"My identification? Honestly?"

"You want your pint, I need to see it," the barman said with a bored voice.

The woman muttered something under her breath and Remus had the vague impression it was not really flattering towards the barman's mother.

It wasn't interesting enough to take his attention off his own half full glass of beer, though. How many had it been? He was not that sure anymore, but some sort of imprecise dizziness was telling him that he was on the right track of getting good and drunk.

At his side, the woman cursed again, loudly this time. Apparently, in her attempt to look for her documents, she had toppled her purse over and an assortment of objects and debris was now at her feet.

Mechanically, Remus got off his stool and bent over to help her.

"'S O.K., I got it," she mumbled, but Remus ignored her.

Trying not to pay too much attention he passed her two pencil cases, several books and at least three wallets. She kept on saying something under her breath, but he could not figure out if she was still cursing or of it was a very peculiar way of thanking him for his help.

Remus spotted it first, it was very dirty and he would have mistaken it for a coaster if there had not been a picture on it.

He took it and handed it to her.

"I think you're looking for this, er..." he tried to make out the name on the scarce light of the pub, "Nymph-"

She snatched the document with a growl before he could read the rest.

"Here," she pushed it under the barman's nose. "Happy?"

"Not particularly," he said, while serving a pint of the beer closest to him.

"Hey, that's not the one I want!" the woman protested, but the barman ignored her and went off to the opposite side of the bar to attend other clients.

With a loud huff, she sat heavily on the stool next to Remus and, despite what she had just said, drained her beer in one. Involuntarily, Remus raised an eyebrow in admiration, but hastily focused on his own beer again. He did not want this woman to think he had been looking at her. Meanwhile, she had cleaned her mouth with the sleeve of her black pullover and was now calling the barman.

"This time make an effort and pour me a Guiness, would you?"

The barman grunted and she grunted back.

Remus wondered why was he paying attention at all, and decided to follow the woman's example and drain his own beer.

"One for me as well, please," he asked the barman before he could go away again.

He obliged and with a sour expression and two loud plonks that sent part of the contents on the table, he placed two glasses in front of Remus and the woman.

"Nice to see people getting out of their way to be friendly, isn't it?" she mumbled acidly, taking another generous amount of liquid.

"Bad day?" Remus asked, suddenly curious about this woman demeanour.

"Peachy," she said, her voice heavy with sarcasm, "never been better. You?"

"Bad day, bad life," he said, his eyes fixed on his pint.

"Yeah, tell me about it."

"Really?" Remus suddenly felt a very inexplicably urge to make fun of her a little; he was curious about what sort of reaction he could produce. "Do you want me to tell you?"

"No!" she blurted out, her eyes wide with horror at what she indisputably though would be an infinite rant on the miseries of a middle-aged man. "Not really. I don't wanna know about any tosser's life. I've got enough with mine."

"So you're a tosser," he said nonchalantly, before taking another sip.

She looked at him frowning and for an instant he thought she would actually hit him.

And then, quite unexpectedly, she laughed. It was a very nice, rich sound, somewhat at odds with the dark pub they were in. For the first time since she had arrived, Remus really looked at her.

At once he understood why the barman had asked her to prove she was of age. She looked very young, not only because of her general behaviour, but also because of her choice of clothing, and the purple hair did not help very much to the general impression.

"I guess I had it coming," she said, finally calming down. She turned her stool in Remus' direction and stretched a hand, "Tonks."

"So it was a fake identification, then?" he said, taking it. "I thought that name was very difficult to believe in the first place."

This time she did not laughed, but glared at him.

"It's not fake and the name's just Tonks."

Remus gave her hand a shake and doubted a split of a second before speaking.

"Then mine's just Remus."

She did not react to the name and he was glad. That was the whole point of going to Muggle pubs instead of the Leaky Cauldron: the chances of getting recognised were close to zero and he preferred it that way.

