand movements of the last spell, she sat down on the picnic blanket and drew the surveillance notes they had been drafting out of the pocket of her robes.

“So. If they're meeting here tonight, we should be able to follow their movements from here,” she said. “Unless they come in the back way. In which case - ”

“In which case this will be a pointless enterprise,” he sighed.

This was odd. Tonks knew that Remus had his low moments, but he usually smiled through it and treated everyone with kindness even through the worst of it.

Determined to keep things cheerful, she took out a rock cake from the small basket she had brought along, unwrapped it, and broke it in half. She offered one half to Remus.

“Here, have a bite,” she said. “My Dad made them. He's not a bad cook at all. Bit heavy-handed with the orange peel, but they are tasty.”

“Thank you, Tonks, but I'm perfectly all right.”

Okay, then. Perhaps this was not hunger-induced irritability. Perhaps there was something he wasn't telling her, something that was eating at him, though he wasn't giving any hints as to what it was. Also, since when did he call her Tonks, and not Nymphadora?

“Have I done something to upset you?” she asked.

He looked at her, opened his mouth slightly, and then closed it again.

“I have done, haven't I?” she asked.

He shook his head. “I'm sorry. I'm being ridiculous. Of course you haven't done anything.”

Though his voice was warm and gentle again, she did not believe him.

“Really, everything is all right," he said, injecting his words with not-quite-genuine cheer. "Is it too late for me to change my mind about the cake?”

“No,” she said.

She handed him the other half.

“Thank you, Tonks.”

Tonks, again, though. He usually gloried in saying Nymphadora to see if he could get away with it. Oh, he didn't crow about it, but she knew it tickled him to push that boundary with her, and now he had stopped. The game was over. The joke had died.

They ate in silence.

“There,” he said at last. His hand sprung to the omnioculars. He held them up to his face, his whole body tensed like a spring, focused completely on the house across the meadow.

“How many?”

“Four.”

“Do you think they spotted us coming in?”

“No. I don't think so. I don't think they know we're here. Perhaps we should double the auditory charms, just as a precaution.”

She obliged him with several flicks of her wand.

“Thank you, Dora.”

He hadn't looked at her when he said it. He had been occupied. He had let something slip.

“Do you mind taking notes for a little while? We can switch off every hour if you like,” he said.

“I've had an idea about that, in fact,” she said.

She rummaged through the basket until she found an acid green quill with a tip so pointy that it looked like the sting of an exotic, venomous creature.

“Quick Quotes Quill. They take a bit of poetic license with details, but they're not useless. I've stripped off the Sensationalus and Melodramaticus charms, mostly, so I think it might actually take straight-forward notes for us.”

She unfurled a length of parchment and tapped the quill with her wand.

Remus put down the omnioculars and his eyes met hers. “That's very clever of you.”

Tonks looked down at the parchment. The quill was already scribbling away.

'That's very clever of you,' said the mild-mannered werewolf, carefully concealing his emotions under a façade of Platonic affection.

“Oh, thanks,” she said.

She looked at the parchment again.

'Oh, thanks,' said Nymphadora Tonks, disguising notes of surprise and longing in her voice with considerably less skill than she used to disguise her natural brown hair color.

Well.

This was going to be an interesting evening.

Comments

[solochan.livejournal.com]

There's so much of this I love, I can't even begin to express. I love that Tonks things the lupin flowers are beautiful and you gave me the beautiful image of Padfoot running around in the Lupins.

And the way Tonks notices that Remus has just stopped trying to engage with her and flirt with her like he used too, it's gut wrenching, you write them both so well.

I also love the Quick Notes Quill, that made me laugh so much, I'd love to see the "full extract" it wrote at the end of their stake out.

Great job as usual! :D

[stereolightning.livejournal.com]

Thanks! I wonder what the full extract would look like as well! There should probably be a sequel to this someday. :)

[shimotsuki.livejournal.com]

*snort* Ow! You just made me choke on my tea! Three cheers for the Quick-Quotes Quill; I'm sure Tonks will go through all manner of contortions to keep Remus from seeing what it's writing.

And I'm glad it was able to show her that she wasn't wrong in what she thought she was seeing in Remus's behavior, either... I did like the moment where he wasn't thinking and called her "Dora," and she understood right away that this was him letting something slip..

Love the scene, too -- an idyllic setting with the fluffy sheep and the not-lupines, as a backdrop for Remus being all stiff and uncomfortable and poor Tonks wondering what's gone wrong.

[stereolightning.livejournal.com]

Ha, I'm glad you got a laugh out of it, even if it was a dramatic kind of laugh, with tea involved!

Glad you like the setting. When this event started, I really wanted to write a spring-y picnic scene, and I really do love lupins, as in the flower. There is a pretty variety near where I live that I've been admiring for weeks and weeks.

[starfishstar]

!!!

This is perfect: the Order business that gives them a plausible reason to be here (it's not a date! it's a working lunch!); the sparkling dialogue ("Pfft. That's subjective" is very Tonks); the way they're debating whether or not lupins (talking only about the flower, naturally) are nice; and just in general this point they're at where the lighthearted banter (cough, flirting!) between them has suddenly dropped off and Tonks is trying to figure out why.

And that Quick Quotes Quill!! ("Sensationalus and Melodramaticus charms," ha!) Should be an interesting evening indeed...

[stereolightning.livejournal.com]

:D Thanks! I seem to be writing these sort of short sketches lately, with a mix of emotions in them, comedic and dramatic. Book 5 R/T scenes are usually just fun and sexy for me, but I wondered if I could also write one with a little more drama, where Remus is not being 100% adorable/charming.

"Sparkling" ! That is high praise. I am officially grinning hugely about that.

[huldrejenta.livejournal.com]

Oh, I love every word of this!

I love how it all starts very idyllic with the nice details about the picnic blanket and the bees and the songbirds. And then Tonks' comment about the black dog who'd love to be out here, tells us there's something else going on here. Remus is heartbreaking, but I love that you've added humour here as well -
“Quick Quotes Quill. They take a bit of poetic license with details, but they're not useless. I've stripped off the Sensationalus and Melodramaticus charms, mostly, so I think it might actually take straight-forward notes for us.” That made me laugh out loud :)

The Quick Quotes Quill was a very nice touch, and the way it shows us so much. I do wonder what Tonks thinks when she reads 'That's very clever of you,' said the mild-mannered werewolf, carefully concealing his emotions under a façade of Platonic affection.

Lovely work!

[stereolightning.livejournal.com]

Thank you. :) I love a little image of puppyish Padfoot here and there. He has become one of my favorites, lately. Even though I think it's weird that everyone in HP-verse thinks it's plausible that Tonks would be into her own cousin! :P

I'm so glad to hear that you laughed. I love the funny stuff.

[eleanoreleanor.livejournal.com]

I love it. Can we just get endless R/T stories from you please?

[stereolightning.livejournal.com]

Heh, dunno about endless. But I did link them all together as a "series" on my AO3 account. :) I will probably slowly fill in the gaps with each rt_morelove event!

Thanks!