Chapter Text
Silence in the bookshop was something of a religion for Remus Lupin. Or, at the very least, the only thing keeping him from an existential crisis. It wasn't just air. It was a thick cocktail of the scent of old paper, glue, and that very same Earl Grey his father had brewed here for decades. It felt as though the aroma had soaked into the oak bookshelves on a molecular level.
As a child, Remus had hidden here from his troubles at school, surrounding himself with volumes as if he were building his own fortress. Now that the keys to the shop had finally found a permanent home in his pocket, he increasingly felt less like a business owner and more like a voluntary hostage in a very quiet and dusty museum.
While the world outside hurtled along like an express train and people lived through their smartphones, Lupin occupied himself with matters of grave importance: aligning the spine of books with a ruler and dusting the shelves, waging a quiet war against disarray.
And he was perfectly content with that.
Until this morning.
"The next instalment is expected by Thursday," Remus gave Mrs Weasley his most patient smile. This woman consumed crime thrillers at a speed that terrified even him. "As soon as I've unpacked it, you'll be the first to know."
"Oh, Remus, you’re a saint! Would you mind—" Mrs Weasley’s words were unceremoniously erased from reality by the shrill, piercing whine of a construction drill right behind the wall.
Remus flinched so violently he nearly dropped a collector's edition. The shelves vibrated indignantly. He clenched his jaw and took a deep breath, trying to find the remnants of his inner zen.
"It's just renovations. It’s temporary. It’ll be over before I develop a nervous twitch," he repeated the mantra for the tenth time that day.
"Sorry," he said apologetically to the customer once the noise finally subsided. "Where were we?"
"I was asking if you could set aside a couple of copies until Monday? It’s my son’s birthday this weekend, and I—"
THUD. THUD. BZZZZZZZZZT!
Something slammed into the wall behind Remus’s back with such force that it sounded as though someone had decided to park a lorry there. There was a clatter of metal, and then the drill plunged into the brickwork with such fury it felt as if they were trying to hack a window into another dimension. The classics shelf gave a noticeable jolt, and Jane Austen wobbled precariously on the very edge. Remus instinctively reached out, wanting to save 'Pride and Prejudice', but a fresh strike from the hammer drill forced him to grip the edge of the counter instead.
"Of course! I’ll see to it!" Remus shouted, hoping his vocal cords could withstand the competition with the drill.
He could practically feel his cosy cocoon of safety, built up over the years, being torn to shreds. Mrs Weasley said something in return, her lips continuing to move, but the meaning of her words was entirely drowned out by the rhythmic pounding. Remus could only nod intensely with the air of an understanding expert, sincerely hoping he hadn't just accidentally promised to sell her the entire shop, shelves and his own kidney included.
When the bell above the door finally chimed, announcing the customer's departure, Remus leaned against the counter, exhausted.
"This is simply unbearable," he muttered, watching the dust motes in a shaft of sunlight dance in a panic at the vibration of the walls.
As if on cue, the sounds of the renovation cut out. Such a sudden, vacuum-like silence fell that Remus’s ears popped for a moment. He spent a few more seconds eyeing the wall with suspicion, expecting another treacherous blow, but the building remained still.
Cautiously, trying not to breathe so as not to scare off this fragile truce, he set about his tasks: he returned the books to the shelves with a truly masochistic perfectionism and put the kettle on.
Ten minutes later, Remus was sitting in his favourite worn armchair — the only object in this world that understood him completely — and opened his laptop. A file named 'Draft_v7.docx' stared back at him almost mockingly, a reminder of several months spent in a creative coma.
Remus took a sip of tea and froze, his fingers hovering over the keys. He had always believed that within these walls, his own Muse would eventually deign to find her voice. He was waiting for a spark. Inspiration. Any sign at all that his brain was still capable of something other than categorising the classics.
He took a slow breath. It felt as though the first line was beginning to take shape in his mind...
THUMP. THUD. BANG-BANG!