For a moment none of them talked; Remus wished he had something else to say, something that would trigger that laughter again, but he found himself at a loss. Maybe he had already had too much to drink.

"And what is it that you do?" she interrupted his thoughts, after another generous amount of beer.

"Let's not talk about it," he said, following her example, but smiling nonetheless, trying to clarify that he still wanted to talk to her.

"Could I have a guess?"

"You can try, but I doubt you'd get even close."

She screwed up her eyes and looked at him over the rim of her now almost empty glass.

"You're the scholarly type," she said.

"I don't know about that."

"It wasn't a question," she added, beaconing the barman to pour her another beer. "You look like it. Professor somewhere?"

"Used to be," Remus said, trying to put the bitterness out of his voice and wondering what was it exactly that made him look 'scholarly'.

"Aha," she said cheerfully and he could not tell if she was talking about his former job or just mumbling appreciatively at the freshly served beer in front of her.

"What about you?" he asked, after looking at her drink a little more and wondering distractedly how much more could she take at such a fast pace.

"What about me?"

"What do you do?"

"I'm..." she studied him for a long moment, and then she waved her hand, avoiding his glass by a millimeter. "It's complicated."

"You don't want to tell me either," Remus tried to think about Muggle jobs and which one would suit her. "Let me guess then."

"Fair enough," she shrugged.

He took in her dark clothes, the bright purple hair and the short fingernails. It was not an unpleasant sigh at all.

"Musician?"

She shook her head earnestly. "Only the shower-singing sort."

He chuckled, wondering if his sudden good humour had something to do with the amount of beer he had taken, her presence or both.

"Something to do with... fashion?"

This time she laughed properly again.

"You're not even close, but I like your options." She looked at her glass thoughtfully for a minute. "I might even consider switch to one of them, given the situation..." She seemed to be talking more to herself.

"And why is it that you had a rough day?"

"Couldn't we talk about something else?" she asked and some of the cheeriness in her tone was gone.

"All right," Remus agreed, though his curiosity was piqued.

"Let's just pretend I fancied getting pissed for once, no particular reason."

"If you say so."

She nodded.

"And, my I add what a wonderful job you're doing so far?" he added.

There was a faint gesture of indignation on her eyes, but the next second she had smiled wryly.

"You can talk," she said, "but for the looks of it, I'd say you're aiming for the same. With or without a reason."

"I do have a reason, as a matter of fact."

"But you're not telling."

"I'm not. So, just like you said, let's pretend I fancied to get pissed as well. Without a particular reason."

She smiled again and drunk some more beer, a little calmer this time. Remus tried to imagine what sort of thing could have given her a bad day? Problems with a boyfriend perhaps? A bad job, according to her reluctance to talk about it?

"D'you come here often?" her question interrupted his thoughts.

"It's the first time," he said earnestly.

"For me too," she said, and after a moment she added, "I just wanted to be alone for a spell."

"I guess that applies to me too, to some extent."

Nobody spoke for a moment.

"So here we are," she said finally, "and Heaven knows why we are talking to each other if we actually wanted to be alone and not talk to anybody."

"What can I say?" Remus drained his beer. "I think I'd rather talk to you about nothing than sit on my own and sulk... if you don't mind."

Tonks looked for a moment as if she was trying to make up her mind about something, and then she called the barman again.

"Four Tequila shots," she asked him, and then she turned back to Remus, "I don't mind and this one's on me."

"You don't have to-"

"Come on," Tonks said with a dismissive hand gesture, "if we're really aiming to get drunk, it's gonna take forever to do so with beer alone."

"I haven't have Tequila in a while," he protested half-heartedly.

"That's something we have to work on right away."

It came as a blow: Remus suddenly had the funny impression she was flirting with him. An unknown, attractive woman, was actually chatting him up, wasn't she? How long had it been since the last time a woman had shown any interest in him on a similar occasion? Or was it only his already confused mind imagining things? And what would happen if she was indeed aiming for something else with him?

