Ain't Misbehavin' (3/4) – Chapter 3: Ain't Misbehavin'

[starfishstar]

AIN'T MISBEHAVIN'

Summary: It wouldn't be the Auror Christmas party without a mystery to solve, a spot of mischief, and a very well-earned slow dance.

Characters: Tonks, Remus; various minor characters

Words: ca. 7,000 total; this chapter 2,000 words

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Chapter 3: Ain't Misbehavin'

They split the room between them, Tonks and Remus, and started their search.

Tonks headed to the cloakroom first. She knew the men who were most likely to have participated in nabbing Buckle's pocket watch, and she was pretty certain she hadn't seen any of them leave the ballroom. One of them could easily have ducked into the cloakroom, though, and stowed the watch there.

Besides, they would want to keep it somewhere nearby; all three of the men in question were busily getting drunk on the spiced wine from the drinks table; by the end of the night they would be sloshed, and would want to locate the watch and toss it back to a distraught Buckle with a minimum of effort.

Ugh. Teasing could be fun, but only if both sides were agreeable participants in it.

Tonks slipped inside the cloakroom, glad to find no one else in there at the moment. The hubbub of the party was slightly muffled from here, but she noted that the recorded music was still playing. The orchestra hadn't yet come back on. Well, all the more motivation to find the watch fast, in time to drag Remus onto the dance floor when the live music began!

Tonks worked her way through the rows of cloaks, feeling them from the outside for any hard, round shapes that might be a watch, but not reaching directly into the pockets. At least that way she felt a little less like she was invading other partygoers' privacy for the sake of the search.

Nothing in any of the cloaks, though. Tonks looked through the rest of the room, in low, dusty corners and high on shelves, but came up empty-handed. All right, if not in the cloakroom, then where?

She stepped back into the main space of the ballroom and looked around. Remus was on the other side of the room, surreptitiously checking each of the gaudy golden decorative bows that adorned the lamps set at regular intervals along the walls. It was a good idea – where better to hide a gold thing than in plain sight amidst a bunch of gold-coloured decorations?

Remus was doing a good job of it, too, looking utterly unremarkable as he very casually leaned against the wall next to one of the lamps in such a way that he happened to have a clear sightline at the gap between the folds of the bow and the iron bracket that held the glass bowl of the lamp.

Tonks grinned, watching him. She hoped he was having fun. This was a fairly non-traditional party activity she'd roped him into, but Remus looked in his element, with a problem to focus his mind on. And he looked very much the part of the gentleman detective, with those dashing robes swirling around him. Tonks could happily watch Remus investigate wall lamps all night.

Alas, she should probably do her own part in the investigation, rather than just admiring Remus at his work.

Where else should she look – under the drinks table? In the little basket where Proudfoot collected the invitation scrolls as guests brought them in? It all seemed a little too obvious. Of course, one of the men might even be carrying the watch with him, but Tonks somehow thought that wasn't the case. If this was as she suspected, then part of the fun for them was playing hide-and-seek with Buckle, even if Buckle himself wasn't a willing participant.

Well, then she would just have to work the room, poke her nose everywhere and see if she turned up any suspicious signs. It was what she was trained for, after all! She could turn her professionally honed Auror skills to the Strange Disappearance of Buckle's Pocket Watch for one night.

Tonks wove through the crowd, keeping her eyes open and listening to the chatter around her. She slipped up behind all three of the men she suspected in turn, just to see if they happened to be discussing their little prank with anyone, but she didn't hear anything relevant.

One guy was telling his date a clearly exaggerated tale about a horde of Dementors he'd fought off single-handedly. (Tonks knew it was exaggerated, because she'd been there herself.) Another was telling a friend that he really must try the tapenade.

The third man was standing alone, not talking to anyone…and he had a suspicious lump in his left breast pocket.

Tonks contrived to bump into him as she passed by, apologising profusely for her clumsiness and smiling disarmingly. But when her forearm brushed his breast pocket, she could tell the lump there was just his cigarette case. Drat!

She continued on through the crowd, working her way towards the side of the room with the balcony above it, on the lookout for anything out of the ordinary. The light of the coloured lantern above lent the faces around her on the dance floor a ghostly green cast…

Wait.

Tonks looked up, then down again. Green light spilled around her in the middle of the dance floor, from the green glass pane at the front of the lantern, while the faces of people standing further to the sides of the dance floor were ruddy in the light cast through the bicoloured lantern's red sides.

That wasn't how the lantern had been before, though, Tonks was sure of it. The red panes had been facing to the front and back, and the green ones to the sides. Someone had turned the lantern in the last half hour, and what reason would anyone have had to touch that lantern now, in the middle of the party, if not…?

