A/N: Belatedly dedicated to Possum 132, in large part because without her this fic still might be hamstrung by that interlude. (Sorry to anyone who may have really enjoyed it, but I don't think we're in too much danger on that front.)

Quick aside, because I forgot to explain it in the A/N last chapter - a flammeum, in ancient Rome, was a bridal veil, called a "little flame" because of its red-orange color. From that I always kind of imagine old Wizarding families had bridal veils that really were made of fire. If we do see one in Book 7 I will be delighted. I think it's not the craziest prediction I've ever made.

P.S. This is the final version restored after some astounding feats of memory on my enormously stupid part.

Part IV – Things Begin to Circle Back to Molly, who Makes an Enormous Sacrifice. Tonks is Half-Heartedly Aggressive to Various Personages. We are Just as Alarmed as She is by Fleur's Surprise Plan for the Wedding, and with Damn Good Reason!

Molly had never taken much stock in the young people's new habit of being just friends. She knew that had been Remus's latest line concerning Tonks and found it simply a scream.

It had never been funny to Remus. What a shock it had been the day, about one year ago now, that Sirius had said, ever so mildly and matter-of-factly, "Well, you are keen on her, aren't you?" He was so unused to being around people who knew him well enough to pierce right through his careful concealment of most of his emotions, thus making a shambles of his island. And he had gotten so good at such concealment – even Sirius had never suspected the depths of his keenness. And even as yet none of the Order members with their knowing grins and rolled eyes in his direction knew that he had been far gone on Tonks long before she had begun to reverse her initial assessment of his looks – by that point he had already vowed to himself several times to never let on about this new feeling of she's-simply-marvellous, had already steeled himself to take that feeling to the grave and to smile as on-looker and well-wisher at her wedding to some achingly lucky bastard who was free to give her it… and he had been so sincere, but all this reckoning had been done without thinking of the rest of the world. Remus had neglected two considerations. First, those she's-simply-marvellous feelings tend to out themselves, especially with someone like Molly nosing around. Second, Tonks might put his resolutions to a still sorer test by reciprocating. When both these oversights exploded in his face, Remus simply persisted in overlooking.

For example. It was touching the confidence with which Remus went to the Burrow for shelter and recuperation, straight from one of his underground stints, with his defences at their lowest. To be sure, he refused to enter at first, and simply begged for his wand on the other side of the keyhole. He knew he looked a fright, and doubtless smelled it too, and wouldn't let Molly see him until he'd gone and cleaned off. But he did accept an invitation to return afterwards and have a bite to eat.

Ah, so trusting, to give himself over to Molly's clutches with his mind still darkened and in shock from the past two months, unable to be wrapped around normal life at all. He even exerted himself to be a pleasant guest; when Molly expressed concern over his having been with the werewolves longer than expected he forced enough cheer to say that it had at least been profitable, and that anyway teaching her twins had been more hazardous in many respects. He thanked her profusely for the meal, and felt guilty (of course) that after everything she was offering him he couldn't quite bring himself to enquire after her doings in turn. And all in all he neglected to notice Molly bustling back and forth to a certain piece of parchment she kept scribbling on even while shoving plate after plate before him. And once he finally did notice he failed to pursue it. Instead he asked fora piece of parchment of his own, to jot down some notes for his report before he forgot them.

She provided them, and left him for a moment to his jottings, but then issued a caveat: "Now, Remus dear, I've been thinking that it's a bad idea to keep your wand here while you're – well, while you're gone. This can get to be rather a madhouse at times, and I think you can find a safer place for it."

Remus looked at her guilelessly. "Well, of course I wouldn't dream of keeping it here if you'd rather I not, I'll just – " And then a certain guile set in, at about the same second Molly's cheeks went pink.

"For example, I'm sure, well – "

"I'm not asking her to," Remus said, trying to sound immovable, and only succeeding in sounding tired.

"I didn't mention anyone," said Molly, going pinker than ever. "It's just there's plenty of – well, Order members, who live alone…"

"Yes, I'm sure Moody would keep it for me."

"Wha – ? – oh, don't be ridiculous, Mad-Eye indeed! And have him smash it in two one night when he hears the rain on the roof and thinks he's being ambushed, you might as well turn it over to Greyback and have done with it! Now stop being such a silly about this. You ought to have Tonks keep it for you, and that's all there is to it," she finished, with a fussy sort of firmness, now with two fierce red circles on her face.

Remus sighed.

