I don't own Harry Potter, or the italicized lines between moments—those are a passage from The Notebook by Nicholas Sparks, which was about 20x better than the movie. This was my first time writing Charlie/Tonks (which I'm shipping mainly because Remus is Sirius' man through and through), so please R&R and tell me how I did!

.x. An Affair to Remember .x.

Summer romances end for all kinds of reasons…

- x -

Charlie Weasley hadn't been expecting anything exciting to happen that first day of N.E.W.T. level Care of Magical Creatures—after all, usually the teachers just went over their syllabuses, and maybe threw in a little bit of review, if they wanted to be exciting. In fact, the only thing that he thought would be any different this year would be the fact that they were getting a new teacher, one Professor Kettleburn. But even then, it was all going to be about the same anyways—N.E.W.T. year had always been mapped out for them. That was before the seating chart.

Kettleburn was old and frail with a voice that shook as only the most ancient voices can and tufts of pure white hair that stuck up at odd angles. He had, for some odd reason, decided that it would be a good idea to assign students seats, the only problem being that there were no desks on the Hogwarts lawn. He had solved the dilemma by conjuring up a set of rickety tables and chairs and began to assign two students to each, going in alphabetical order. "…And at this last table here, let's have—well, my, my, isn't that an interesting name—Nymphadora Tonks and Charlie Weasley," he called out, and students began to fill into their spots. Charlie found himself sitting next to a pale girl with a heart shaped face and a shock of pink hair atop her head. He opened his mouth to greet her, but she cut him off.

"Do not call me 'Nymphadora', 'Dora', 'Nymph', 'Nym', or any other ridiculous nickname you could make out of that. Call me 'Tonks'."

"Okay,' he grinned, and she smiled back.

"So, how straight-laced are you, anyways?" she asked him mischievously.

"What do you mean?"

"Well, you're a Gryffindor prefect and Quidditch star, right? Your older brother was Head Boy before you and isn't your younger brother well on his way to prefect-ism as well?"

"One of them. The other two have as big a shot of being prefects as I do of inheriting a million Galleons from my parents."

She smiled, knowing that he meant Fred and George. They were only in fourth year and already infamous, both for their skills as Beaters and their skills for brewing chaos. "So, you uptight?"

"Not really, why?"

"Would you knock points off for messing with him?" she asked, tilting her head in Kettleburn's direction.

"Not if you did it well," Charlie joked, and Tonks' expression became determined.

"Don't worry about that."

Charlie turned towards the front but continued to watch her out of the corners of his eyes, curious about what exactly she was planning. She sat innocently for a few moments, and it wasn't until Kettleburn began to take attendance that Charlie noticed something…out of the ordinary. Every time Kettleburn called a name, the girl beside him transformed her appearance to mirror that of the person. Soon others began to notice it as well, and it wasn't long before the entire class had turned around in their seats to watch the show. Students began to giggle and laugh, not only at Tonks' performance, but also and Kettleburn's cluelessness. In fact, he only noticed that something was amiss when he called Tonks' own name and, in lieu of anyone else to transform into, she took on Kettleburn's own facial features, white hair and all.

"Miss Tonks, may I ask what you're doing?"

"Exercising my abilities, sir," she said innocently, looking like herself again.

"Your abilities?"

"I'm a Metamorphmagus, sir."

Kettleburn sighed and rubbed his temples. "Could you please just choose one look and stick to it for this class, miss?" he asked, dejected.

"Can I at least change my hair, sir? Having one style all the time can get quite boring."

"Very well," he said quietly. "Now can we get back to the lesson?"

"Yes, sir, of course."

During the course of the class, she changed her hairstyle every minute, and when class was finally dismissed, Professor Kettleburn was more than happy to get rid of her. As she was crossing the lawn to get to her next class on time, Charlie jogged up to her.

"We haven't talked much before," he said.

"Mmm," she responded, not really looking at him.

"What class are you going to next?"

"Potions," she told him plainly.

"Do you like the Weird Sisters?" he asked finally, seeing that small talk wasn't working.

"I've never heard of them. Why?"

"Well, I heard one of their songs on the radio over the summer and I bought two tickets, one for me and one for my brother Bill. Well, it turns out Bill will be completely swamped with work when the concert is, which is about a week after we get out of school, and he wont be able to take a day off, and they're nonrefundable, and I was wondering if maybe you wanted to go instead?" Charlie spat this all out very fast. Tonks froze.

"Why are you asking me? Why not one of your other brothers, or one of your friends? What about Wood? You two are close. Or you could pawn it off—"

"Because I get the feeling you'll be driving me crazy all year long."