The barman put the shots on the table and she handed one to Remus, interrupting that very dangerous train of thought.

"What are we toasting to?" Remus asked, deciding that he did not have to make a decision just then about whatever might happen in his near future.

"Bad days?" she offered.

"To bad days, then."

Their glasses clinked and he drained the liquid. It felt as if his throat was on fire, but it was not an entirely unpleasant thing.

Tonks was smiling at him, her eyes brighter, probably due to the amount of alcohol already on her system.

"So," she said, leaning forward and adopting a conspiratorial tone. "Besides of what you do, is there something else about you you wouldn't want me to know?"

Remus laughed, was there indeed!

"A great many deal of things, as a matter of fact."

"Good, me too" she beamed. "Tell me one."

"Why should I?" he said, taking the third small glass of Tequila and giving her the last one. "You won't tell me a thing about you either."

She looked at her glass thoughtfully.

"All right, I'll tell you one thing, one personal thing, and then you tell me one of yours."

"Deal," he said, clinking his glass with hers and draining his Tequila, idly wondering why on earth was he doing all this.

The obvious answer, that he was flirting back, was one he was not too keen to consider.

"I use mismatched socks," she prompted, and he looked at her, puzzled.

She laughed merrily again, at what she had just said or at his expression, Remus could not tell.

"You know," she finally explained, "how socks are supposed to belong to the same pair, the same colour? Well, I never do that!"

And to prove her point she heaved a little his black trousers. Remus saw a very sturdy pair of Dr. Martens and up her legs he finally understood: one of her socks was bright orange with green polka dots and the other one was stripped in pink and yellow.

"See?" she asked unnecessarily. "Now it's your turn."

Remus raised an eyebrow.

"I think you've cheated. That hardly counts as a personal thing."

"What? Oh no, I haven't. Talking about underwear is very personal."

He just had to laugh, everything seemed surreal, amazingly so. He looked at her, trying to find something else to say. Every sensible idea he might have had seemed to have fled his mind. Of course there were a lot of facts that kept on popping up, but he very much doubted it would be a good idea to talk about the wand hidden in his pocket – something that might sound terribly wrong as something personal to say – or the fact that he could get very hairy once a month.

"I read a lot," he blurted out before something else came.

She looked at him, incredulously.

"Is that the best you can do? That's lame, very lame."

"It's a personal thing," he said trying to put some indignation in his words and suspecting that he was failing.

"It's not, it's written all over you," she said. "You'll have to do better than that."

Remus rolled his eyes and sighed deeply, at a loss of what to say.

"All right then, something personal..."

"Something personal," she nodded encouragingly.

"Underwear related?" he raised an eyebrow at her.

"Only if you want to."

Remus tried to win some time drinking the last of his beer.

"The last time I got this much to drink must have been more than ten years ago," he finally said.

She blinked a couple of times.

"Really?"

"Really."

"Whoa, that's a long time ago..." she looked thoughtful for a moment and Remus wondered if she was doing some sort of math on her head. "Why were you drinking back then?"

"The loss of good friends," he answered mechanically.

"And why are you drinking now?"

Remus sighed. He could tell her some of it, really. Who would she tell, how much would this Muggle girl understand from it?

"I got some very very bad news," he said, thinking about Sirius, showing up at his door as the black dog some hours ago, confirming that what they had been dreading for so long had finally happened, and his immediate departure murmuring something that had sounded a lot like "Sod all that lying low bollocks".

"I'm sorry to hear it," Tonks said, placing a hand on his forearm. "On both accounts."

"And I know I mustn't be doing this," he pointed at the empty glasses in front of them. "I should've stayed at home, at the ready, in case something... somebody... in case I'm needed."

"Would that had helped the situation?" she asked, and he could see in her eyes she seemed to be genuinely concerned.

"No, I don't think it would," he smiled wryly. "The situation is already rotten as it is, with or without my help."

"But just in case, do they know how to find you?"

