"Nymphadora Tonks, top secret agent for the British Ministry for Magic, reportin' for duty!"

Tonks sat on the couch, staring at her bare toes. On the coffee table beside her, her train case stood open, a bottle of pink nail polish still dripping beside it. She'd already done her finger nails and now her toes were nearly dry and she was officially bored.

Sliding off the couch, she decided to go find out what she was protecting any ways - after all, Peter and Oni had said she couldn't let anyone else see what was hiding in Peter's room, not that she couldn't go see for herself. She snuck down the hallway to the rooms and pushed open the door, glancing back down the hall toward the living room. 

She'd mistaken Remus and Sirius's door for Peter's though, and she realized it the moment she looked in and saw Sirius's hot pink Please Return to Remus Lupin t-shirt laying on the floor. But honestly, she was instantly distracted from her original mission when she realized it was Sirius's room. This was much more interesting. She looked around, jaw dropped in awe as though she were walking into a shrine of some sort, her pink-painted toes sinking into a plush shag rug that lined the floor.

The room was an eclectic mess of things that seemed the perfect blend of her two favorite people in the world - Sirius and Remus's things were mingled together but so definitively different in style that it was easy to tell which of them had done which bits of the decorating and which things they had ceded to the other's tastes. For example, there were sensible curtains in the window, which were dark green and blocked the sunlight but hanging between them in the window itself was a bright glass parrot that sunlight came through, turning the walls and floor the colors of the stained glass filtering it. There were posters on the wall - mostly of different rock bands, including one of Freddie Mercury, who Tonks recognized from Sirius's album covers. There was also a giant poster from the tourism department of Costa Rica with a painted palm tree. Beside that was a framed photo of Remus and Sirius, standing in front of a unicorn on a beach. 

"Wow, cool," Tonks whispered, and she climbed up onto the bed, which was made - Remus's doing - to get a closer look at the photo and the unicorn. She was grinning at it and reached up to take it off the wall and have a closer look. Her fingers closed around the frame and she stared at it, balancing wobbily on the mattress.

"That was their wedding," said a voice and Tonks nearly jumped out of her skin with surprise, dropping the photo, which fell from her hand, bounced off the mattress, and landed with a crunch on the floor as the glass in the frame shattered. She fell on her bum and looked 'round to the door in fear, thinking she'd accidentally let one of the enemies she was supposed to be guarding against walk right in with her inattention to the front door.

But nobody was there.

She scrambled down and stuck her head out the door, peering either way down the hallway, wide eyed, her heart slamming in her chest.

"Hello?!" she asked, trying to keep her voice from trembling at all.

"Relax," the voice said. "I'm up here."

She looked up and around and her eyes landed on a drawing in another frame that sat on Sirius's nightstand. She blinked at it in surprise. She'd seen moving portraits before, of course - there were a few at home that her mother had taken when she'd left her family home. In fact, there was one she liked to talk to sometimes - it was of a man with grey eyes like hers, standing with a blonde man with shaggy hair in front of a castle with loads of lavender trees around them, holding up cups of gelato and smiling. The men in the portrait were always very kind to her and complimented her pink hair. But this portrait was different than those - it was more of a sketch than a painting like every other portrait Tonks had seen that talked were. He was younger, too, this boy in the drawing. 

And he looked a lot like Sirius.

But different.

She stared at it, wide-eyed, nervous.

"It's alright," the portrait said. "Really. I'm just a drawing, aren't I? It's not as though I can do anything to hurt you."

"Yeah, that's true," she said, bolstered by this. She laughed at herself for being afraid, then, and ran a hand through her hair. "Oh sugar, did my hair change?"

"When you fell down it did," the portrait nodded. "That's pretty cool. You must be a metamorphmagus."

"Yeah! I am," she said proudly.

"My favorite person in the world was a Metamorphmagus," the portrait told her.

"Who's that?" Tonks asked, eager to hear about another metamorphmagus. She'd never met another one before. She walked over toward the drawing.

"Her name was Maryrose Jenkins," the picture said, smiling. "She was wonderful. She wore her hair teal."

Tonks smiled back and screwed up her nose and her cheeks turned red with the effort of it - teal was a rather difficult color to change hair, she realized - and then, she asked, "Like this?"

The drawing nodded, "Exactly like that."

Tonks rubbed her nose. "I like Maryrose Jenkins," she decided. She didn't need to know anything more than that the girl was a metamorphmagus who had bright color hair to know she liked her - plus if this picture considered her his favorite person, she must be cool because why would Sirius have a picture of anyone who wasn't good enough to know best about who was cool and who was not? "Who are you, by the way?" she asked.

"I'm Regulus Black," he answered.

Tonks's eyes widened. "Sirius's brother."

"Yes, that's right," Portrait Regulus answered. He studied her a moment. "And you are?"

"Nymphadora Tonks," she said, "Pleased to meet you. I'm Sirius's cousin." She paused, then, "Well, I suppose I'm you're cousin as well, seeing as you're his brother!" She held out her hand to shake hands with Regulus, but realized rather suddenly her error. "Oh. Sorry about that. I suppose we can't shake hands."

