The Breaking and Making of a Couple…
Disclaimer - none of the following story belongs to me, all of it is inspired by the ideas of J.K.Rowling.
Mrs Weasley had never approved of her and Charlie. There had never been the welcoming statement 'Call me Molly, Dear!' as issued to every potential Weasley girlfriend since time immemorial. Tonks had remained Nymphadora and Mrs Weasley had remained positively glacial until the arrival of Fleur and the possibility of a French connection, which must have seemed to Mrs Weasley worse than a scion of the Black blood, with the not so distant connections to the Dark Lord's inner circle. The glacial looks, had originally commenced once the secret of Tonks's metamorphic powers was revealed by accident at one of the many Weasley family get-togethers she had attended over the years. No amount of muggle talk with Mr Weasley (Tonks's Dad also had an obsession with motor vehicles) or ideas for possible tricks furtively passed to Fred or maybe George, could soften her. However the later combined with Tonk's inherent clumsiness and heritage may well have complicated matters.
If Tonks had been a lesser woman, she might well have been able to find justification in blaming Mrs Weasley for her break-up with Charlie. Mrs Weasley had after all, been the one to insist that Charlie escort an old school friend's daughter around wizarding London whilst Tonks was recovering from a particularly virulent form of chicken pox. Mrs Weasley had insisted that Charlie stay away from Tonks until she was completely healed. Mrs Weasley couldn't understand why Tonks's parents preferred her to heal the muggle way but put it down the idiosyncrasies of the Black family. After all if a woman could marry against her family's wishes, who knew what other strange ideas she might have. On the other hand, maybe it was the muggle side to blame, after all even Hermione Granger who seemed so nice and reliable, had been known to lead two men on at once. Despite what Ronald had said, Mrs Weasley knew it to be true, because hadn't it been printed in Witches' Weekly and everyone knew how accurate they were.
Charlie had been only too willing to comply with his mother's dictum. That summer's afternoon had begun the affair which ended the fledgling relationship between Tonks and Charlie. It was the summer of assignations and secret owls, except for actions conducted within the Weasley household, over which Mrs Weasley paraded with great joy. Tonk's summer was spent convalescing on the Cornish coastline under the watchful eye of her paternal grandmother, who was in complete agreement with Mrs Weasley, except it was Charlie who was seen as completely unsuitable for darling Dora. The two had met by accident at the National Knitting Convention and so the conspiracy which shaped the future of so many was begun with knitting needles at dawn, and finalised with the promise to swap patterns over tea and cakes later that month. Tonks only discovered the co-conspirator lurking within her own family on the last occasion she saw her grandmother.
For the vast majority of the summer, Tonks remained blissfully unaware that Charlie was waiting to break up with her in favour of a tiny, blond, blue eyed slip of a girl who listed baking and embroidery as amongst her favourite hobbies. To be fair Rosemary Brown, (elder sister of the infamous Lavender) was on the surface the last person to cause pain to anyone. She was not the evil incarnate or any of the other equally inappropriate titles Tonks bestowed upon her in the months that followed. She was just a pretty, feminine girl with a strong case of hero worship for Charlie Weasley. This can be a fatal combination to the male ego, particularly one which had been as neglected as badly as Tonks had neglected Charlie's. Tonks did not have it in her to pander to any man's ego, nor any desire to go out of her way to flatter Charlie. She and Charlie were upmost and foremost friends, and whilst Tonks did not wish to bruise Charlie's ego with false remarks about his character neither did she wish to be just one of his many quidditch groupies, assisting with the arduous task of helping to inflate his head.
How was a witch known for her taste in music and her lack of grace, to compete against the choice sanctioned by the immovable Mrs Weasley? Of course Tonks could replicate any face, become any one, but really who wants to be in a relationship where you are loved only for your ability to replicate the image of another?
The summer was halfway through when she finally returned, thinner than before, pale, slightly shaky. She knew what had happened as soon as she saw them standing together; mind you the blush that blended into Charlie's hairline was a bit of a giveaway Bill later admitted. She stumbled backwards in an effort to evade Charlie's hug. They were standing too close, hands constantly seeking the security of the other, eyes shifting, glancing first towards her, then the floor then back to one another. She wondered which would be the first to crack in the painfully silent atmosphere – all she knew at that point was that it wasn't gonna be her! Charlie looked bashfully at her or Rosemary, smarmy, grinning sneakily, knowing she'd won. Suddenly Tonks realised that the picture of sweetness and light was a carefully cultivated image maintained with the sole purpose of enabling her to entrap unsuspecting idiots. Later, once she'd calmed down, Tonks accepted that this was probably a slight over reaction.
She couldn't stand the waiting, the tension, and the agonised looks from the elder members of the Weasley clan (excepting Mrs Weasley, who honestly was smirking). He couldn't find an answer to her deceptively simple question – not how or when, but merely 'Why?' issued in a plaintive tone. In the end she was hoarse with shouting, demanding something, some response to what amounted to the end of six years of friendship and of two years of exclusive dating. He spluttered some empty platitudes about how they could always be friends and how much he had valued their time together. But as Mrs Weasley told her sometime later (whilst slightly intoxicated following a party to celebrate one of the Order's victories), he didn't need a girl to muck around with, he wanted a woman to fall in love with. At this point in time, Tonks just couldn't be that woman.
She ignored the Weasley's for the rest of the summer, for once perversely grateful that she was in Ravenclaw and not Gryffindor. Looking back it amazed her that she and Charlie had managed to maintain a friendship that had begun on the Hogwarts Express, despite differing house loyalties right through until the sixth year. She supposed quidditch fans at Hogwarts might be grateful, that the two opposing seekers might actually try to win rather than just muck around on the pitch, taking turns to be victorious as they had so often in the past. Perhaps she should not have held back, whilst the England selector had been present. Perhaps then the memory of beating Charlie might have eased the ache currently residing on the left side of her chest, an ache caused, not so much by the feelings of love lost, but by the notion of betrayal. It was the twins who suffered most from the effect of Tonks deprivation, aged only eleven, loosing their only supporter in the pranks which so often plagued the Weasley household, resulted in Charlie suffering from a spate of particularly vicious pranks. It is fair to say that Rosemary also fell victim to a fair number, and whilst Charlie felt he couldn't retaliate for the damage caused to his person, he was more than equal to the task of playing errant knight to Rosemary's damsel in distress. This was evidenced in particular after one disasterous prank which left her marooned in a pool of lumpy custard.
It wouldn't be until school began again that the full consequences of the affair would be felt by all concerned. Mrs Weasley would undoubtedly be confused when Charlie's grades dropped, as Tonks was the only one gifted with the ability to pry him away from Hagrid or quidditch magazines and propel him into the library. Tonks herself was looking forward to a lonely year, most of her friends were primarily Charlie's friends – Ravenclaw had practically disowned her for her family heritage from the word go and her incessant rule breaking had just confirmed in their opinion that for once the sorting hat must have got it wrong. And there was no way she wanted to associate with the Slytherins, half of whom wanted her dead as a perversion of purity and the other half, she just wasn't sure what they wanted, nothing good from their expressions – besides what a doxie's nest that would stir up! Tonks wasn't stupid enough to face her grandmother's wroth. Charlie had always been there to protect her from the malicious who took advantage of her clumsy nature and the fact that she rarely responded. She didn't quite know what was going to happen now.