Written for the Iron Fic Competition at the Teachers Lounge Forum with the prompts Charlie/Tonks and a tourist attraction in Muggle England.
Of Roman Baths and Ice Creams, Drunken New Years and New Beginnings
Ten-year-old Teddy Lupin had a temper, and it was in full flight right now.
"A bath?" he demanded belligerently. "I had a bath on Saturday. And a shower yesterday. I'm clean!"
His mother sighed. A day out with the children had seemed such a good idea when Charlie suggested it, but now she wasn't so sure. If the whole day was going to be like this… She held onto her own temper with difficulty.
"I said Bath, Ted, not a bath," she said quietly, in a tone that her son knew he must not interrupt or argue with. "Bath. The place. The town called Bath. In Somerset."
Teddy hated to be wrong. He muttered something about, "Well, you could have said so," and sloped off to his room to dress and pretend to comb his hair.
Tonks sighed. It looked like being a long day.
In a cottage by the sea not so very far from Bath, another mother was arguing with her child.
"For the last time, Victoire," Fleur Weasley said firmly. "Dominique is going to Bath with Uncle Charlie and Tonks because she was invited and you were not. I have heard more than enough of you whining about it."
"But it's not fair," Victoire whined. "I'm older than Dominique. I should go. It's not fair!"
Dominique smirked and helped herself to more cornflakes.
"You only care because you're in love with Teddy," she said.
Victoire made an inarticulate sound of fury and reached across the table, pulling hard on her sister's long red plait and sending both their cereal bowls flying. Fleur threw up her hands in horror, and the children's father decided it was time he intervened. He emerged from behind the day's copy of the Prophet, and fixed his eldest daughter with a steely glare.
"Victoire, Dominique is going to Bath with Uncle Charlie and Aunt Tonks because they asked her to. They have a perfect right to ask whoever they like to go out with them. Besides, Dominique and Addison are the same age."
"Oh, Addison!" Victoire intoned dramatically, rolling her eyes.
Her father regarded her unsympathetically. "I'm sure that that attitude to your cousin is one reason you weren't invited to go," he said sternly. "Now clear up the mess on the table, and let's hear no more about this." He turned to his younger daughter. "Are you ready to go, Dom? I need to drop you off at the Leaky to meet the others in ten minutes."
Tonks regarded the three children in front of her sternly.
"Remember," she told them, "we are going on a Muggle train, and going to visit Muggle places. No magic. Teddy, no changing your hair or your nose every two minutes. No talking loudly about magic. No commenting loudly on things that are perfectly normal for Muggles."
"Like what?" asked Addison curiously. "Eckeltricity and so on?"
"Electricity!" Tonks snapped. "Yes, exactly. If you want to know about something, ask quietly. Is that clear?"
The three children nodded solemnly, and Tonks turned to Charlie, who was smiling.
"Is that clear, Charlie?" she asked sternly and he stopped smiling and nodded meekly.
"Yes, ma'am," he said.
The three children were sitting together on the train, looking excitedly at the magazines which Tonks had bought them at the station. Teddy was reading "The Beano", whilst the two girls had their heads together over something about ponies. Except that the ponies in question seemed to be pink and purple and sparkly. Very un-Muggle-like, Charlie thought confusedly. Sitting together like that, the girls' likeness was emphasised: both red-haired like their fathers, both freckled, both with wide blue eyes . Although she was six months younger than her cousin, Addison was slightly taller, but the two of them could easily have passed for twins. Since Teddy had settled on red hair for himself today, the five of them might easily be a proper family enjoying a day out in the school holidays.
If only it was that simple, Charlie thought to himself, watching his daughter with something halfway between awe and surprise. He always felt like this when he met her again after a few weeks or months. She was undoubtedly his; he recognised so much of himself in her. Yet she was foreign to him in more ways than her New York accent and her un-English name. She always seemed like a stranger for a few days until he got used to her again.
He had met her mother on New Year's Eve in Times Square. He had accompanied George to America, with the vague elder brotherly thought that someone ought to take care of him. In fact, George had proved himself much more able to take care of himself than Charlie. He had merely got drunk. Charlie found himself waking up on the first day of 2002 in a strange apartment with a strange – but very beautiful – woman beside him, who reminded him that her name was Ava. They parted on good terms, Charlie tracked down George in a wizarding bar near Central Park, the two of them Portkeyed home, and Charlie thought that was the end of it.