Such thunderous bass notes erupted from behind the wall that the cup of cooling Earl Grey didn't just tremble — it clinked against the saucer in fright, as if asking: 'What for?!'. A fine, nasty ripple spread across the surface of the tea in time with the music, which was forcing its way through the brickwork with the lack of ceremony typical of a drunken party guest.
Remus squeezed his eyes shut and rubbed his temples hard. This was overstepping the bounds of his usually vast patience. From the sparse accounts given by Alastor Moody — the owner of the premises next door, who looked as though he’d spent his entire youth hunting demons — Remus knew that the space had been let out as a tattoo parlour.
His imagination, poisoned by years of reading Gothic novels, obligingly painted a portrait of his new neighbour: a biker, as massive as a rock, wearing a leather waistcoat over a bare chest and smelling of petrol. This imaginary monster undoubtedly viewed the world as his personal punching bag and would easily crush Remus’s head like a ripe pumpkin if asked to turn the music down.
But how much more of this could he take? Remus was the owner of a bookshop that, in a single morning, had been robbed of its peace, its muse, and apparently, the ability to think logically. A headache was already taking root somewhere behind his eyes.
When the sound of the drill — again! — layered over the frantic beat of the drums, Remus’s patience finally reached the limit of years of quiet resignation. He stood up abruptly, straightened his worn but impeccably clean cashmere cardigan, and headed resolutely for the exit. The plan was simple: he would be the epitome of British restraint. He would simply explain to this hulking biker that this was a cultural establishment, not the Pyramid Stage at Glastonbury.
Outside, a typical London rain fell melancholically upon the pavement. Remus took two steps towards the neighbouring door. The shop window was covered over with old newspapers, but above the entrance, a neon sign was already pulsing provocatively. It glowed with such an aggressively pink colour that, in Remus’s opinion, it shouldn't have existed in the visible spectrum.
He took a deep breath, donned his sternest, most 'headmasterly' expression, and knocked.
No one opened. The music inside was raging with such intensity that it felt as though the building was about to suffer a bout of tachycardia.
He knocked harder and then began to literally pound his fist against the wood, feeling his vaunted resolve begin to give way to a slight sense of panic.
Suddenly, the music cut out. There was a crash of something metallic, a series of dull thuds, and a very emotional: "Ow! For—"
The door swung open so abruptly that Remus nearly tumbled into the premises, violating every law of decorum.
"Look, we’re still closed! The grand opening isn’t for another two days, so unless you’re from the Inland Revenue..."
Remus froze, the angry exhale he had prepared remaining trapped in his lungs. His entire carefully constructed speech about 'unacceptable acoustic terrorism' shattered into meaningless atoms. In his mind, usually as tidy as the archives of the British Library, it felt as though someone had just knocked over every single bookshelf at once.
Because standing before him was not a two-metre-tall brute in tattoos, reeking of petrol and menace.
Before him was a catastrophe. A dazzling, chaotic catastrophe in human form.
Her hair was the colour of bubblegum pink, gathered into a messy bun from which a forgotten wooden paintbrush protruded. An orange marker was tucked behind her ear, perfectly completing her look: a yellow and red T-shirt and denim dungarees, which, judging by the number of stains, had lost a war against an entire warehouse of paint. One strap had slipped hopelessly down, a smear of white filler adorned her knee, and there was a vivid green mark on her cheek.
Remus caught himself with a completely inappropriate thought: that green smear highlighted the warmth of her brown eyes with startling clarity.
"Oh," her gaze, quick and sharp, scanned him from head to toe, and Remus held his breath.
At that moment, he felt his own inadequacy on an almost physical level. Against the backdrop of this girl, his fastidiously pressed beige cardigan seemed less like a symbol of style and more like an attempt to camouflage himself against dusty library walls.
What does she see? A dreary bookworm whose skin hasn't seen the sun since the last decade?
Something in his chest gave a treacherous jolt. It was like free-falling down a lift shaft where, at the end, instead of hitting the ground, a very strange, sweet numbness awaited.
"You don’t exactly look like my typical client," she added, tilting her head slightly. The paintbrush in her hair swayed like an aerial catching signals of his panic.