Tonks turned around. "Charlie, you've got the wrong idea. You're a nice guy, but I don't really want to date right now, and when I'm with somebody, I'm with them, and when I'm not, I'm not. I don't go in for any of that friends with benefits bull."

"The concert's not until the summer," he said hopefully.

"And what about the time until then?"

"We won't go out. It'll be our first date."

Tonks looked at him strangely. "Alright, then. If you say so."

- x -

but when all is said and done, they have one thing in common.

- x -

It rained the day of the concert, and when Charlie went to pick her up she was already soaking wet. He took her hand and they apparated off. The concert was good, but the best part of the night for Charlie was when Tonks let him take her hand and hold onto it for the rest of the night. He bought her a shirt at the end of it, and when he took her home, her smile told him that she'd had just as good a night as he.

"Tonks?" he asked her after they were back on her porch.

"What?"

"Will you be my rainy day girlfriend?"

She looked at him peculiarly. "Why your rainy day girlfriend?"

"Well, because… On rainy days my mum knits and cooks and bakes and doesn't pay us much mind, and my brothers and I could probably get away with murder on a rainy day. You and I could do anything we wanted to."

She grinned playfully at him. "You know, sometimes I just want to say no to you and your crazy ideas, just to see what you'd do."

"Don't do that, now, you'd break a poor man's heart."

Tonks laughed and he kissed her gently goodnight before she opened the door and walked inside, wet as humanly possible but as happy as possible as well.

- x -

They are shooting stars…

- x -

Charlie had blared his radio to mask the sound of Tonks apparating into his room.

"Charlie, why can't I just come to the front door like a normal person?" she asked, but he enveloped her in a deep kiss and pulled away.

"Because if my mum knew you were around, I couldn't do that."

Tonks looked at him playfully. "What else couldn't you do to me if your mum knew I was here, Charlie?" she asked, smiling as he kissed her and pulled off her shirt. They used the pace of the rain as their guide, and when all was said and done, Charlie and Tonks agreed that laying together afterwards was the best part.

- x -

a spectacular moment of light in the heavens…

- x -

"What do you see in me, Charlie?" Tonks asked him as she laid with her head in his lap, a slight frown on her face. "I'm not that great, you know. I've got a funny name, my family is one of the biggest supporters of You-Know-Who in England, and I'm much more trouble than I'm worth."

"Hey, I, for one, like your funny name. I still don't' know why you won't just let me call you Nymphadora."

"Has that ever been your name? You're lucky. You're Charlie. Apart from being a codeword in Vietnam, I'd say that's a fine name." She grinned cheekily and he pretended to scowl at her.

"Yes, well, disagree as you may, but I think you're fantastic." She raised her eyebrows inquisitively.

"My family is chock full of Slytherins and Death Eaters!"

"But you're not one of them, and neither are your parents. You can't be blamed for your family."

"And the trouble?"

"I grew up with Fred and George—compared to them, you're a piece of cake."

"Even so, Kettleburn wasn't quite the same after that first class, was he?" she laughed.

"Not at all."

"But you still haven't told me what makes me fantastic. It can't just be the funny name."

"You're exciting and refreshing—you're completely original and unique and I've never known anyone quite like you. You're sweet and you're sexy and you're everything anyone could ever imagine, all rolled into one. You're a mess and you're smart and…and I love you."

Tonks sat up, looking at him incredulously. "You love me?"

"Yeah, I love you."

She smiled. "I love you, too."

- x -

a fleeting glimpse of eternity…

- x -

They were sitting together on Charlie's bed and the irony of the fact that it was raining on his last day in England didn't escape him. His room was a sea of boxes and bags in which his belongings were packed, and which he would soon be loading onto a plane to ship to Romania. He put a muscular arm around Tonks, lifting her chin up with two fingers.

"Come on, smile a little," he said quietly, trying to smile himself.

"Why? This is our last few moments together."

"That's not true. We—"

"It is true, Charlie. It won't work. I'm staying in London for my Auror training and you're going off to Romania to chase after dragons. Don't you see how that's a problem?"

"I'm coming back!"

"You don't know when you're coming back, Charlie, and I can't just wait around for you. It's like I told you last year, either I'm your girl or I'm not."

"And right now?"

Tonks looked at him for a moment. "I can't be. Come on, we're out of school. Don't you think it's better to just leave Hogwarts behind?" Charlie opened his mouth to answer, but she cut him off. "Maybe I'll be seeing you around," she said softly and she got up and walked out the door before she could convince herself to stay.

-x-

and in a flash they're gone.