Characters: Nymphadora Tonks and Charlie Weasley
Genre: Friendship
Words: 2,116
Just Watch Me Fly
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Year the Fourth
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"Lauren likes you,"
"Hello, Tonks," Charlie said as they partnered up for Herbology.
"Hi, Charlie," she amended. "Lauren likes you." When Tonks didn't get a reaction, she began again. "Lauren…"
"Yes, I know Lauren likes me," Charlie said, with amusement clear in his voice. "You've already said."
"So…" Tonks left the word hanging.
"So… what?"
"What do you think?" an exasperated Tonks said. Her hair was a deep mauve and clashed horribly with the Hufflepuff colours, but Tonks didn't mind, she liked clashes.
"I'll ask her to Hogsmead," Charlie said and began noting down what Professor Sprout was saying. Tonks grabbed his quill, accidently snapping it in two.
"Sorry," Tonks handed the feathered halves back to Charlie who stared at them for a while before rolling up his scroll.
"I guess you just got me a T in Herbology," Charlie shook his head, "again."
"Who cares about plants?" Tonks wondered aloud. A little too loudly apparently, as a group of Fanged Geraniums decided that they took offence to that, and began to try and eat Tonks. She stomped on them. "I was provoked," justified Tonks as Charlie raised his eyebrows.
"They're little pink flowers,"
"With teeth," Tonks finished.
"Tiny, pink buds,"
"With razor sharp teeth."
"I still don't see why you had to stomp on them," Charlie muttered.
"I still don't see why I even talk to you," grumbled Tonks. "All you do is attempt to take notes and blame me when something goes wrong."
Charlie turned to face Tonks; "That's because you are to be blamed." Both of them looked up as Professor Sprout drew a diagram of a plant that seemed to be eating a student on the board.
"You're being eaten by a flower," Sniggered Tonks in a rather gleeful fashion.
"Hey!" Charlie said glaring at Tonks and looked down to check that no plants were chewing at his shoes. Then he felt something creep up his back, starting at his waist and moving towards his neck. "Tonks, is there something on my back?"
The something had reached his shoulder, Charlie couldn't move. The fear of uncertainty froze him to the spot. It brushed against his cheek and, forgetting about manliness, pride and just about everything else, Charlie let out a scream.
Fortunately, the something vanished instantly. Unfortunately, Professor Sprout appeared wearing an expression like a thunder cloud.
"Sorry, Professor," Charlie said quickly and then, because he couldn't think of anything else to say he finished lamely; "Lauren likes me."
As Charlie was escorted from class by a stern McGonagall, he noticed Tonks. She waved and pointed at something in her hand. A leaf. She grinned wickedly and turned back to the lesson, leaving Charlie to think.
Bare trees, hung with skeletal branches decorated the Hogwarts grounds. Decomposing leaves of red, yellow and brown crunched beneath Charlie's feet as he followed McGonagall back to the castle.
He worked it out.
"She's a bloody witch," Charlie muttered.
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Year the Fifth
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"Hey, Charlie," Tonks wheeled around the corner. With her hair lit-up blue and with her snow caked boots, she looked a little like she had been hexed. As she made her way over to the desk Charlie was sitting at, Tonks successfully tripped over a pile of alphabetically ordered books. Due to fact that Tonks was known for a lack of balance, Charlie found it unsurprising that she then fell into a small table and elbowed all the books from a bookcase's middle shelf.
"Tonks," Charlie stood, gazing at the mess she had managed to create in under two minutes. "I had just sorted those into order, you know; serving the detention you got me into?" Tonks waved her hands in a 'who cares' gesture and Charlie let it go; there was no future in pursuing his point.
"Whatever," said Tonks, grinning. "You'll never guess what I just did for you!"
"What?"
"You have to guess," Tonks adjusted her hat, peaked with a bobble around the size of a bludger, she sounded slightly miffed.
"You just said that…"
"I know what I said," said Tonks snappily, then she flopped down on the chair next to him and stared around at the lists of records. Charts, dates and numbers covered the table's workspace. Eyes growing wider, Tonks' hair turned a bright shade of pink. "What is this?"
Charlie held up the book he was flicking through, "This is a book, a source of reading material, and they are often used by-" Tonks punched him in the arm and laughed as he had to hold back from swearing.
"Bloody hell!"
"You were asking for it," Tonks smiled. "Now, why are you reading," squinting at the dusty cover, Tonks said; "A Study of Dragonology: The Flight of the Beast?"
"I have to find out whether this book is factual zoology or factual theory, because that's how," Charlie checked through the sheets of names quickly, "Guivani Oslot texts have to be sorted."
"Mm," Tonks already had got bored with talking books. "Anyway, I was talking to Mara, you know, the girl who likes you?" There was silence as Tonks waited for Charlie to say something. When he didn't reply, she grabbed the book he had been reading and held it high above their heads.
"Hey!" Charlie said keeping his voice below the shout he wanted to use. "I was reading that."
He realised his mistake immediately.
"Reading?" Tonks asked in a scathing tone. "Really, Charlie?"
"It's interesting," Charlie defended.
"Are you implying that I am uninteresting?" Tonks replied, affronted.
"No, but I had just got to Welsh Green's dietary needs,"
"Oh yes," Tonks, the queen of sarcasm was back. "Because dietary needs are just my favourite thing to read," she was back and better than ever before.
"I'm going now," Tonks said. "There are too many books here; I'm going to run in the snow."
"Okay, I'll see you tomorrow," Charlie marked his page carefully and turned back to the piles of books that Tonks had knocked over. "We're going to Zonko's, right?"