Once upon a time he had thought his mother terribly interfering because she asked too many sharp questions while he and his friends were trying to break national law. Of course, shortly after leaving his teens he understood that he had been wrong, fortunate in his mother for many reasons, the least of which was that she was not really overinquisitive at all, but this knowledge had been purely theoretical.

It had taken meeting Molly Weasley to learn it on more practical terms.

"Will you?" Molly asked, dangerously.

"I'll go and see her before I go back, if that'll satisfy you," Remus mumbled unwillingly.

Molly was immediately all sweetness. She even kissed him on his bent head as she cleared away a cleaned-out bowl of beef stew. "There you go, that's the way of it, and honest now, aren't you secretly glad to have an excuse to see her?"

"No. It'll end with things worse than before."

"Well, if you have your way, I suppose it will, but I'm counting on you losing. Now there, you sit tight and I'll get you one of these raspberry tarts. I couldn't make them all summer – Fleur liked them too much…"

Remus, perhaps to distract her before she would wrangle any further concessions from him, asked after everyone he could think of, and had wound Molly to the point she was discussing some new con of a potion Arthur was dealing with at work without needing him to say much at all, which was a relief: he still felt drained and talking was too much of an effort. Which was all the more reason he should have turned tail and ran then and there, and doubtless he would have, had he been paying more attention to Molly's endlessly interesting parchment.

A knock at the door. Molly quickly craned to see her clock on the counter, but none of the hands had moved even briefly from "mortal peril," and she looked rather more satisfied than a mother might under those circumstances. "I'll get it," she said, in a tone that roused Remus's suspicions at once.

"You're expecting someone?"

"Be back in a minute – "

Remus closed his eyes. "Molly," he said imploringly, "why didn't you warn me?"

"Because you would have left, you great fool, and then I would have had to use the Full-Body Bind on you, because that's what I promised her if you tried to leave before she was off her shift."

"So it's her?"

"Don't sound that way, you still promised to be – friends, didn't you? Think of it this way, now you won't have to make a special trip to ask about safekeeping your wand!"

And with that Molly bustled to the door, which had been rapped on three times during their quick delaying exchange. Remus was slumped in his chair, eyes still shut, as he listened to the security questions – "What did I teach you to cook last year?" – "Gingerbread," shot back an impatient voice. "Back in September, and good thing too, I barely got the hang of it by Christmas, what's your favourite Lockhart book?" – "Break with a Banshee," and Remus heard Molly open the door. He straightened resolutely and screwed his face into the most neutral expression he could find – no, not that neutral, he didn't want to act as though he were angry at her – there. He was prepared with a slight smile when Tonks came in.

"I'm allowed to talk to you, at least, I s'pose?" Tonks asked, with half-hearted aggression. It touched Remus rather more than he would admit.

"You had better be," said Molly, entirely pleased with herself and winking, although in her haste at the back wall instead of at either of them. "I just remembered I have – chores – feed the chickens – you know, I ought to find that owl of mine, send some of these tarts to dear Fleur – " She swept up the platter and her clock in almost the same motion and without further ado left them alone.

" 'Dear Fleur,'" Tonks noted. "There you have it, Remus, you can't just let her make that sacrifice for nothing."

"Of course I'll talk to you. I don't hate you."

"Could have fooled me," said Tonks, but her coldness was fast melting as she looked hungrily at him. It was in an uncharacteristically soft tone that she said, "How are you? How was it?"

He gave her to understand it was not the sort of topic one discussed first thing after a two months' separation from another. He asked instead after her – she was still stationed up in Hogsmeade, wasn't she? – but she looked at him flatly, and, after a moment, said, "I don't really want to talk about that." After another moment she sat down opposite him; the tips of her fingers reached for his.

He pulled back, of course.

Molly came in fifteen minutes later to Tonks saying, with a tear-filled glare, "Stop talking to me like I'm eight years old!" and them arguing so acrimoniously that Tonks had her wand out, and Remus's voice was actually raised in anger, which was a minor miracle. She was forced to pack them both off – probably her wisest move of the night.

Really, she might have had more success if she had told them both to simply forget about the other. Molly assumed that she had a talent for this sort of thing because she had talents in what seemed related areas… however…

---

Springtime in London. Meaning the skies were grey and thick with wetness.