Until an owl arrived a couple of months later from Ava informing Charlie that she was pregnant and that the baby was his. Any man brought up by Molly Weasley knew his duty in such a case. Charlie resigned his job in Romania and Portkeyed to New York within the week. Ava was happy to see him, and Charlie moved into her apartment in the East Village. Ava worked in the American branch of Gringotts, and between them she and Bill pulled enough strings to secure Charlie a desk job there too. He hated it, but he stuck at it for the sake of the baby, and for Ava, of whom he was becoming increasingly fond. But his feelings for her never got beyond a warm fondness and liking, and it soon became apparent that she felt the same about him. They called it a day when Addison was six months old, and Charlie returned to Romania with a slightly guilty feeling of relief.
He remained good friends with Ava, visiting her and Addison several times a year. Addison visited her English family every summer, and sometimes at Christmas or Easter too. It was a perfect arrangement for everyone.
Almost perfect, Charlie thought morosely, as he watched his daughter laughing and talking with the other children. Tonks had never really forgiven him for the drunken indiscretion that had taken him away from her just at the time when she was beginning to recover from the loss of her husband and the two of them were trying to rebuild a relationship that had ended ten years earlier when they left school. Since he had returned from America for good, he and Tonks had had a strange on-off relationship, sometimes living together for weeks at a time, sometimes just dating, and at other times, usually precipitated by a row about Ava and Addison, not even speaking for weeks. Right now, in the June of 2008, they were in a "together" phase. They had been more or less a couple since Christmas, but only acknowledging it to Charlie's family and Tonks' mother since Easter. They were tired of their families' well-meant – and not so well meant – comments by now, so were inclined to be secretive about the state (or non-state) of their relationship. Still, six months was pretty good going, and – ever the optimist – Charlie had his own plans for today.
The train pulled into Bath Spa station and Tonks herded the children and Charlie ahead of her off the train. Dominique, less used to Muggle transport than Addison or Teddy, exclaimed at the way the ticket barrier swallowed her ticket as they exited the station, but she was only six, and a Muggle child might well have reacted the same way, so Tonks let her get away with it.
"We'll go to the Pump Room first," she said with decision. "You can't come to Bath and not drink the water."
"The water?" Teddy asked, looking at his mother as if she had gone mad. "They have water everywhere, Mum, it's not a big deal."
Charlie laughed, but Tonks scowled at him, and regaled them with a potted history of the famous hot springs of Bath, as they made their way over the road (Charlie reflecting how much his father would enjoy pressing a button and waiting for the green man to appear to tell you it was safe to cross) and along Stall Street to the Abbey Churchyard and the Pump Room.
Bath was as busy as it usually is on a hot summer day, with groups of American and Japanese tourists clogging up the pathways, more often than not in pursuit of a harassed-looking guide holding up a stars and stripes flag, a coloured umbrella or, in one case, what looked like a kamikaze sword. Charlie sincerely hoped it was a fake. A group of Americans were exiting the Pump Room as they approached, seemingly dressed in uniform – all wore jeans, red baseball caps, and red and blue polo shirts sporting the name of a travel company in large red letters.
"Why do they do that?" Teddy asked in puzzlement. "Why do they want to look the same as each other?"
His mother shrugged. It seemed a good enough question to her, even for a Muggle to ask. Indeed a little girl behind them had just asked her mother the same question it seemed.
The woman laughed. "They can't help it dear, they're Americans," she said. "Americans are strange."
Addison's red hair bristled with fury, and she opened her mouth to say something, but Charlie caught hold of her arm and steered her through the Pump Room door before she could.
"Come and taste this famous water," he said hastily, leading her towards the fountain in the corner, and frowning over the handful of Muggle change he had pulled out of his pocket. He managed to locate a fifty pence coin, suppressing the comment he wanted to make at the shape of it, and handed it over to the uniformed man standing by the fountain, who solemnly poured a glass of the famous water and handed it over. It looked cloudy and distinctly unappetising. Addison wrinkled her nose at the sight of it.
"You're going to drink that?" she asked incredulously. "I bet you can't, Dad!"
Charlie raised his eyebrows. "Is that a challenge, young lady?" he asked, and downed the water in one go, only choking slightly as he finished it. Addison clapped, and even the uniformed attendant looked moderately impressed.
"Not many people manage that, sir," he said, as Tonks paid him for a second glass of the water and he passed it over to her. Neither Tonks nor the children managed more than a sip of it. Dominique summed up their feelings quite well.
"If that's supposed to make you better, I think I'd rather be ill!" she proclaimed loudly.
From the Pump Room, they went on to the Roman baths themselves, Tonks insisting that they each take one of the audio guides that the girl on the desk was handing out. Of course, this was a mistake. The children and Charlie were entranced by how the little box would speak to you, and how you could change what it said by entering different numbers. They barely looked at any of the exhibits in the first few rooms of the museum, so busy were they with their new toys.