"I don't have any arms, sorry," Portrait Regulus said.

Tonks laughed, "Now I feel really silly for thinking you might hurt me before."

The Portrait of Regulus laughed, too. "What are you doing here, Tonks?"

"Waiting for Peter and Oni to come back," she said. "They went on a very important mission and I'm guarding the flat while they're gone. There's bad guys that might come and try and steal a magical treasure in Peter's room and then I've got to keep them busy and distract them before they can do it and let Peter and Oni know the bad guys are here by pushing on this necklace." She grabbed the necklace from around her neck and held it up for Regulus to see.

The portrait raised an eyebrow, "Where's Sirius and Remus?"

"Out," Tonks replied.

"So you're here all alone?"

Tonks puffed out her chest, "I'm alright. I'm a secret agent, see. Very important, my job, keeping the baddies out of Peter's room."

"And what is it that you're protecting, then?" the Portrait asked.

"I don't know," she replied, "I was on my way to look when I found you."

The Portrait nodded slowly, then asked, "Well... why don't you take me down from here and bring me with you and we can see together what it is you're guarding?"

Tonks thought about it, then said, "Heyyyy - what if you're the bad guy that's not supposed to see what's there?" she demanded. "Oni said anyone could be the enemy."

The Portrait laughed again, "I don't think she meant portraits, Tonks. What is a portrait going to do to try at stealing a thing? No hands, remember?"

"Yeah true," she nodded, and she reached up and grabbed the frame from the nightstand, knocking over a watch that fell to the floor. She stepped back and meant to pick up the watch, but she got distracted by the broken glass from the other picture she'd picked up and she stepped around it carefully, her feet bare. Her fingers tightened around the frame that the portrait was in, not wanting another casualty on her hands.

Tonks carried Portrait Regulus down the hallway to Peter's bedroom.

"So how come you don't live here with Sirius and Remus?" Tonks asked the Portrait, nosey.

The portrait looked sad. "I did for a bit."

"Why not anymore?"

Regulus's Portrait answered plainly, "Because I died."

Tonks paused walking and stared at the Portrait. "You did?"

"Yes," Portrait Regulus answered.

Tonks paused. "What's it like? Dying? Is it scary?"

Regulus's Portrait shrugged, "I honestly don't recall it."

"Oh," Tonks said. "Well, at least you don't remember if it hurt, right?"

Regulus's portrait laughed and he answered, "Yes, I suppose that's a silver lining."

Tonks thought she rather liked Sirius's brother and she wondered why she couldn't remember meeting him, why her mum never talked about him like she sometimes talked about Sirius, and why Sirius himself, for that matter, never talked about him? She thought she might've liked to be friends with Regulus Black. She wondered how he died.

She'd arrived at Peter's room while they were talking and pushed open the door.

Peter's room had the blinds drawn so it was very dark in there and Tonks reached for the light switch to turn on the lights. Peter's bedroom was dusty, though generally it was neater than she'd expected. The bed wasn't made, but everything else was neatened up. Books were in straight piles on the desk, and there were all sorts of charts of the stars on the walls and a poster with lots of funny looking letters - runes, perhaps? - with translations beside them. There was a whole lot of sweets in a plastic basket beside the bed and a lava lamp that moved hypnotically on top of his dresser. But there didn't seem to be anything particularly worth guarding in there.

"There's nothing even here to guard!" she said, frowning. "I think they might've lied to me."

Portrait Regulus frowned. "What's that book on the desk?" he asked.

Tonks carried the portrait over and climbed onto the desk chair, kneeling on it and staring at the cover. "Saving The World For The Greater Good," she read the title. "By... Gellart --" she'd pronounced it with a soft G sound so it was like jell-o, "Grin- Grin --"

"Grindelwald?" the Portrait sounded concerned. "Gellart Grindelwald?"

"Yes, that's it," Tonks said.

"Hmm."

"Hmm what?" she asked, looking at the Portrait. "Who's Gellert Grindelwald?"

"A very bad wizard," the Portrait replied.

"Like Volde--"

"Don't say that name!" Regulus's Portrait interrupted her harshly.

Tonks stopped mid-name.

"Don't ever say that name," the Portrait said.

"Why?"

"Because. Just don't."

She nodded. Her mum used reasons like that a lot. Because I said so was one of Andromeda's favorites. Tonks asked, "Is you know who worser than Gellert Grindelwald?"

"No," Regulus answered flatly. "But he's very, very bad, and it's very suspicous that anybody would be reading that book by him. It's the sort of book that bad wizards write for other bad wizards to read and good wizards don't generally read rubbish like that. It's very concerning that anybody is reading that book. That's all."

Tonks frowned and made a thinking face. Then, imitating the tone with which the Portrait had done it, she mused, "Hmm!" 

The Portrait of Regulus smirked at her face all screwed up in concentration. 