Fleur spotted Tonks first; she emerged from a certain building with someone Fleur recognised as another of the Weasleys' friends, his name was Shacklebolt and Fleur thought he might have been another Auror, and figured she was right as she watched him give her businesslike orders in what she would tell was a lowered voice. After listening a moment Tonks nodded and smartly but smilelessly mock-saluted him. They turned separate ways. As Tonks neared Fleur could smell or sense a certain magic; since both Tonks and Shacklebolt were in robes, probably they were enchanted for the moment so Muggles wouldn't see them.

Fleur was very bored sitting with her present company, and when Tonks neared Fleur called to her in the friendliest way she knew. Tonks blinked and looked at them and came over. She even summoned a "wotcher."

Tonks may have been in depression, but her Auror-trained powers of observation were not significantly lessened, and someone would have had to have been a lot more out of it than her to not notice that they were sitting at a table with a Weasley boy – very obviously a Weasley, red-headed, freckled. The resemblance to Ron was strong, despite the horn-rimmed glasses and impossibly neatly combed hair. And the new Weasley looked almost exactly as Ron did in Fleur's presence, only more so.

"This is the infamous Percy, then?" Tonks asked Fleur in an undertone – but not much of an undertone; there was no need when Percy was staring at Fleur with his mouth unhinged and eyes slightly glazed. His head would ever so slowly begin to dip to one side, until it went too far over and jerked back up, when it would begin to tilt the other way.

"Yes, zis is Bill's little brozzer, ze third Weasley. 'e is – what is ze expression? – 'at outs' wiz ze family just now because ze Weasleys distrust ze Ministry and he was ze Minister's secretary or somezing. I hear zere was a very ugly scene two summers ago – with Arthur, wiz Meester Weasley! Can you imagine Arthur yelling?"

Tonks knew all of this and probably in more detail than Fleur herself, but one good thing about depression is that it insulates you from caring if other people are making too much of themselves and patronising you. "He doesn't hear a word we're saying, does he?"

"Not at all," said Fleur, with a certain satisfaction. "I 'ave 'im stringed, Miss Tonks." (Tonks briefly considered correcting Fleur – it was Auror Tonks, thank you – but then dropped it. She hadn't the heart for pride just then. And no good reminding Percy which Ministry employees were helping the Order.) "'e came into ze bank one day and I 'it 'im so 'ard – I mean wiz charm, you understand! – that now he finds excuses to come in every so often and I get 'im to buy me lunch. I zought I might be able to 'elp reconcile him wiz his family, but I am encountering difficulties. If I use less charm, 'e comes to 'is senses, eez embarrassed, and 'astily tries to get away. But using ze charm as I am now, he cannot compre'end one word in twenty."

"Yeah, I can see where you're coming from then," said Tonks dubiously. "You don't think Bill will be jealous if he finds out?"

"I will explain everyzing to 'im," Fleur said with a confidence that was more beautiful than she herself. "'e will understand. Bill and I are deeply in love, you know, and do not need to fear telling each other anyzing." (Tonks sighed.) "I would tell him now except I want to wait until I 'ave 'ad more success. I think I will invite zis Percy to our wedding. Under my influence 'e may be very agreeable."

"It's a good plan," said Tonks vaguely. If she had been her old self she would have been honest and told Fleur that this was the screwiest plan she had ever heard of. A plan dancing around naked but for a tea cosy in its invitation for disastrous, Molly-in-hysterics disaster.

"I 'ave my doubts. I first saw 'im over Christmas, at ze – what is it called again? – ze 'Ole, ze place where ze Weasleys live – and Percy was very disagreeable. Fred and George and ze little girl started throwing food at 'im!" Fleur was wide-eyed at this lack of couth. Tonks snickered quietly.

Fleur had been neglecting him for so long that Percy seemed to have recovered the powers of intelligible speech. "Fleur?" he said; both women turned their heads sharply to him at his pleading tone. "You've scarcely touched your crab meat. Don't you like it?"

Tonks suddenly looked down at Fleur's dish, and then more closely at the little Muggle restaurant in whose courtyard they were seated, which was a rather ritzy place. Tonks vaguely hoped that Percy was making a good salary, because Fleur must have him spending an awful lot of it on her.

Fleur pushed her half-eaten crab meat aside disdainfully. She did not smile at Percy but looked at him with soulful blue eyes – the blue was suddenly rather deeper than Tonks remembered it; probably at the moment Fleur was probably more of a Metamorphagus than Tonks herself – and that seemed to do the trick; Percy's face went slack again. "Eet eez not vairy bon," she said, French accent thickening. "Zaire eez no good een buying foods out of season; zey always taste queer."

