Chapter Thirty Eight - In Which Tonks Gets Slightly High

This chapter is dedicated to one of my most faithful reviewers JellyBeaan007! (You'll see why later on!)

Before Tonks could even blink, her exams were over and she was relatively pleased. Deep down she knew that she had done her best and even though Potions was slightly tricky she silently hopped that her results would reflect all the time and effort that she had put into studying.

After Tonks's last exam she practically squealed in delight. She was so relieved that everything had gone okay. Running to find her friends Tonks burst into her dormitory, did a slightly goofy dance and celebrated with her friends.

"This is it guys!" Tonks smiled flopping down face first onto her unmade bed.

"It's nice to be free!" smiled Laura,

"My mum sent me heaps of food to celebrate with" exclaimed Olivia excitedly, "chocolate, marshmallows, jellybeans…"

Tonks shuddered at this last food, "did you say jellybeans?"

"Yeah" smiled Olivia with a twinkle in her eye. "Laura told me how high you get on them" they both smirked.

Laura just laughed, "Why bother going to the big graduation party and getting drunk, when you can get Tonks naturally high on jellybeans?"

"What makes you think I'm going to eat them?" said Tonks in a matter-of-fact kind of tone.

"Who can resist the juicy, bright, bursting flavour of the blue jelly bean?" squeaked Laura crazily from her own natural high of being exam free.

"Point taken" laughed Tonks,

"Why don't we have a jelly bean competition? See how many we can fit into our mouths in one hit"

"Challenge accepted" smirked Tonks, Laura and Olivia just grinned at each other, they both knew she was never able to back down from a dare.

Olivia pulled out her pack of 1000 jelly beans and laid them in the middle of the floor, while the other girls shut the curtains, got the blankets and pillows, and joined Olivia on the floor.

"One…" laughed Laura and they all took one jelly bean and put it in their mouth.

And so the game continued, each girl putting a new jellybean into her mouth with every count until the count came to 130 jelly beans when Olivia managed to begin choking and proceeded to spit her rainbow coloured mass of jelly beans out all over the floor.

This made Laura erupt into a fit of tears, as she too struggled to keep the mass in her mouth. So after a dignified attempt where both parties struggled not to laugh, Tonks declared herself the winner and held her arms up in triumph.

The girls collapsed into a fit of tears and giggles on the floor and they winced in pain as they struggled to breathe.

For the rest of the night, the girls laughed about many things. They talked about boys, the weird sisters, what they wanted to do after Hogwarts and after Tonks's jelly bean high had worn off (they knew this because she had stopped jumping from bed to bed and singing 'sexy witch' at the top of her lungs) they all collapsed in a heap of blankets and pillows on the floor.

"Do you think we'll still see each other after this?" asked Tonks sadly,

"Of course we will" insisted Laura,

"Promise?" asked Tonks

"Pinkie promise" agreed Olivia. The girls smiled at each other for a moment, and Tonks couldn't help but think sadly that it was probably the last fun they would ever have being silly children. It was her only though before falling asleep.

In the morning despite having stayed up so late, Tonks woke feeling considerably relaxed and refreshed. She smiled, it was her last day of Hogwarts and she knew she was going to miss it but she couldn't help but be excited. Finally she was graduating.

After waking the others up, getting dressed and morphing her hair into the most ridiculously coloured bright pink that she could imagine. She paused for a minute and said goodbye to her dormitory for one last time.

Since all those years ago, so much had changed but the room and the buildings themselves were probably the one thing that had remained the same. Now they were all going onto different things, Tonks wanted to be an auror, Olivia wanted to work for the department of magical creatures and Laura wanted to get a job potion making.

After Tonks's last hearty Hogwarts breakfast, the seventh year students stayed behind as the younger year levels were pushed out. The Great Hall was now filled with both seventh year students, teachers and parents who had all come to see their children graduate. Tonks knew her parents would be in the crowd somewhere watching and she couldn't help but feel slightly nervous at the thought of getting up onstage to collect her graduation bear.

As the teachers were called to the stage they all got up, even Professor Dumbledore with his bright purple robes was there. Tonks couldn't help but notice Professor Lupin standing awkwardly squashed up near the stairs with a small look of uneasiness on his face, it was quite obvious that he like her was not a fan of large crowds either.

One by one the head or houses made their speeches and the students made their way across the stage. Tonks cringed ever so slightly as Professor Sprout called her name,

"Nymphadora Tonks"

Getting up on stage, she carefully gave Professor Sprout a hug, gave Professor Dumbledore a warm hand shake and a quick smile as she collected her bear. And just as she let out a sigh of relief for not doing anything stupid, she managed to take a stumble over the microphone cord.