Tonks wondered if the book was perhaps what she was to keep out of the hands of any potential enemies. Perhaps it was a magical book. Perhaps it contained top secret information inside that only people who were for Grindelwald would know what it meant. Maybe Peter was keeping the bad guys from getting the book because of how powerful it might make them if they knew what it said? She shivered.

Suddenly, there came a voice from the living room. "Nymphadora?" 

It was Remus Lupin.

Tonks scrambled down from the chair and rushed across Peter's room to the door, slamming it shut, clutching the Portrait of Regulus Black in both hands as she rushed down the hallway, slamming into Remus as she ran and falling backwards onto her bum on the carpet. She looked down at the Portrait in her hands with wide eyes, a bit wild with panic that it might've cracked, but he was safe in her fists still. She looked up at Remus.

"HI!" she said, a bit too enthusiastically for sounding innocent.

Remus raised an eyebrow, "Tonks... what've you been up to? And how long have you been here? Are you all by yourself?"

"How did you know I was here?"

"You're the only person I know with a train case like the one sitting on my living room coffee table right now," he said.

"Oh - right!" she said.

"What are you doing?" Remus asked. He was carrying his briefcase in one hand and a ruck sack in the other. She could see paint brush handles sticking out of the sack and he had some charcoal dust on his cheek. "Are you snooping about in Peter's room?"

"No," she lied. But she could tell the way his eyebrow went up that he knew better so she changed tack, "I wasn't snooping," she said, "I was looking for - erm - candy." Peter always had candy.

Remus eyed her suspiciously. "How long have you been here?"

"Not long."

"By yourself?"

"The whole time," she nodded eagerly, remembering she wasn't to tell anyone that she'd seen Peter and Oni.

"And how did you get in?" he asked.

"I let myself in," Tonks declared.

"Through a locked door?"

She hesitated, then blurted out, "It wasn't locked!"

"It wasn't?" Remus looked to be on the edge between believing her and questioning her story, so she quickly nodded.

"Nope, not locked. I tried the handle and pushed right in! I was waiting for you or Sirius to get home because I wanted to visit you! And then I didn't want to leave your house all empty and unlocked so I decided to house-sit for you! I locked the door and was sitting on the couch and painting my nails and then I was really hungry for a licorice wand and Peter always has candy, doesn't he? So I went to look for some and then you came home."

Remus pointed at the Portrait still clutched in Tonks's hands. "And how, exactly, did you end up with the portrait from Sirius's nightstand?"

"Oh I checked Sirius's night stand for candy first because I know Sirius would let me have some if I asked, but he didn't have any," Tonks said smoothly. Peter and Oni were going to owe her a good deal of candy as a reward for being so smooth with all this, she thought. Remus wasn't suspecting a single thing at this rate. "But the Portrait said that Peter's room might have some candy. Didn't you?" she looked at the Portrait. 

"Something vaguely like that," Portrait Regulus said.

Remus frowned. It was obvious she was fibbing, but he wasn't entirely sure where in the story the line was blurring or why. He knew Sirius had been known to forget to lock the door when he left - so that bit was plausible, really. But there was something about the whole  looking for candy bit that felt... off... and he couldn't quite tell why. 

"Well let's put this back before it gets broken," he said, plucking the Portrait out of Tonks's hand. He carried the portrait back to his and Sirius's bedroom and pushed opened the door. Tonks rushed after him.

"Did you know that's Sirius's brother?" she asked.

"I did," Remus said, "I drew the portrait."

"You did?" Tonks asked.

Remus nodded as he stepped around the door and paused, staring at the picture on the floor, the broken glass on the carpet. He turned around and looked at Tonks again, eyebrow raised.

"Oh that was an accident," she said, flushing.

"What were you doing with our wedding photo?" he asked.

Tonks hesitated. "I was um... looking at the unicorn. I noticed it when I was looking for the candy," she added.

Remus sighed and picked up the photo, then drew his wand and performed a reparo - the shards of glass flew up from between the carpet fibers and back into place in the frame, the seams where it had broken smoothing out until it was just as clear as the day they'd put the photo in the frame in the first place. Tonks looked utterly impressed. "That was sooo cool," she said, though she'd seen the reparo quite often (Ted was a bit of a klutz), it seemed extra cool the way Remus Lupin had done it. Tonks looked up at him in admiration. "You're very good at magic," she complimented him.

Remus put Regulus's portrait back down on the nightstand and bent down to pick up the watch, which had fallen onto the floor earlier, too. He put it down in front of the portrait, then paused.

"Oi Tonks?"

"Yes?"

Remus reached down and plucked a Lion bar off the night stand from beside where the Portrait sat. He raised an eyebrow.

Tonks stared at the candy bar in his hand. Tonks bit her lips.

"You might as well tell him," Regulus's Portrait said from the nightstand.

She crunched up her nose, "I'm not - not supposed to tell!" she whined.

"Tonks," Remus said in a warning tone. 

Her lower lip trembled. "I'm a terrible, terrible undercover agent!" she said and she burst into tears.