"Ah – oh, yes," said Percy, with an avid vapidity. However much of a blockhead Percy might be in other ways, Tonks knew he hadn't garnered twelve OWLS by being this thick. "Awful. Ought – ought to complain to the manager."

"Would you?" said Fleur sweetly. "I just want to feenish talking to Miss Tonks 'ere. Percy, 'ave you noticed Miss Tonks?"

Miss Tonks had to smile faintly. There was no doubt that Percy hadn't even registered her.

Percy looked blearily at Fleur's wrong side and said something polite. Tonks wondered if he would be able to stand properly, and when he attempted he did seem a little drunk. He wandered off, getting more steady on his feet the farther he got from Fleur's umbrella'd table.

"Once 'e returns 'e will 'ave recovered some," said Fleur with satisfaction. "I will entice 'im wiz no more charm than comes natural to try making up wiz 'is family. I think it will see good results."

"Oh, doubtless," said Tonks, who doubted, and was busy thinking, If even one of my ancestors had been a veela instead of insane inbreeds or Cockney Methodists, I could string Remus along for about a year and then let him wake up and find that all his bloody concerns hadn't panned out at all.

No, that was nonsense. She had best focus. Generations of familial relations might be on the line here. "Erm – when do you think you will warn them about Percy showing up to the wedding?"

"I zink I will just let 'im show up," said Fleur composedly. "And if zat Molly realised the trouble I am undertaking to give 'er a 'appy day!"

Tonks blanched, her bad feeling increased tremendously. "Um," she began. "Tell you the truth, I can't help but think – "

"And you, Miss Tonks," said Fleur, who hadn't listened to a word Tonks had said after the 'um'. She leaned in conspiratorially. "You know, I would not give up 'ope if I were you. I saw your man over Christmas; 'e is quite definitely not wiz anyone else."

Blink. "Well, no, he wouldn't be – but – wait – how was he?"

Fleur shrugged. "Oh, I cannot say, I barely spoke to 'im," she said dismissively, unaware that she had Tonks's aforesaid hope in her immaculate hands. "But I tell you zis as a friend, Miss Tonks, I zink you should be more forward, you should not let yourself go like zis. Even 'e will 'ave a chance with someone else sooner or later – "

"What? Oh, no, that's definitely not the problem, thanks." And Tonks felt herself again bored and distracted.

"It all comes down to catching 'im," said Fleur, melodiously sage.

"Yeah, well, he's already caught, or at least close enough. It's just – well, you know, we're all of us in the Order – you know the Order – "

"Ah, yes." It was Fleur's turn to look as though she were losing interest.

"It's just he's on a mission right now, it's quite iffy and it's seldom we ever get to touch base. We'll get over the other issues sooner or later if he lives through it, it's just a matter of him living through it." Tonks didn't know why she was explaining so much of this, but her pride, long comatose, was beginning to reawaken with pinpricks; she didn't want Miss Part-Veela pitying her because she couldn't "catch her man." So if nothing else Fleur had done that much for her.

Surprisingly enough, Fleur was again looking faintly interested. "Ah, well now. So it is dangerous, zis mission?"

"Well – yes," said Tonks, now wary, wondering if she had brandied too much. But Fleur was smiling at her.

"Ah! Zen I am sure you must be very proud of 'im, no?"

Another blink. "No, I'm not 'proud of him', I told him to tell Dumbledore to stuff it right from the start, and I've been worried sick about him ever since he blew me off and insisted on torturing himself as usual!"

Fleur looked vaguely puzzled. Tonks felt vaguely abashed.

"Well, yeah, I suppose I'm proud of him," she mumbled, "I mean, I never really thought about it, it's all doing what we have to do. I suppose wouldn't have refused the mission either if it had been me, it's just – "

Fleur was still looking intently at her. Tonks felt rather pinned.

"Oh, I don't know," she finished eloquently, feeling disgusted with herself at being unequal to meet those deep blue eyes.

"I zink – " But Fleur then broke off; there were gasps about them, and both young women turned to see Percy shaking his fist at a red-coated manager. Fleur laughed in both amusement and exasperation. "Excuse me, I must reign 'im in – "

"I'm supposed to be off too," said Tonks, quickly glancing at her watch, "but, look – Miss Delacour? – I really suggest not bringing your pet dog to the wedding – "

Fleur threw a vague smile at her as she marched over to the two men. It was with a doomed feeling in her stomach that Tonks went off, but after concentrating on her Auror duties for a mere five minutes she had managed to downgrade the doom to a sense of scattered unease. She had been feeling that most of the year, and so didn't take much more notice of it.