As if in slow motion Tonks felt herself tripping and sure enough was flying through the air down the steps. Tonks waited for the fall, she braced herself, but somehow the fall never came and she found herself being steadied by a warm pair of arms. She looked up, Professor Lupin had caught her and began helping her down the steps. Tonks blushed the brightest shade of red. A few people clapped at the entertainment, a few others laughed. Tonks felt her hair turn red in embarrassment. She cursed under her breath, she was never going to live this down.

After giving Professor Lupin an apologetic smile, she quickly walked back to her seat (this time without tripping) and tried her best to act natural, although she really wanted to just hide her face in her hands.

After a few moments she dared a glance at the stage and Professor Lupin was looking just as red as she imagined herself to look, she suddenly felt immensely sorry for being such a clumsy idiot.

Tonks waited and waited for the ceremony to end, she wanted to leave Hogwarts and never look another parent or teacher in the eye ever again. But thankfully after the last students had received there bear, none of her friends did her the embarrassment of mentioning her slight stumble.

Tonks passed her bear around to a few friends, she signed some bears and gave out strict instructions for them to "owl her". She even got a signature from Professor Slughorn, who insisted on giving her job potion making recommendations. It was a sweet thought, but Tonks knew she didn't want to spend the rest of her life working in some dimly lit dungeon, spotting her Dad's tall head peeking through the crowd she hurriedly excused herself and made her way over to him.

She was surprised to see her parents talking animatedly with none other than Professor Lupin himself.

"No, no I'm not going to be teaching at Hogwarts next year actually" he admitted, "I'm going to working in London"

Andromeda smiled, "That's fantastic!" she nudged him playfully on the shoulder, "we live on the outskirts of London, you must come and have dinner with us sometime, it gets awfully lonely sometimes just the tree of us"

He smiled, "I'd like that"

Tonks walked up closer to them. "Mum! Dad"

"Ah... There's my little Dora" smiled Ted pulling her into a warm hug. Her mother bent down and kissed her kindly on the cheek.

"She's quite the catch, isn't she Remus?" Andromeda laughed, he turned quite a brilliant shade of red and not for the first time that evening Tonks felt mortify embarrassed.

"Quidditch reflexes" he stuttered out feebly.

"Don't mind my wife" laughed Ted, "It was quite the fall though". Tonks just glared at him.

"How was your exams sweetie?" asked her mum sensing her anger and deciding that it was probably best to change the topic,

"They were good" she admitted. "Fingers crossed they were enough"

"I'm sure you did excellent" smiled Professor Lupin, "All the teachers myself included think you're a very talented student"

Her parents no doubt, felt that this with was the perfect thing to say and beamed down at Tonks proudly.

Tonks smiled shyly and then decided that she couldn't handle the praise. "I'm just going to say goodbye to some friends". She backed away slowly and speed off to the other side of the room; almost tripping over Dumbledore's phoenix which had taken a sudden liking to her.

Author's Note – Wow, this was a really fun chapter to write and I totally understand if you hate it, it's quite different. It was originally going to be two separate chapters, but I decided to include graduation in this one as well cause my chapters seem to be getting shorter and shorter.

I feel so sorry for Tonks taking a tumble down those steps, someone always has to trip at graduation, I think it's just a fact of life.

Don't worry this isn't the end, many more clumsy chapters to come.

Letswilhelm – Hope you're enjoying your trip, I'm so jealous, I love to travel! I wish I could just go everywhere! Anyway, thank you for the HUGE review :) I loved Dead Poets Society too! And the Parent Trap is so sweet, I've watched it so many times that I could probably say it word for word!

Shirapp – Thanks

Sparkle Shine – I'm glad you like the story, yeah you should definitely read lots of Remadora stories, I love them, there such a cute duo cause you wouldn't picture them together but when you think about it there actually quite similar :)

HP JamesBond – I agree Ferris Bueller's day off is good :) and of course James Bond too, I love that Skyfall song! I play it on my ipod all day long!

Random Person With No Name – I'm so glad that you said, How to train your dragon! When my friend suggested seeing It I originally though it was going to be one of those junky kids animations but then after I'd seen it it turned out to be a great film :)

Doralupin86- Thanks :)

JessAndFriend- Thanks for the advice! I've noted to make the spells harder! Iron man is good! I can't wait to see the new one!

Xxrunnin-wit-pandasxX – Disney movies are great! I think I've seen the jungle book about 100 times ha ha! And I love Mulan too!

So your question for today:

What's your faveourite sport?

I like doing athletics/cross country, but I like watching gymnastics because it's so graceful. Also have you heard of slam ball? It's like this American sport where they cross trampolining and basketball. It's pretty cool – look it up on you tube!

Anyways Happy Reading

PrincessDreamGirl