"I... er... No," he managed to choke out. A vocabulary that usually allowed him to quote the classics at three in the morning had suddenly shrivelled to the level of a two-year-old.
The situation was beyond logic. He had come here as an incensed neighbour, ready to demand silence, but instead, he stood there mesmerised, watching the amusing way her nose wrinkled, dusted as it was with construction grit.
"I’m your neighbour. From the bookshop next door."
Recognition flashed in the girl's eyes, as bright as a short circuit. She slapped her forehead with her palm, leaving a fresh grey smudge behind.
"Bookshop! Of course! Alastor warned me that I’d have the 'quietest neighbour in London' through the wall. I think he said something along the lines of: 'Nymphadora, try not to give the poor bloke a heart attack in the very first week'," she snorted, and to Remus, the sound was the most charming breach of the peace he’d ever heard. "So, what’s happened?"
She gave him exactly one second to think — which, of course, he failed to use — before switching into rapid-fire mode, leaving him struggling to keep up with the torrent of words.
"Oh god, it’s the music, isn’t it? I knew the Sex Pistols were a bit much for a Tuesday afternoon, but how else are you supposed to put this bloody shelf together? Punk rock is the only way to make furniture respect you, isn't it? I was hoping it would help me concentrate, but clearly, I’ve just created a local branch of hell..."
She broke off mid-sentence as something collapsed with a heavy thud inside the parlour. The girl spun around, comically rolling her eyes at the ceiling in frustration. When she turned back, a short pink strand had escaped her bun and fallen right over her eyes.
Remus felt a strange, almost uncontrollable impulse: he desperately, with an itch in his fingertips, wanted to reach out and tuck that rebellious strand behind her ear. His hand even twitched, but he shoved both hands into his cardigan pockets just in time, as if grabbing onto a lifebuoy.
He needed to urgently regain his status as a 'responsible adult' and not remain a mesmerised observer who had forgotten how to breathe.
"The music was very... persuasive," Remus agreed, trying to dredge up at least a shadow of his usual sternness from the depths of his mind. "And the drill wasn't exactly helping with sales, either."
"Oh, hell, hell, hell. I am so sorry!" She waved her hands around, one of them still clutching a shiny Allen key in dangerous proximity to her own face. "I didn't think the walls here were quite so thin. I just wanted to drill a couple of pilot holes for a sketch shelf. But 'Plan A' failed, and I don't really have a 'Plan B' as a general rule. This wall is clearly made of adamantium, and my hands... well, let’s just say they aren't built for manual labour. Mum was right to ban me from Lego. It always ended in a trip to A&E."
Remus peered cautiously over her shoulder, and his internal perfectionist — the one responsible for the decimal classification of volumes and perfect right angles — didn't just gasp. He went into clinical shock.
The centre of the room resembled a war zone: opened boxes, scattered Allen keys, and scraps of bubble wrap that seemed to obey their own laws of aerodynamics. The air held a thick, almost tangible cocktail: pungent antiseptic, fresh paint, and a sudden, completely out-of-place scent of vanilla biscuits.
"I’m Tonks, by the way," she said, thrusting her hand out energetically before freezing to inspect the layer of white plaster on her palm. With a short laugh, she awkwardly wiped her hand on the thigh of her already long-suffering dungarees. "Nymphadora Tonks. But if you don’t want me to turn the music up full blast in revenge — forget the first part of the name. Deal?"
Remus felt the corners of his mouth twitching upwards of their own accord. Her energy was so dense that resisting it was like trying to stop the tide with a child's fishing net.
"Remus. Remus Lupin."
"Lovely to meet you, Remus Lupin," she smiled apologetically, revealing a dimple in her left cheek. "Sorry again. I promise to be as quiet as a mouse. Once I’ve tamed this steel beast, of course. You see, my dad’s in another city and I’ve no one else to ask for help, so I’m fighting the good fight alone. The result, as you can see, is epic but utterly useless."