Tonks spun around, her eyes searching through the crowd for Remus. There he was – she felt a jolt of recognition and pleasure as she caught sight of him, his rich, deep blue robes standing out among the throng, his face thoughtful and attentive as he searched for their quarry, the missing watch.

She waited until he looked in her direction, and his eyes found hers. Tonks flicked her glance up at the lantern above her head, then down again at the green cast of the light all around her. Remus' gaze followed where she looked, and she saw the moment when he got it, his mouth forming a gratifying 'O' of surprise.

He nodded in understanding, and started towards her. But when Tonks looked away from Remus, she noticed someone else heading her way – one of the musicians, coming to set up again on the balcony that would serve as the band's stage. Tonks needed to get onto the balcony to reach the lantern, and if she didn't do it before the musicians took up their places, she would end up causing a much bigger disturbance dashing up onstage right in front of them. Better to get up there now, grab the watch, and get out of the way again before attention returned to this end of the room.

Her eyes sought out Remus, still making his way towards her, weaving between dancers and talkers and drinkers. Tonks tossed her head in an apologetic way that she hoped conveyed, Sorry, can't wait around, have to do this now! Then she turned and dashed up the staircase that connected the dance floor to the balcony.

When she reached, Tonks saw chairs set out on the balcony, where the musicians would play. Their instruments stood ready as well – an upright bass, resting on its side; a drum kit; several stands bearing trumpets, trombones and a saxophone. Her quarry, though, was the big coloured lantern that hung from the ceiling in front of the balcony, casting its light down onto the dance floor. Good – the lantern was indeed how it had looked from below, close enough to the balcony railing that Tonks would, she hoped, just barely be able to reach out and touch it.

She supposed she could also try an Accio charm, but if the watch was hidden inside the lantern as she suspected, it might well break one of the glass panes on its way out. And broken glass all over the dance floor of the Christmas party was a mess Tonks would definitely rather avoid.

No, better if she could actually get her hands on the lantern, and get the watch out without requiring spellwork.

Tonks leaned against the balcony railing, squinting at the lantern that hung just a little more than an arm's length in front of her. She stood on the tips of her toes, trying to see over the top of the nearest glass-paned side. Then she crouched down, to see below it.

There! A glint of gold – the watch rested inside the lantern on a little lip of metal, part of the iron framework that supported the four panes of glass. No question about it; someone had hidden it there and accidentally jostled the lamp a quarter turn in the process. Now she just had to fish the watch out again.

Tonks leaned, and leaned further. The lantern remained just beyond her grasp.

She looked around and considered. She couldn't reach the lantern from where she stood behind the railing, but she was quite sure she could do it if she climbed up and sat on the wide newel post where the stairs met the balcony.

Tonks slid her wand out from its discreet holster at her back, just in case she overbalanced and needed to break her fall quickly. With her wand in her right hand, she used her left to hike up the folds of her dress. Not very elegant, but oh well! Tonks had done far worse in the pursuit of justice.

She hitched one hip up, and wriggled her way into a seated position on the newel post.

Now she leaned out, keeping herself carefully balanced on the post, and reached towards the bottom edge of the lantern. Closer – almost – almost – there! Her fingers brushed the bottom of the glass pane. The lantern swung from the impact of her touch, red and green light dancing. Quickly, as it swung back towards her, Tonks reached up underneath and grabbed the pocket watch.

Even as her fingers met the smooth gold surface of the watch and grasped it, Tonks felt herself starting to overbalance. The watch was in her hand, but her perch atop the post was slipping.

Tonks didn't have to think. If she was going down one way or another, she knew which route she preferred to take. She shifted her weight towards the banister that extended down to the dance floor, and slid.

It was a perfect, fast, smooth slide. Tonks hadn't had such a glorious ride down a banister since she was a kid at Hogwarts. It was all she could do not to whoop aloud.

Her feet hit the floor with a solid thump, and she just barely managed not to stumble. Not a graceful landing, but she still had her wand in one hand and the pocket watch in the other. Mission completed, if in rather idiosyncratic fashion.

Tonks looked up to find Remus in front of her, his eyes dancing and one hand clapped over his mouth as he tried hard not to laugh. She glanced around – ah, yes, everyone in the vicinity was staring at her. Of course. She had, after all, just slid down the entire length of a banister in a red cocktail dress in front of what suddenly seemed like at least half of the Ministry.

So much for not causing a scene at the Christmas party this year.

Still, for the sake of the merriment on Remus' face, she would gladly have done a whole lot more.

"Here," Tonks said, grinning, and held up her left hand. "I got the watch."

(continue to CHAPTER FOUR: Strangers in the Night, the final chapter!)

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