Tonks sighed. "I should have just bought a guidebook," she muttered to herself, quickly and efficiently confiscating everyone's audio guide as they passed the sacred spring and entered the temple grounds. She forestalled their protests with a rapid silencing spell, the room being crowded enough for it to pass unnoticed by the surrounding Muggles.
When he could speak again, Charlie grinned and took her hand.
"Count yourself lucky we didn't bring my dad," he said.
Once they had got over their disappointment at losing the audio guides, the children and Charlie found themselves fascinated by the displays, and the reminder of a time when wizards and priests had perhaps been one and the same, and when Muggles had believed in magic as readily as they did themselves. Both Teddy and Addison expressed a desire to have a swim in the large bath itself, although Dominique turned up a fastidious nose at the green and steaming water therein.
As they emerged into the bright English afternoon, all of the children became aware that they were hungry.
"There was a McDonald's back there," Teddy said hopefully, his Uncle Harry having instilled a liking for cardboard burgers and cold and stick-like chips in him from an early age.
Both Dominique and Addison protested loudly at this, and Tonks agreed with them hastily, leading the way back to the Abbey Churchyard where she bought everyone a Cornish pasty and a cup of tea from the shop on the corner without any consultation at all. Addison muttered something about "stodgy British food," but even she ate her pasty eagerly enough.
"Now," said Tonks decidedly, as she swallowed the last of her tea and wiped her fingers on a paper napkin. "Now, for Queen Square and the Circus! Following in the footsteps of Jane Austen."
"Who?" asked Charlie, while the children focussed on what they considered the more interesting part of her speech. All of them had heard of Muggle circuses – were they really going to be lucky enough to go to one?
"Not that kind of circus," Tonks said patiently, once she realised what had got them so excited. "It's just a circle of houses."
The children groaned, and it was a far from happy group that trailed along in her wake in search of the haunts of a nineteenth century author none of them had heard of. Even Charlie's low-voiced commentary on the clothing and actions of the Muggles they passed did not really cheer them up, although his description of an elderly Muggle lady with pale blue hair as You Know Who's long lost sister made Tonks snort with laughter and bestow a kiss on his cheek as the unheeding woman walked past.
Dominique revolved gracefully around and surveyed The Circus critically. She shrugged.
"Just some houses," she said. "What are we doing now?"
Tonks looked slightly crestfallen, and Charlie decided that it was time that he took charge.
"Ice cream," he said firmly. "Where do you get ice cream in this town?"
Tonks shrugged and looked hopelessly round. The hallowed ground of The Circus did not seem the place to buy ice creams. Charlie smiled and put an arm around her shoulders.
"Are we wizards, or what?" he asked.
"Witches," his daughter and his niece said simultaneously, and he inclined his head in acknowledgement.
"Wizards and witches," he conceded. "Think hard about ice cream, follow me, and the ice cream will find us."
The children looked unconvinced and Tonks giggled faintly, but she took his hand as he led the way out of The Circus and back towards the town centre, the children following behind. They had walked barely fifty yards when they heard a bicycle bell behind them, and a young man wearing a boater hat and a striped green and white apron pedalled past on a contraption that was half bicycle and half ice cream stall, the brightly coloured sign on the side proclaiming "The Real Italian Ice Cream Company" in curly letters. Charlie flagged him down, and the young man, who seemed both hot and tired, was happy enough to stop pedalling and wait while the children debated the relative merits of vanilla and chocolate, mint and strawberry. In the end, they were all satisfied, and licking large double cones of what Dominique proclaimed to be "the best ice cream ever!" They found a bench under a tree, and all squashed together on it, Addison curled on her father's lap with Dominique between him and Tonks and Teddy on his mother's other side as they ate in companionable silence.
When they were all finished, and Tonks had cleaned sticky fingers and faces with an unobtrusive spell, Charlie pushed Addison gently off his lap and slipped onto the ground in front of Tonks, pulling a slightly battered box out of his pocket and smiling up at her.
Teddy realised what was coming before his mother did, and it was to the accompaniment of his retching sounds that Charlie proposed. The little girls squealed and clapped their hands, dancing around the bench in excitement, quietening and looking worried as Tonks said nothing. Even Teddy fell silent as they all waited for Tonks' reply. After what seemed like an age to poor Charlie, she smiled and bent forwards, kissing him on the lips.
"Of course I'll marry you, Charlie," she said, and the children cheered as he slipped the ruby ring that had been his grandmother's onto her finger."
Charlie smiled happily as he picked up his tired daughter and took his fiancée's hand for the walk back to the station. All in all, he thought he rather liked Bath.