Remus shifted his gaze to the hammer drill lying on the floor, looking as if it had just been used improperly in some sort of ritual. That familiar instinct awoke within him — the need to help anyone in trouble, whether it was a student who’d lost their place in the library or a charming pink force of nature losing a war against a concrete wall.
"The problem isn’t the wall," he noted softly, stepping closer. "You’ve likely hit the rebar. Do you have a metal drill bit?"
Tonks blinked at him with such genuine incomprehension it was as if he’d just started speaking a dead language.
"A drill bit for... what? I just pressed the big button and hoped for a miracle. Aren't they all the same?"
Remus shook his head slightly, feeling his lips curve into a genuine, warm smile.
"May I come in?" He noticed a flicker of hesitation in her eyes and quickly added: "I could help. If it’s done properly, it’ll take five minutes, and your noisy conflict with the wall will be over."
"Do you... do you really not mind?" There was such hope in her voice that Remus felt almost like a knight in cashmere armour.
"Not at all. My lunch break has only just started," he lied, although back in the shop, nothing but half-finished tea and a still-empty document awaited him. "I can certainly spare the time to help you."
"God, Remus, you’re my hero!" she exclaimed, practically pulling him into her personal epicentre of chaos. "In you come, then. Just watch your step. There’s a box of needles in the corner... or ink... basically, something you definitely don't want to tread on if you value, if your boots are precious to you."
Tonks waved her arms, clearing a path so energetically that Remus feared for the safety of a nearby jar of pencils.
He stepped carefully over a snake-like tangle of extension leads, feeling like a member of an anthropological expedition suddenly landed on another planet. Inside, the parlour looked even wilder than he could have imagined. A deep, velvet indigo on one wall clashed with a massive sketch of a phoenix done in neon marker. The bird looked alive, as if it were mockingly winking at Remus in the electric light.
The scent of paint here was so sharp it momentarily displaced the familiar, comforting aroma of old paper and tea from his lungs.
He approached the ill-fated wall. The hole Tonks had made looked as if the building had been shelled by a small-calibre cannon. Concrete dust was settling forlornly around the crater.
"Well..." Remus gingerly traced the edges of the crater with his fingertips, stifling his inner perfectionist’s scream. "The rebar is unscathed. The building is, against all odds, still standing. We just need to shift the vector of force a couple of centimetres to the right."
"You say that with such composure, as if saving tattoo parlours from self-destruction is your primary specialisation," Tonks remarked, stepping quite close.
Remus froze involuntarily. She was so close that he could feel a living, almost electric warmth radiating from her, alongside a distinct scent... of strawberries? It was either her chewing gum or some chemically fruity shampoo. He inhaled slowly, trying to suppress the sudden tremor in his fingers and the racing pulse that had decided to break into an impromptu tap dance.
"You know, Remus, if you actually manage to get this shelf up, I’ll decide you were sent by fate itself."
He chuckled, turning his head towards her. From this distance, he could make out tiny golden sparks in her brown eyes. Biologically, it was simply light reflecting, but his brain insisted on more poetic terminology.
"So, where is this shelf that needs installing?" he asked, his voice a fraction huskier than he’d intended.
"Ah, right," Tonks spun around quickly, nearly catching him with her elbow, and gestured vaguely towards the floor. "It’s here."
Remus looked around, seeing nothing but barricades of packing cardboard. "'Here' is a rather broad concept. Where exactly?"
"Over in that box," she pointed to a flat, sealed carton leaning against the wall.
Remus felt his eyebrows attempt to evacuate his face.
"You haven’t even assembled it yet?" he asked, with genuine astonishment.
"I just wanted to start with the easy bit," she shrugged nonchalantly, eyeing the carton as if it were a personal nemesis. "Drilling holes in the wall seemed a much more straightforward and logical task than trying to make sense of these diagrams. Instructions are written by people who clearly loathe all of humanity, have you noticed? Everything looks so simple in the pictures, but in reality, you’re always left with three extra bolts and a piece that looks suspiciously like a fire poker."
