Warm laughter could be heard echoing through Grimmauld Place. If someone could have peered into the living room of that ghastly place, they would see the most unlikely of friends laughing with warm cup of tea in their hands. Two people of most different characters. One was in her early twenties with shocking pink hair spiked, and in messy robes that had a jagged rip on her knee where she had unwittingly fallen earlier that day. The other was a man in his mid-thirties that had shabby, but immaculate clothes. If they looked closely they could see age creeping up on him with silver hairs and pre-mature line across him forehead.





“No freaking way,” Tonks gasped for air while laughing fit to kill. “Sirius seriously did that?”





Remus gave a good-natured laugh. “Indeed. He paraded in them around the whole Gryffindor Room-“





Tonks couldn’t take it any longer. She howled. The image of her cousin with green boxers with hearts on them pulled over his trousers was too much to bear. She laughed heartily until her laughter became silent. Then she fell off the couch and struck her head on the glass table, spilling their tea onto her face.





“Ow!” The tea burned her face. She saw stars from striking her head.





“Tonks!” Remus quickly came around the table, for they had been facing each other, she on the couch and him on the loveseat. “Are you alright?”





Tonks looked like she was unconscious. She had turned several shades paler and was quite still. Remus shook her, “Nymphadora!”





No response. “Molly! Nymphadora! Blast it, where is my wand? Accio wand!” When he turned around he heard some laughter. He spun around to see Tonks laughing hard at him. “Made you look!”





Right before his eyes she morphed back to her usual self. He let out sigh of relief. Tonks sat back down (whispering reparo to everything that she broke, and making more tea for the both of them). Quietness reigned again in the house as they in companionable silence sipped their tea.





Remus, after a long period of silence and sipping tea, opened his mouth, hesitated, then closed it again. He did this a few times before Tonks said,





“Out with it Remus, you’ve been doing that for the past half hour. We’re good friends; ask what you wish.”





“Of course,” Remus said, “but this is a rather personal question.” Then adding hastily, “I’ll understand if you don’t wish to tell me…”





“Rubbish, Remus.” Tonks said good-naturally. “Ask.”





Remus felt a sense of apprehension from Tonks. Not from her voice, but he had learned to read people very well, her pupils had come slightly smaller and she had curled her body slightly tighter. He didn’t mean to make her uncomfortable. He just had curiosity, like anyone else. But, he reflected, how often did he give out very personal information? He had only known Tonks for less than a year, but with the Order, guard duty, and Sirius they had come close.





“What do you- I mean- what are you like-?”





“What do I look like in my true form, without the morphing?” Tonks finished.





“Well, yes.”





Tonks was silent. She had shown very few people this in her life time. Aside from her parents, not many knew. Many had asked, but to Tonks sharing this part of her was like laying bare her soul for everyone to see. It was silly, she knew, since everyone else saw their true forms everyday, but to her it was quite personal. Remus was asking her though; that’s what made her uncertain. Generally as rule she never showed her true form, but this was Remus asking, her friend. She looked up into his eyes, brown like amber or melted sugar. Those eyes were what had struck her first about him, the quiet sadness about him only hinted at in the eyes. Now, they were full of care and concern. He had thought he had offended her by asking. She needed to correct that. She made her decision.





“I can do better than that, I’ll show you.” She closed her eyes and let her whole body relax, let it go limp.





“Tonks-?” Remus was asking, seeing her go limp like a noodle.





“Sshhh”





She needed to be herself only. Slowly she peeled off her worries, and forgot everything slowly, peeling it all off like an onion. Finally, she felt it happening. It was like she could finally take a deep breath, after wearing a tight dress and forgetting what it was like to breathe.





She opened her eyes to see Remus looking at her as if the Earth had shifted. She shied and pulled her knees up to her chest and bent her head. She had been so stupid to think Remus would have been different from the rest.





“Nymphadora, I’m sorry I didn’t mean to offend you. I was only startled that you had made the change so quickly and easily. Usually it looks much harder to do so. Forgive me.”





Remus looked her anxiously. He had not meant to scare her. He knew what it meant, to be so honest with him. Tonks lifted her head and slowly let her knees down. He looked at her and was startled on how much resemblance she and Sirius actually had, before he had gone to Azkaban. Her color was good, with high cheekbones, like Narcissa, her hair was a frizzy black with brown faintly on the edges, presumably from the sun. She was not the tall, lanky person he knew, but neither was she short. Her eyes were unchanged. Their dark color was much like her mother’s. The funny thing was her face was almost…well, it was plain, but it was beyond plain. You could pass her on the street and never notice. It was as if she did not have a face.





There was another thing; he could see the scars from the constant falls, trips and breaks and from being an Auror.





“Well?”





Remus said simply, “I think you look as lovely as you always do”





Tonks would never tell Remus this, and it was unnoticeable to any other person, but herself. Others could conceal who they were on the inside, but she concealed who she was on the outside. She had great difficulty managing her bubbly nature into something else, just like she looked as different as she could possibly look to remind herself she was not like her relatives. But in this moment of truth, and moment of acceptance, she felt her heart have the faintest flutter.