Fic: Just Tonks, Year Seven
Title: Just Tonks
Rating: PG13 [overall]
Characters Tonks/Charlie
Notes: This whole series is unbeta read, and slightly raw, any thing that you think needs fixed let me know... I appreciate constructive criticism.
Summary: One year of Tonks time at Hogwarts for each chapter...
Year 7: The Ultimatum
When Tonks smoked she did it with a vengeance; a sort of long pull of tobacco into her lungs that she held there long enough she was surprised to see any smoke at all on the exhale. Tonks smoked like she hoped it would kill her. It was a sort of revenge on herself. It made her smile.
Charlie would occasionally join her, bum a fag, and let half the thing go to waste while he laughed and explained some complicated Quidditch move. He was easy going about smoking the same way he was easy going about everything. She was almost glad he wasn't up here today.
He was out on the pitch, zooming about. She could just make out the little dots of color in the distance, but imagined she knew which one was him by the way that dot seemed to float just an inch above all the others. She put one finger up in the air and the little dot disappeared behind it. Gone.
Gone off to Romania, most likely, to tend dragons, and lost to her completely. Tonks considered what it would be like in Romania, as she took another long drag from the cigarette hanging between her lips, and followed the little dot with her finger in the air. Charlie would be sun crisp with his fair skin, covered in mud, and smelling musky and heavy with sweat. They could share a tent, tumble into bed after a shift and live each day for each other.
All she had to do was give up her dream.
People did that everyday.
When Tonks dropped the butt over the railing she leaned way over and watched it fall. It got smaller and smaller and smaller, until it was entirely insignificant. Gone.
School would be over in a month or so, and this life would be as distant to her as that filter.
Charlie had talked her into meeting him in the of Gryffindor's showers. He'd wheedled her into compliance with his easy smile, that dimpled out his freckled cheeks, and spoke of innocence that belied his true nature. He had the keys. They wouldn't be interrupted. It would be fun.
She went.
She dressed up in Slytherin Quidditch robes she'd surreptitiously borrowed from one of her dorm mates, and spent half an hour in front of the mirror trying on different noses. It was silly, she knew, but Tonks couldn't handle this if it wasn't about the game. She would think of the time that was left, and what had to happen after that and they would argue.
They would argue, because there was no possible way they could agree. There was no compromise to be made. One of them was being pig headed and stupid. The problem was, some days, she couldn't figure out which one of them it was.
Charlie gave her that questioning look he always gave her when the disguise was too convincing, and he wasn't sure it was really her, but she pushed him through the door and locked it behind her.
They didn't speak. Tonks pushed him up against a row of lockers and the metallic echo drowned out her thoughts of anything, but the taste of sweat on flesh. He let her tug his shirt over his head, and run her hands down the sparse hair of his chest, without moving except a slight shiver as her fingers brushed a nipple. When she buried her face in his neck and inhaled deeply she felt him touch her for the first time, running his fingers through her long brown hair. She hadn't even realised her disguise was slipping away until then, and she frowned at the loss of the pretense of a game.
It was the first time she ever made love with him as just Tonks: Her hair, her nose, her lips, her breasts, and he touched and tasted them, without that easy laughter, or predictable lines. He brought her off with his fingers after he came, whispering forbidden words of endearment into her ears: words they weren't allowed to say to each other, things that neither of them had ever dared say.
She wanted to cry when she came, because, no matter how beautiful or right it had felt, it hadn't changed anything.
Tonks hid out in the Slytherin common room to study, afraid that if she went to the library or to her favourite spot up in the astronomy tower she would see Charlie, and decide that being an auror was silly and what she really wanted was to go to Romania. She sighed into the book she was hardly paying attention to and tried to make freckles appear on her forearm instead.
A group of her fellow Slytherins were scheming over by the fire and she could just hear bits and pieces of the plan. It was a bad one, but this close to the end of term, house points and detentions didn't really matter and people's true juvenile natures showed through.
Tonks threw her book down on a random table and went to find Charlie. She was struck with a sudden plan that had to work. She would give him an ultimatum, she thought, me or Romania. She would tell him, she decided, that he could stay here, and he could get a job at the ministry. He could work with magical creatures here, anything as long as he stayed in the country, and they could be together. She would tell him that she was going into auror training and if he really loved her the way he claimed when he whispered it in her ear that day in the showers then he would stay, and be with her. She would tell him if he left it was over, for good, forever. They couldn't be lovers. They couldn't be friends. They couldn't be anything if he abandoned her for Romania.
That was it. She would put it all on the line.
Her or Romania.