"It’s hard to argue with that theory," Remus said, barely suppressing a smile. He turned his head towards her, allowing a touch of gentle mischief into his voice. "But allow me to clarify one technical point: how were you planning to calculate the distance between the holes without having the assembled object to hand?"
Tonks turned slowly to face him. Her pupils dilated so comically that she looked like a sweet, startled owl.
"That’s... a bloody logical question," she breathed, before letting out a tragic, almost theatrical groan and burying her face in her hands. "God, I’m such a nitwit! Sorry, Remus, I feel terribly daft. Usually, I... well, I at least try to pass as a functional adult. But there’s so much to do, and I wanted to prove to myself that I could handle it all on my own. And in the end... in the end, I’ll have to call my dad to come and rescue me, like a little girl who can't tell a hammer from a screwdriver."
"Don’t worry," Remus reassured her, his voice quiet and very serious. "We’ll assemble the shelf and drill the holes right now. Between the two of us, the task will be much more efficient."
"Do you really think we can manage?" She looked up at him with such hope that Remus’s endorphin levels took a sharp spike. "These instructions look like they’re written in a foreign language."
"I have some experience in deciphering complex texts. May I have a look?"
"Yes, of course!"
Tonks spun around and took two rapid strides towards the box, but her enthusiasm once again collided with the laws of physics. The toe of her trainer caught on a heavy toolbox, and she began to topple forward. Fortunately for her nose and the future of the shop, Remus reacted faster than he could think — his body simply shifted into automatic rescue mode. He caught her by the shoulders, steadying her.
"Thanks," she whispered, and he became acutely aware of how close they were standing. A deep, charming blush immediately flooded her cheeks, harmonising wonderfully with her pink hair. The scent of strawberries crowded out every other smell in his mind, leaving him completely defenceless against this proximity. "I’d like to say I’m not usually this clumsy, but... that would be a blatant lie. Gravity and I are in the middle of a long-standing feud."
Remus tried to force a retaliatory smile, though his heart was thumping against his ribs like a trapped bird. The warmth of her shoulders still burned his palms through the fabric of her T-shirt. He carefully withdrew his hands and hastily shoved them into his cardigan pockets, trying to still the treacherous tremor.
"It’s fine," he coughed, struggling with a sudden huskiness in his throat. "So... what’s the story with the instructions?"
"Oh, right."
She seemed to 'freeze' for a moment too, but then she pulled herself together and held out a folded sheet of paper. As Remus took it, their fingers brushed — fleetingly, for only a fraction of a second, but a genuine electric charge seemed to zip across his skin.
What on earth is happening to me?
His rational side demanded he return to his books, but his legs, for some reason, flatly refused to leave.
"Well..." he forced himself to focus on the diagrams, even though the letters were blurring. "It all looks quite logical. I think we can neutralise this threat in about half an hour."
"Are you sure?" Tonks looked from the diagram to his profile, her eyes dancing with unshielded admiration.
"Absolutely. Do we have the tools?"
"It’s everything I could find in the store cupboard. I hope it’s enough to keep the building from turning into ruins before the grand opening?" Tonks looked hopefully into his eyes, biting her lip.
Remus took another critical look at the contents of the toolbox, primarily because it felt safer than looking her in the eye.
The rusty hammer looked as though it had been used for pile-driving back in the reign of Queen Victoria, and the screwdriver had clearly seen better days. He carefully fished it out, checking the tip. It was surprisingly sturdy, unlike his own self-control.
"For the purpose of saving the building from ruin, it’s more than enough," he replied softly. "And where is Alastor? I thought he treated these premises like his personal bunker. I wouldn’t have expected him to leave it to the mercy of..." he hesitated, choosing his words, "...a novice decorator."
Tonks gave a cheerful snort, sitting down directly on the floor beside the box. She crossed her legs, and Remus involuntarily caught sight of her ankle, where a tiny tattoo of a bird in flight peeked out from under the hem of her dungarees.
