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Tonks skidded into the mouth of the cave, slipped on a patch of loose gravel, and fell to the floor, scratching her arm on the sharp rocks. She rolled through the fall, slashing her wand at the jagged opening until the shimmer of the Notice-Me-Not Charm came crashing into place. She could hear the sounds of the hexes outside, sizzling in the darkness, rebounding off the protection charms guarding the cave. She sprang into a crouch, holding her breath, listening hard so she could hear the muffled cries of battle over the sound of her own heartbeat thudding in her ears.
“You are surely the loudest Auror on the force, Nymphadora,” drawled a voice from the pitch black cavern behind her. “How do you manage to remain employed?”
She whipped around to see Severus Snape illuminated by the blue light from his wand. Darkness licked the edges of the light, and he looked more at home in the shadows than he should have.
“I’ve got plenty of good qualities to make up for it,” she said, glaring. “What are you doing here?”
He arched an eyebrow at her. “The same as you, I expect. Hiding from the fallout of the Order’s badly executed offensive.”
“It wasn’t badly executed. You might have warned us that the Death Eaters were going to show up with three times more force than we’d planned for.”
“A badly planned offensive, then.”
Her fingers itched to hex him. Just a little one. Something to make him dance or sing, and wipe that bloody superior look off his face.
“Why are you hiding anyway?” she said. “Shouldn’t you be out there celebrating with them?”
“Not tonight. I’ve been told explictly to stay with the Order tonight. Mustn’t let Dumbledore think I’m too much of a loose canon, after all.”
His tone was so dry, she could never quite tell when he was joking. Sometimes she even wondered what side he was actually on.
That was the trouble with a spy, wasn’t it? If they were any damn good at their job, they might be fooling you just as well as they were fooling their mark.
Tonks shifted uncomfortably as she became hyperaware of how bloody alone they were. Even if she could get a Patronus through that battle, there was no way anyone would be able to get in to help her in time. Not if Snape decided to turn on her. She was no slouch of a duelist, but she also wasn’t stupid enough to think that she could outmatch Severus Snape if it came down to it.
Good thing she’d gotten that Will updated like a responsible adult to get Mum off her back.
By this point, Snape had apparently become bored with her presence and decided to ignore her. He moved about the cave with silent, feline movements, flicking his wand to start a smokeless fire in the fireplace that had been carved into the back wall of the cave. In minutes, he had procured tea from somewhere, and was setting out the chipped tea cups and saucers on an ancient wooden table. Tonks shook herself out of her stupor, and pulled a packet of sandwiches and biscuits out of her extendable pocket to add to the fecking bizarre tea party.
When they were gathered around the table together, warming their hands with tea cups filled with steaming tea, Tonks started to giggle. She tried to keep it contained, but then she gave a great snort with the effort. Seeing it was a lost cause, she laughed until there were tears in her eyes.
Snape stared at her over the rim of his tea cup. “I fail to see the humor in the current situation.”
“How can you not? First of all, we’re having a bloody tea party in a cave while the Order is going at it tooth and claw with the Death Eaters outside. Second, it’s us having said tea party. I don’t think we’ve spent this much time alone together since you were advising me on my N.E.W.T. project.”
“I see. Well. At least if we are to die tonight, you will do so laughing.”
Now she was sure he was joking. His lips were fighting not to smile, and his eyes had a glint in them that, for once, was anything but malicious.
“I can think of worse ways to go.”
“Hmmm. You might have wished for better company, in any case.”
Something about the tone of his voice told her there were at least three shades of meaning to that statement. Untangling them felt as difficult and dangerous as untwisting a Gordian Knot Bomb.
Tonks had always loved untwisting Gordian Knot Bombs.
“Speaking of better company, now would be the perfect time for you to apologize for being a git about my new Patronus.”
The glint in his eye was slowly turning into a gleam. “Why on earth would I do that?”
Fuck. Had Snape’s voice always sounded like smoked whiskey and chocolate?
She put up her chin. “Because it’s the right thing to do.”
His eyes bored into hers, giving her the sort of death-stare she’d seen him use on countless others over the years. Usually, it made the other person tuck tail and run. But Tonks had learned from the best. Compared to Alastor, a stare-down with Severus was almost a walk in the park.
Almost.
When had the air in this cave turned from ice cold to flaming hot? When had Snape become Severus? And fuck—why had she never noticed that his eyes were a deep, midnight blue and not black—never black?
“You’re right,” he said at last, and she jumped at the sound of his voice breaking the silence between them. “It was ill done of me. No one chooses who they love.”
Fuck. If there had been three shades of meaning to his pervious statement, there were at least twelve shades going on now.
“Right.” Her mouth was dry, in spite of the tea staining her lips. “Don’t worry about it.”
He stood up then, his gaze never leaving hers as he came around the table. She rose to her feet like a sleepwalker in a dream, her whole field of vision dominated by the force of his eyes. He didn’t stop advancing until he was close enough to her she could’ve touched him if she’d wanted. Her body was even swaying towards him, longing for something—what she hardly dared think, even to herself.
He was a bloody mind reader. He probably already fucking knew.
“Go. Get some sleep. I’ll take the first watch,” he said.
“But—”
“Go, Nymphadora.”
She could feel his cloak brushing against her body as he walked past her to the front of the cave. It made her want to do stupid things, ridiculous things. Things that needed to stay unthought, unsaid.
“My name’s not Nymphadora,” she said.
She could feel his eyes on her in the darkness. “I know.”