He'd have to pick her. Wouldn't he?
Rating: PG13 [overall]
Characters Tonks/Charlie
Notes: This whole series is unbeta read, and slightly raw, any thing that you think needs fixed let me know... I appreciate constructive criticism.
Summary: One year of Tonks time at Hogwarts for each chapter...
Year 7: The Ultimatum
When Tonks smoked she did it with a vengeance; a sort of long pull of tobacco into her lungs that she held there long enough she was surprised to see any smoke at all on the exhale. Tonks smoked like she hoped it would kill her. It was a sort of revenge on herself. It made her smile.
Charlie would occasionally join her, bum a fag, and let half the thing go to waste while he laughed and explained some complicated Quidditch move. He was easy going about smoking the same way he was easy going about everything. She was almost glad he wasn't up here today.
He was out on the pitch, zooming about. She could just make out the little dots of color in the distance, but imagined she knew which one was him by the way that dot seemed to float just an inch above all the others. She put one finger up in the air and the little dot disappeared behind it. Gone.
Gone off to Romania, most likely, to tend dragons, and lost to her completely. Tonks considered what it would be like in Romania, as she took another long drag from the cigarette hanging between her lips, and followed the little dot with her finger in the air. Charlie would be sun crisp with his fair skin, covered in mud, and smelling musky and heavy with sweat. They could share a tent, tumble into bed after a shift and live each day for each other.
All she had to do was give up her dream.
People did that everyday.
When Tonks dropped the butt over the railing she leaned way over and watched it fall. It got smaller and smaller and smaller, until it was entirely insignificant. Gone.
School would be over in a month or so, and this life would be as distant to her as that filter.
Charlie had talked her into meeting him in the of Gryffindor's showers. He'd wheedled her into compliance with his easy smile, that dimpled out his freckled cheeks, and spoke of innocence that belied his true nature. He had the keys. They wouldn't be interrupted. It would be fun.
She went.
She dressed up in Slytherin Quidditch robes she'd surreptitiously borrowed from one of her dorm mates, and spent half an hour in front of the mirror trying on different noses. It was silly, she knew, but Tonks couldn't handle this if it wasn't about the game. She would think of the time that was left, and what had to happen after that and they would argue.
They would argue, because there was no possible way they could agree. There was no compromise to be made. One of them was being pig headed and stupid. The problem was, some days, she couldn't figure out which one of them it was.
Charlie gave her that questioning look he always gave her when the disguise was too convincing, and he wasn't sure it was really her, but she pushed him through the door and locked it behind her.
They didn't speak. Tonks pushed him up against a row of lockers and the metallic echo drowned out her thoughts of anything, but the taste of sweat on flesh. He let her tug his shirt over his head, and run her hands down the sparse hair of his chest, without moving except a slight shiver as her fingers brushed a nipple. When she buried her face in his neck and inhaled deeply she felt him touch her for the first time, running his fingers through her long brown hair. She hadn't even realised her disguise was slipping away until then, and she frowned at the loss of the pretense of a game.
It was the first time she ever made love with him as just Tonks: Her hair, her nose, her lips, her breasts, and he touched and tasted them, without that easy laughter, or predictable lines. He brought her off with his fingers after he came, whispering forbidden words of endearment into her ears: words they weren't allowed to say to each other, things that neither of them had ever dared say.
She wanted to cry when she came, because, no matter how beautiful or right it had felt, it hadn't changed anything.
Tonks hid out in the Slytherin common room to study, afraid that if she went to the library or to her favourite spot up in the astronomy tower she would see Charlie, and decide that being an auror was silly and what she really wanted was to go to Romania. She sighed into the book she was hardly paying attention to and tried to make freckles appear on her forearm instead.
A group of her fellow Slytherins were scheming over by the fire and she could just hear bits and pieces of the plan. It was a bad one, but this close to the end of term, house points and detentions didn't really matter and people's true juvenile natures showed through.
Tonks threw her book down on a random table and went to find Charlie. She was struck with a sudden plan that had to work. She would give him an ultimatum, she thought, me or Romania. She would tell him, she decided, that he could stay here, and he could get a job at the ministry. He could work with magical creatures here, anything as long as he stayed in the country, and they could be together. She would tell him that she was going into auror training and if he really loved her the way he claimed when he whispered it in her ear that day in the showers then he would stay, and be with her. She would tell him if he left it was over, for good, forever. They couldn't be lovers. They couldn't be friends. They couldn't be anything if he abandoned her for Romania.
That was it. She would put it all on the line.
Her or Romania.
He'd have to pick her. Wouldn't he?