"He’s on a fishing trip with my dad. They’ve buggered off to Scotland for a couple of days, away from civilisation and 'this city noise'. Can you imagine? Two grumpy blokes in a boat in the middle of a loch. I’m sure they’ll either cause an international incident or invent a new type of Scotch whisky. They both offered to help with the renovations next weekend. But I didn’t want to wait that long. Besides, it’s not as if I’m incapable of driving in a few screws without supervision, is it?"
Remus looked pointedly at the hole in the wall, then back at her.
"Yes, yes, I admit defeat on all fronts," Tonks sniffed apologetically, that pink strand once again obscuring her vision. "I’m sorry for dragging you into this, Remus. I’m sure you’ve got customers waiting..."
"There’s no need to apologise for giving me a legal excuse to escape stock-taking," he offered an encouraging smile and sat down beside her.
He tried not to think about the fact that his neatly pressed trousers were now in contact with a floor that had likely collected all the dust in the neighbourhood. Or that his knee was in dangerous proximity to her thigh. He could feel microscopic sparks of static electricity dancing between his cardigan and her presence. It felt as though if he looked at her for a second too long, he might simply forget how to breathe. Trying to ignore the sensation, he set about unpacking the box, methodically slicing through the tape.
"So, you’re opening a tattoo parlour?"
Tonks froze, her eyebrows shooting up in surprise.
"Blimey. How did you know?"
"Well, for one, your sign above the door is quite eloquent," Remus nodded towards the entrance, where the toxic pink neon continued to pulse even through the layers of newspaper. "And secondly, Alastor mentioned he’d let the place out to a tattooist the last time we discussed the rent. Though I must admit, I expected someone a bit more... intimidating."
Tonks laughed out loud, and a warm wave washed down Remus’s spine, entirely illogical and utterly devastating.
"Oh, I can be intimidating!" She tried to scowl, but with the green smudge on her cheek and the paintbrush sticking out of her hair, she looked more like a very cross but catastrophically cute elf. "I just prefer not to scare people. I’d rather bring them happiness and joy through my art."
"Worked anywhere else?" he asked, carefully aligning two panels. Remus acted with the same meticulousness he applied to restoring old bindings. For him, 'roughly' didn't exist, only 'perfectly'. "Hold this here, please. At this angle."
Tonks edged even closer, practically squeezing into his personal space. Her hands, stained with plaster, came to rest on the wood in dangerous proximity to his fingers. Remus felt as though he could hear the hum of his own nerve endings.
"I used to do bits and pieces at a parlour nearby," she replied, watching mesmerised as he confidently drove the first bolt home. "But the owner decided to move to Italy. Love of her life, spontaneous relocation and all that... shut the place in a day. I was left with a suitcase of ink and a heap of ideas, but no roof over my head. I’ve been dead lucky that Alastor let me have this corner for next to nothing. I think he’s the only one who believes I won't burn the building down in the first week."
"Now there are two of us," Remus said quietly, without looking up from his work.
"What?"
"Now there are two people who believe you won’t burn the building down," he finally looked up and met her brown eyes, where mischievous sparks were dancing. "Though, looking at that hole in the wall, I’m beginning to understand why Moody was so concerned about me having a heart attack. You’re a force of nature, Tonks."
Tonks pouted in mock indignation, but her eyes narrowed slyly. Her blush deepened, rivalling the intensity of her hair.
"And what about you? Have you been at the bookshop long? You look as if you were born among those shelves, clutching a first edition of Oliver Twist."
"This place was my father's," he replied shortly. With practised precision, he tightened the fixtures, feeling the structure become solid. "I’ve been helping him shelve books since I was a teenager, and now I’m the... keeper of this paper mausoleum."
He tightened the final nut and set the screwdriver aside with a short, triumphant click. The shelf was finished — perfectly level, defying all the laws of the surrounding chaos.
Tonks ran a hand over the smooth surface of the wood, her face filled with such delight it was as if he’d just discovered the cure for all human ailments.
"That’s incredible!" she breathed, looking up at him. "Confess, Remus, are you a wizard?"