"I guess they do," Remus shrugged. "And I'm certain they won't need me just yet."

"There's no need for me to worry, then, that somebody might burst in and take you away any time now, is it?"

She was smiling again and Remus recognised the attempt of lighting up the atmosphere. He thanked it.

"No for the time being, no."

Her smile grew wider.

"Shall I get two extra shots then?" That hand left his forearm leaving a not very pleasant cold sensation behind.

"I'd rather have another beer," Remus stuttered.

"Beer it is," she said, ordering one for her too.

Nobody spoke until the glasses were filled again in front of them.

"My turn," Tonks said, after taking a small swig.

"Your turn," Remus mirrored her actions.

"I think you're very attractive," she said not missing a heartbeat.

Remus stood frozen for a long moment before bursting into laughter. She joined in, and he could not help but notice that her hand was back on his arm.

"So now we're telling lies, are we?" he managed to say, almost sure he had blushed.

"Don't sell yourself too short," she said. "It's no lie."

"Well, if we're still telling personal stuff, that's something I haven't heard in a very long while."

"You're surrounded by the wrong sort of people then."

"I might be."

And suddenly the possibilities in front of him were clear. They could stay there and share beers for a while longer, or he could just ask her to go somewhere else. His flat, for a drink, maybe? He would have to transfigure a couple of things here and there, the titles of some of his books, for instance, but otherwise it would be completely safe… unless somebody actually decided to get there on Dumbledore's orders. They could go somewhere else…

But would she agree? Maybe it all was just his imagination...

"Pardon?" he realised she had been saying something but he had not been paying attention.

"I just said it's your turn."

"Right... only... I don't know what else to say."

"Come off it, you said there were loads of things you didn't want me to know. Just say one of them."

"Well," he tried to sound solemn, but he could fee his smile giving the game away. "There are reasons why I don't want you to know."

"Spoilsport," she said, taking her hand off his arm again. Why was he so conscious about that detail? Was it just because it had been so long since the last time he had been touched like that by anybody?

"Oh, all right," suddenly his mind was set on what he had to do next. Who cared about the future, grim as it seemed, and who cared about what would happen afterwards? He was there and she was there, and having this one opportunity to actually enjoy something good could not be terribly bad, could it? Who knew when would such a chance present again, if ever? "I'm going to tell you something terribly personal," he finally said, leaning towards her.

"All right then," she was beaming.

"I am having a great time with you, Tonks-" he started.

"Really?"

"Indeed," he said, and feeling he should accompany his words with some action, he placed his hand on hers, "but that's not what I wanted to say. I mean, it is obvious I'm having a good time, isn't it? And it's supposed to be something not very obvious."

"Unlike the fact that you like to read."

"Unlike that, yes."

"What is it, then?"

Remus sighed deeply, suddenly nervous.

"I'm thinking of which would be the best way to kiss you."

For a moment she just blinked several times and he feared he had crossed the line and she would just stand up and go away. She did not, though, and Remus almost sighed in relief when she smiled widely.

"That's very personal," she said, and her voice was such a low whisper he had to lean closer.

"I know."

"And have you reached a conclusion… you know, about what would be the best way?"

Her grin was mischievous and her eyes so bright, it took him a great deal of effort not to just act upon his instincts.

"Well, I was first wondering if I have to be afraid of some gigantic bloke storming in and demanding why was I kissing his girlfriend."

Tonks chuckled.

"There hasn't been such a bloke, gigantic or not, for some time."

"I'm glad to hear it," he said, getting even closer.

"And what about Mrs. Remus? Should I be worried about her?" Tonks asked suddenly.

"Oh well, since she's an entirely imaginary character I wouldn't say you need to be terribly worried."

"Good," she whispered, and a second later, her lips were on his.

AN: A new take on my favourite couple. I got the idea yesterday when I heard Sinatra's song on passing and it just wrote itself. There is something appealing in the idea of not knowing who is the person you're talking to, isn't it?