"I don't know where you're going," Tonks stood. "I arranged for you and Mara to go together."
"YOU WHAT?" but Tonks was already gone, leaving a trail of melted snow and knocked over books in her wake.
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Year the Sixth
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"Another book on dragons?" asked Tonks as she sat down on the grass next to Charlie. She watched a group of third years squirting water at each other and screaming. "Were we ever that immature?"
Charlie looked at Tonks incredulously over the top of his book. She didn't seem to be kidding. "You're still immature, Tonks."
"Oh, yes," Tonks grinned. "And now that you've reminded me, I must go and be annoying to David."
"Why he asked you out, I'll never understand." Charlie shook his head, "I have Quidditch practice now, wait for me." Tonks jumped to her feet, and hoped like an excited rabbit while Charlie stuffed his book into his brown satchel.
"What do you mean; you'll never understand why David asked me out?" Tonks frowned indignantly. "Do you find me unpleasant to be with?"
Charlie laughed as Tonks flounced, it was funny to watch because his friend just could not keep her balance. Ever. Sure enough, Tonks tripped and had to grab hold of Charlie's shoulder to stop herself from face-planting the ground.
"You're just…" Charlie searched for the word, "Very… enigmatic, and bouncy, different. But in a good way," He added hurriedly as Tonks frowned at him, uncertainty playing across her features. "Like a super-awesome ninja."
"A ninja," Tonks said thoughtfully. "That would be cool. And I am pretty awesome, aren't I?"
"You could be world's clumsiest ninja," Charlie laughed. "I can see it now: Tonks; she can change her appearance, trip over everything in her path and-"
"I want to be an Auror," Tonks said suddenly. She looked up at him and Charlie could see that she wasn't joking. "I've been think about it for a while now, and I need to know… do I have a snowball's chance in hell?"
"Tonks," Charlie began seriously. "I think that you've just given snowballs a whole new edge. Go for it!" Tonks gave him a swift hug around the middle and ran off, bag swinging and bashing against her side to an unsteady rhythm.
As Charlie watched her give David a quick kiss, he grinned. His friend, for all her quips and wit, still feared the future. Charlie didn't know whether to think that was a good or bad thing.
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Year the Seventh
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"I can't believe you're going to Romania next year!" Tonks' eyes were wide and blue. "Romania. Romania."
"I can't believe you got into Auror training!" Charlie said, grinning like crazy and hugging Tonks. "Imagine this; you having to wake up early and then trying to appear stealthy…" He was cut off with a jab at his diaphragm. Tonks smirked, snapping her fingers.
"You forgot defence techniques," she noted.
"Never again," vowed Charlie, placing his hand over his heart. "Did you really have to hit me that hard?"
Shrugging, Tonks replied; "I don't yet know my own power."
"That's a lousy excuse," said Charlie grumpily. "Now say goodbye to Sebastian, he's doing goo-goo eyes."
"With pleasure," Tonks grinned and turned her attention to her soon to be ex-boyfriend.
Charlie returned to the Gryffindor common room, hugged several people and laughed, and did some last minute packing. He watched as people broke up and got together as time began to catch up. Seemingly at double speed, Charlie and Rosaline decided that a long-distance relationship was not for them, they would stay friends.
With finality the forty-six Gryffindor seventh years, crushed and crowded into Charlie's dormitory and watched as Marcus placed his last item of clothing into his suitcase. Marcus was always last to finish packing, leaving it till the absolute last minute. Now that he had finished, it really seemed like it was the end of an era.
Tomorrow, he would begin his training for Romania. Tomorrow he would be home for the summer, never to return to Hogwarts. Tomorrow he would put down his broomstick, no more Quidditch games, ever.
It was scary to think about; and easier not to. But Charlie was not the same boy he had once been. He was braver, stronger and backed up by a soon to be Auror who could hex like a demon and grow a beak. Charlie smiled, he couldn't really think of anything much better than that.
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In Requiem
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The room was dark and crowded with people. For a double funeral, Charlie couldn't really have expected any less. Both had been well known, and generally well liked.
People he recognised and people he didn't sat on pews of dark wood. Old friends had shown up to pay their respects, some of them Charlie hadn't seen in years. Students and ex-students from Hogwarts filled up aisle after aisle, wearing customary black robes. Order members sat at the very front and even Aurors had turned up to honour the funeral.
Harry began to speak, at the front of the podium with two coffins on either side of him.
"Remus was my third year Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher…" Charlie hugged Ginny close to his chest; he had almost volunteered to speak, but had decided that he had been friends with Tonks for such an insignificant amount of time compared to others, and not known Remus very well at all.
Now, though, Charlie wished he could speak, instead of being cursed to silence whilst others talked about his old best friend; her dreams and her accomplishments.
Charlie couldn't wait to get back to his dragons, back to Romania where he could pretend none of this ever happened. He wasn't a coward, but Charlie needed animals to surround him. When he returned to his dragons, nothing would matter as much as Wilbur the Welsh Green or the young Antipodean Opaleve with a broken wing.
Knowing that he couldn't return until his family had recovered after the loss of Fred, Charlie satisfied himself with the memories of his dragons and colleges. (Charlie found that his thoughts drifted entirely too often towards the thereon, Gemma.) He soared on his broom after a dragon with spikes on its back and a clubbed tail.
Then he thought of the girl who made that possible, a blue-haired Hufflepuff with a smile the size of a small planet. She smiled at him, a gap tooth gaping as she pointed at the Dragonology book. He smiled, eyes crinkling as Harry stole Ginny from Charlie's embrace.
Next to him, a baby with a gap toothed smile and blue hair slept.
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Fin