"Only a trainee," he replied, feeling the corners of his mouth twitching upwards. "I’ll be a real wizard if this thing survives its encounter with the wall and doesn't decide to commit an act of suicide five minutes after I leave."
He stood up, brushing invisible dust from his trousers — a habit that felt like the height of pedantry amidst the general disarray.
"I’ll need your marker," he nodded toward the orange marker tucked behind her ear.
"Oh! Yes!" she snatched the marker so energetically she nearly poked herself in the eye, and handed it to Remus.
Their fingers met again. This time, the contact lingered for an extra, statistically significant second. Remus forced his brain to focus on geometry. His movements were precise, honed by years of arranging books by alphabet and weight. He methodically measured the centimetres, calculating a trajectory that avoided the rebar, and marked tiny orange dots on the deep indigo of the wall.
Tonks stood beside him, uncharacteristically quiet. Remus could feel her gaze on his skin — attentive, searching, triggering a cascade of reactions in his body that no book he’d ever read could explain. It was frightening, and yet it made him feel strangely alive.
"Now for the tricky bit," he said, picking up the drill and checking the bit. "Can you help? We need to catch the dust, otherwise your lovely indigo will turn into a dismal grey gradient."
Tonks readily grabbed the nozzle of an old Hoover that roared like a wounded beast. While Remus drilled, she diligently moved the attachment behind the bit. A couple of times, her shoulder accidentally brushed his, and Remus flinched each time, nearly losing his aim. When they lifted the shelf together, the air between them seemed to vibrate more intensely than the machinery.
"On the count of three?" she whispered. Her breath brushed against his neck, causing an instantaneous short circuit in his thought processes.
"On three."
In perfect unison, they drove the fixtures into the plugs. The shelf fit like a glove, and Tonks gave a delighted squeak, pressing lightly on the wood to test its sturdiness.
"Remus, this is..." she turned to him, beaming brighter than her neon sign. "I don’t even know how to thank you! You’ve literally saved my reputation in my own eyes. Tea, perhaps? I’ve got vanilla biscuits. Provided they haven’t evolved under the mountain of these boxes, of course."
Remus looked at her stained palms, at her genuine smile, and for a moment, he almost capitulated. He desperately wanted to stay in this chaotic, pink-and-indigo world for at least another ten minutes. But the voice of reason — that same tiresome inner librarian — took over.
"There’s no need, really," he gave a polite shake of his head, trying not to let the disappointment show in his voice. "It’s quite all right. Besides, my lunch break ended a full five minutes ago. It’s time I returned to my silent stacks."
"Oh," Tonks visibly deflated, and it seemed as though even her pink strands dimmed slightly. "Right, of course. Work is sacred. The books won’t wait."
She saw him all the way to the door. The classic awkwardness of a goodbye hung in the air. Remus gave a clumsy nod, muttered something like 'good luck with the opening', and stepped out into the London drizzle.
The cold rain should have brought him to his senses. He had already reached the entrance to his shop and grasped the brass handle when, suddenly, he froze. Some irrational stubbornness made him turn back.
Tonks was still standing in the doorway, leaning against the frame, watching him go.
"And Tonks?" he called out softly.
"Yes?" she brightened instantly, leaning forward.
Remus allowed himself a faint, almost ironic smile.
"If you decide to turn the music on again... do keep it a little lower. So that my cups, at the very least, remain inside their saucers."
Tonks beamed as if he had just confessed to something far more significant than a request for silence.
"Deal, neighbour!" she shouted, giving him a playful wink.
The bell chimed with particular clarity as Remus entered the shop, cutting off the street noise and the chill of the rain. The shop still smelled of paper, old wood, and tea, but now the atmosphere felt incomplete without the lingering, almost tangible hint of strawberry gum that seemed to have drifted in with him on the sleeves of his cardigan.
He sat in his armchair and opened his laptop, but instead of working, he found himself listening to the sounds through the wall.
A minute later, a sound filtered through the brickwork — a barely perceptible, almost delicate rhythm this time. Remus felt a faint, utterly irrational smile touch his lips.