Hyaa!

The chapter that was promised

thanks for the reviews

review some more

Enjoy!

- sheyamiku

PS: it's hella short

The next day, Andromeda had another period of Charms with Flitwick. Tonks and Wispbelly had retrieved their seats behind her. Michaela had fallen ill from yesterday's Quidditch training. Andromeda had accompanied her to the infirmary the previous evening and checked on her again in the morning. Michaela was tired but otherwise fine and would completely recover before the end of the day. Andromeda was thus alone and did not feel guilty in thinking she was, in other words, witness-free.

Slowly, she turned on her seat and balanced her chair to put an elbow on Tonks's desk. He nearly jumped when, looking up, he found her face so close to his. Andromeda continuously glared at him as he sat back to put some distance between them. From the corner of her eyes, she knew Wispbelly was looking at her suspiciously. She ignored him and diverted her attention back to Ted Tonks and his shining, bright, golden eyes.

'About the pan,' she started.

'Pen.' He corrected automatically.

She frowned. The corner of his lips quivered. She felt hers do the same. He saw it and smiled. She nearly smiled too, then realised what she was doing and hurriedly moulded her expression back to poker-face. She saw the worry in his eyes. He stopped smiling.

'About the pen.' She repeated.

'Yes?' He obliged carefully.

She looked down at the object in question, held between Tonks' fingers. His hands were large. She wondered how small her own would look compared to his. But the pen! It was long and black and made of a material whose name she did not know but that was shiny. Overall, nothing special, expect for the fact that its tip was different from other quills and Ted had no inkpot on his table.

'How does it work?' She articulated with much more difficulty than she had anticipated.

She was not happy with herself. Not happy that she had to ask for knowledge to a muggleborn. But she found she had no choice! She could not simply allow him to know more than she did! Besides, he had proven before that he could keep his tongue, so rumours of her ignorance were not likely to spread over the school. As for Adrian Wispbelly, who was eyeing her curiously, she had vaguely talked to him a couple of times before and knew that he was not a man of many words. She felt confident that he would not babble away. If the idea crossed his mind, Tonks had better stop him or she would be extremely disappointed.

Tonks, as it happened, looked happily surprised by her question. After the initial few seconds of shock, he leaned forward and started dismantling the object.

'It's simple really,' he said. 'There is an ink cartridge inside, just there, and it goes into the tip, there. It lasts a while too. It's much less messy than a quill and you don't have to constantly tip it back into the ink pot.'

Andromeda looked at him and raised an eyebrow. Besides the fact that what he said made a lot of sense, she was surprised at how happy he was, explaining it to her. His face glowed brighter than when he looked at her with fear or worry, and his hazel eyes shone a brighter gold than she had ever seen. Noticing her silence, he looked up and found her staring at him quizzically. A pink glow appeared on his cheeks. She looked back down at the pen, then at Ted's parchment.

'And is horrible handwriting another advantage of the pen?' She asked disdainfully, though her voice was much too soft for it to sound as mean as she had intended.

'That might just be me.' He replied with a cheeky smile.

She surprised herself by smiling back.

Suddenly, Wispbelly coughed. It was obviously a cough he had tried very hard to supress for what was probably many a minute, but it was enough to snap Andromeda back to reality. Without another word, she was back to leaning on her own desk, facing the front, and royally ignoring the Hufflepuff boy sitting right behind her and who, though she hated to think about it, had actually taught her a lot in only three encounters. She did not know how she felt about this. In fact, the more she thought about it, the more uneasy it made her feel, and the more she felt like she was doing something inherently wrong. And of course she was! She had been talking to a muggleborn! Repeatedly! And this time, she had been the one initiating conversation, without it being a necessity.

Her insides twirled and she felt a knot form in her throat. She was careful, however, not to show her torment. Throughout the rest of the lesson, she kept her eyes on Professor Flitwick, diligently noting down everything he said and even raising her hand to answer questions, something she rarely ever did. But her mind was not truly in the classroom. As she let it wonder, she decided one thing. No matter what, pens were not as good as quills. Quills looked better anyway.

So I hope you liked it!

Also, I got exams next week so I don't know if I'll be able to post cause I haven't yet written the following chapters,

sorry...

Have a great day/evening/night!