She was supposed to keep her eyes peeled for an Imperiused Muggle whom their intelligence said worked somewhere on this street, and then to go up to Hogsmeade for a guard shift with Auror Proudfoot, and then after that Dumbledore had owled and asked her to patrol Hogwarts starting at ten o'clock. Not that Tonks minded; the busier she was the happier, and even her mother, who had once thought her too carefree, had been exclaiming about overwork whenever they met as of late – so Tonks was aiming to make sure they didn't often meet. What could her mother understand, anyway, she had left the Wizarding world during the last war, and would never fully approve of what Tonks was doing now. Still, Tonks had taken a small, low, vindictive pleasure from burning Dumbledore's note once she had the hours memorised.

Oh, in her heart of hearts she was still perfectly loyal to Dumbledore, she trusted him implicitly and would have died if that had been among her orders… she couldn't help resenting him all the same. She had seen what had happened to Sirius last year, on Dumbledore's orders – in the beginning she had seen many flashes of a man who was her second cousin and furthermore whom she was sure she would have once liked, but those flashes had become more and more infrequent as the year got on, and to tell the truth it had been to the point where she hadn't honestly much liked him (although to be fair she was probably prejudiced; for a long while he had been on the list of Remus's vapid objections to taking up with each other), and anyway he had finally got himself killed because Dumbledore had asked the impossible of him too long. Tonks couldn't help but see parallels to the current case. The werewolf infiltration was the worst possible thing for Remus. She had confided all this to Molly one night, and Molly had told her not to worry – "Remus is made of quite a different mold than Sirius was" – and Tonks could see what she was saying, but Molly always had sold Sirius short and Tonks didn't see the problem had been a matter of Sirius's shoulders but of Dumbledore's logs. And she didn't think she could ever forgive Dumbledore if on this mission Remus was badly hurt or killed or even got warped mentally, no, especially if he got warped mentally, and lost what was so valuable about him, his kindness or sense of humour.

The thing was Tonks was pretty sure Dumbledore would be all understanding if he knew all about these thoughts. Come to think of it, he probably had divined 'em, omniscient Legilimenscing old bastard. And furthermore the mad old softie would be proud of her for her heart, and honoured to be a target for the side-effect frustrations that arose from the wondrous phenomenon that was love, and all that mush.

---

It wasn't the same night as Tonks had just been contemplating, it was – later. It was a patrol with her and Bill again, though, and Remus as well; Remus had come earlier to tell Dumbledore that Greyback had plans to be away that night, thinking it suspicious, and Dumbledore had him stay. Which was why Bill had now wandered off from the two of them: he wasn't positive what the status on that situation was, but figured they might want a moment alone together after probably not getting one in months. Which was wonderfully unprying on Bill's part, because anyone with any tendency to think too much of the affaires of others couldn't have missed their relief when he had arrived. But Bill went on untroubled.

Snape took his hand at that untroubledness; it was irresistible, and it would have been rude not to acknowledge the former student and current… colleague.

"You lot are here?" Snape asked as they approached each other from opposite directions in an interestingly gloomy corridor.

"Yep," said Bill. "Dumbledore called us in."

"He went out?" asked Snape, looking furious to find this information secondhand. Bill didn't take much notice of the fury. Snape continued rather indifferently – asking the information from habit rather than desire – "Who are you with, then?" And even Bill couldn't miss his disgust when he named the names. "Wonderful," Snape said, and even his scorn had more habit than bite to it, as if it were simply a worn old groove that Snape found easier to sink into than to buck, even if the groove no longer served purpose. "I'm sure you feel confident with them at your back."

"Nothing to worry about," said Bill, ignoring the sarcasm. "Rest easy, Professor."

Snape was giving him the superior sort of look that the old reserve for the young, and tired Slytherins for impossibly upbeat Gryffindors.

"Typical," he said, softly, for to say it loudly would have been too blatantly rude to pass, and Snape did not fancy a duel in said interestingly gloomy corridor that night. "Invincible, aren't you."

Bill's mind was still swimming with images of Fleur.

"Yeah," he said casually. "Something like that."

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The End (!)

Till next time, and thanks again to all. :-)