Submission for Round Six of the Quidditch League Fanfiction Competition
Team: Cannons
Position: Seeker
Prompt: Link 'Em Up - Nymphadora Tonks. I chose to pair her with Charlie Weasley.
Word Count: 1453
The sound of familiar laughter reached Tonks' ears as she entered Grimmauld Place, and she promptly stubbed her foot on the troll-leg umbrella stand, knocking it to the floor. Tonks let it lie there for a few moments, cursing and hopping on one foot as she tried to recall the best spell for bruised toes.
"Beauty and grace as usual, Tonks?"
Tonks jolted in surprise, pain half-forgotten as she turned to see Charlie Weasley behind her in the entryway, putting the umbrella stand to rights.
"Char!" she cried with pleasure, "What're you doing here?"
It had been years since she'd seen her friend, and although they'd written frequent letters initially, both of them were pretty terrible at it, so she couldn't say they'd owled each other more than a dozen times in the last four years. And, thought Tonks, actually seeing him was very different from getting a letter.
The image she had of Charlie in her mind, from when they'd last seen each other at the train station after graduating Hogwarts, was almost completely incongruous to the one he presented today. He still matched her in height and kept his hair in the same short style, but he was so muscular now. Not that he hadn't been before — he'd been a Seeker for Gryffindor and had never slacked off in training — but it seemed that being a dragon trainer had given him much more bulk and stripped away any of the remaining childish chubbiness.
Charlie looked good, Tonks realized, wondering why that thought made her feel so odd.
He grinned at her. "Joined the Order, haven't I?"
She smiled back, and they headed the rest of the way down the hall to the meeting room. As they approached the door, Tonks heard the voice that had caused her to lose all of the measly sense of coordination that she possessed.
It was an undisputed fact, of course, that Tonks was clumsy. She tried, she really, really did, but for some reason she'd never been able to fully master her own body coordination. Her Auror co-workers had running jokes about it, which was extremely frustrating, because it wasn't like she was doing it on purpose.
Although, Tonks thought to herself sourly, if there was one good thing about being naturally clumsy, it was that people expected her to be clumsy, and so in situations where something caused her to be more clumsy than usual, nobody so much as blinked at it.
Such as when she had a crush on someone. She didn't know why, but merely being in the presence of whomever she fancied — or even anticipating being in their presence — led to a twofold increase in clumsiness. It was embarrassing, even if nobody recognized the source of her increased clumsiness, and as the door loomed closer, Tonks slowed her pace slightly.
"After you," Charlie said, gallantly holding the door open for her. Tonks hoped he hadn't recognized her reluctance, but he merely grinned at her cheekily, so she was pretty sure he hadn't noticed anything.
Tonks entered the meeting room, saw Remus Lupin sitting at the table, and in her next step immediately toppled over two chairs.
"Sorry, sorry!" She could feel her hair turning bright red as everyone's attention was drawn to her, and she quickly picked the chairs up and then seated herself in one, hoping that sitting would be less disastrous. Tonks could hear Charlie snickering behind her, apparently preferring to stand during the meeting, and she briefly turned around to glare at him, which did nothing at all to stop his laughter.
She did her best to ignore him as more people filed in and Dumbledore called the Order to order (ha!), but that meant that she was open to other distractions — namely, Remus Lupin.
Normally, Tonks would be perfectly able to stop herself from looking at him all night, but it seemed that Sirius Black had decided to be more obnoxious to his friend than usual, and every time he poked Lupin or whispered in his ear, the werewolf would give him a smile, or fight back a laugh, and Tonks could not help staring at him. It was horrendously nerve wracking, and by the time the meeting was wrapping up she felt fit to explode.
"Somebody's got a cru-ush," Charlie leaned over and sang quietly in her ear as soon as Dumbledore concluded the meeting.
"No, I haven't!" Tonks denied it stubbornly, although Charlie knew her better than anyone here and was probably the only one who could recognize when she fancied someone.
Charlie snorted, clearly not convinced. "Look, Nym," he said, reverting to the nickname she'd used briefly before she'd settled on Tonks, "I'm pretty sure Lupin's with Black."
He nodded towards the head of the table. Most of the Order had left the meeting room already, but Lupin and Black had moved up to talk to Dumbledore together. And sure, they were standing close together, but they were good friends, Tonks thought, so that really didn't mean anything.
"I don't see it," Tonks said, "and you've been here two hours and haven't even talked to either of them, so how would you know?"
Of course, as she was speaking Lupin and Black finished their conversation with Dumbledore, and she quite clearly saw Black tug Lupin closer and plant a kiss just next to his mouth. Lupin turned his head and gave Black the most devastatingly sweet smile, and the realization that Charlie was right hit Tonks, but it was less painful than she'd expected.
"Huh," Tonks said, aware that Charlie was eyeing her worriedly, "guess I never had a chance, anyway."
"Probably not," Charlie said.
"Hey, don't agree so easily!" Tonks cried, punching him in the arm. Annoyingly, he hardly looked like it had affected him at all — stupid new dragon-training muscles — and he laughed it off.
"C'mon, are you staying for dinner?"
"I dunno, you think your mum's made enough?"
They burst out laughing simultaneously. Even though Tonks had only been mildly disappointed in love, laughing over something silly felt therapeutic, and she kept going for a little longer than the joke really deserved.
"Mum says she'll give your helpings to Ron if you don't hurry." Ginny ducked out of the room as quickly as she had poked in, probably worried about her own dinner going to Ron, too.
Tonks knew that the Weasley matron wouldn't actually give their dinner away, but she followed Charlie into the dining room anyway. They sat across from Lupin and Black, and Tonks, discreetly stealing glances in between entertaining everyone with her repertoire of nose shapes, had to admit that they were actually disgustingly cute together.
Maybe she hadn't had quite a big of a crush as she'd thought, Tonks realized with a sigh. Well, it had been fun while it lasted, she supposed.
"You alright?" Charlie nudged her.
"Huh? Oh, yeah, I'm alright," Tonks said, shaking herself out of her thoughts. "I should probably head out, actually. It's getting late."
It really was. The meeting had gone a half-hour longer than usual, and she'd been at the dinner table an hour, so now it was nearing ten.
"I'll walk you out," Charlie offered as she stood, and he followed her up to the front door.
"It was good to see you, Char," she started to say, with her hand on the knob.
"We should catch up sometime this week."
Tonks was too surprised to say anything for a second. "Wait — you're not going back to Romania?"
Charlie had only rarely come home before, mostly on Christmas and only for a few days, so she didn't know what else to assume.
"What?" Charlie looked confused. "No, I'm going back, but I've got a bunch of leave built up; my supervisor's making me use it. I'll be here for almost three weeks."
"In that case," she smiled, "feel free to Floo over when you're sick of cleaning the house tomorrow. Just be warned: Bougie will jump on you — she does it to every stranger that comes out of the fireplace."
"I think I can handle your cat." Charlie rolled his eyes. "You do know I work with dragons, right?"
"Uh-huh, sure you do," Tonks said, teasingly.
Tonks wished she could stay here in the entryway just talking to Charlie, but she knew her cat would be upset at her coming home late already as it was. She turned the handle and stepped out onto the front steps far enough that she could apparate, and then turned to look back at Charlie through the half-open door.
"See you tomorrow, Char?"
He gave her a soft smile. "See you tomorrow, Nym."