Harry again woke to the sunrise.

Only this time, he awoke to Tonks in his arms and her head laid against his chest, and her nose nuzzling into the underside of his jaw.

His eyes drifted closed before he'd ever realised.

The dawn could wait.

The day, when Harry did at last wake, was the day after Sally-Anne and Hugh's wedding, and so it held the last task of the case.

He allowed Tonks to rest while he got ready, and even after he'd finished showering, and her head did eventually lift from their pillows, he kissed her lips and told her to return to sleep, and that he would speak to the Sumners.

Still under the warm daze of the day before, she happily agreed.

Harry took one final walk to the Conference Room on the second floor with a very odd sort of nostalgia running through him; a sensation a fraction too deep given he'd been there less than a week.

Yet, as the infinite expanse of hallways and doors revealed itself to him for that one, final time, he found himself missing the hotel, even as he stood within it. He noticed the absence of Tonks by his side more, however.

As ridiculous as it seemed even to him, Harry still missed Tonks, even after only minutes of being away. He doubted that would shift, even as the hotel's doors shifted to reveal the sight of that very conference room again.

With Dudley and Jane waiting for him.

"Morning," said Dudley. Both he and Jane's eyes were fixed upon the space to Harry's right, where Tonks ought to have been.

Harry hummed an agreement. "How was the wedding yesterday?"

"Quiet," Jane said, smiling. "One could imagine that after the commotion before, that was of some relief."

"Politicians everywhere too," said Dudley. "Can't make a scene when everyone's got camera phones these days."

"The couple seemed happy," Jane said. "Most impressive, considering their time in the days leading up to the ceremony."

"A lot of people were asking after the Jeffers," said Dudley. "When everything comes out, it'll be a big shock."

"Especially when a man as rich as Richard discovers that he has found himself in the one circumstance that he cannot buy his way out of." Jane took a step toward the door. "Shall we tell the first of many, then?"

"Wait," Dudley said, placing a hand on Jane's shoulder. It stopped her still. "Before we go in, I want to say something to you, Harry."

Harry's brows knitted together. "Yeah?"

Dudley drew a deep breath. He glanced toward Jane. She gave him an encouraging nod.

"Look, I understand if you say no, and really you don't owe me anything. If anything I owe you everything for keeping me alive, accidentally or not, but still, I wanted to ask," said Dudley. He glanced toward Jane three or four more times, and she smiled yet more brightly each time he did. "We live in London these days, and I was wondering if you'd maybe want to grab a drink sometime in the future?"

Harry thought for a long, ponderous moment.

"Sure," he said, with a shrug. "No use in holding onto the past, is there?"

Dudley heaved a sigh. "Thanks," he said. "Means a lot."

"Wünderbar," said Jane, rolling her eyes. Her smile didn't shift, however. "Now, may we commence with our jobs?"

"Wait," Harry said. "I've got to ask, Jane. Why do you smile so much?"

Jane rolled her eyes. "Because people trust you more when you smile," she said. "And trust is the most valuable asset in my business." She looked to the door. "Now, may we?"

Very quickly, she knocked on the door. It gave way after the first knock to reveal Sally-Anne and Hugh, yet they were much changed.

Firstly, they both were far more tired than Harry could ever recall seeing them. Sally-Anne didn't stand as though she was balancing books on the top of her head, and she smiled when she saw them. She even smiled when she saw Harry.

"Morning everyone," said Sally-Anne. She spoke with her hands more than she had before, her left hand waving here, there, and everywhere, the light of the room catching her wedding band with each path she manufactured for her hands to go. "Come in, come in."

She and Hugh took the seats at the head of the table, and Harry, Dudley, and Jane scrambled to sit with them. Dudley and Jane to their right, Harry to their left.

"Water?" Sally-Anne offered, pointing to the water filter Harry hadn't noticed in any of the times he'd before been there.

Harry shook his head. "That's alright," he said. "This shouldn't take too long. You'll be free for the rest of your honeymoon soon enough."

Sally-Anne laughed. She laughed.

"We're not going to be here very much longer," Hugh said. "We have a week booked in Seychelles."

"They have a magical institute there. One of the only formal post-adolescence schools in the magical world." Harry commented.

"So magic is real?" Hugh asked. "I didn't dream that?"

"Yes, it's real." He glanced at Sally-Anne. "Sally-Anne and I went to Britain's wizarding school together for a year and she was forbidden to mention it as it breaks the most important law in our society. The Statute of Secrecy."

"I truly wouldn't want to have mentioned it either," said Sally-Anne, her eyes only for Hugh. "It just wasn't a good experience."

"Bad enough that you gave up magic," Hugh said.

"Yes," Sally-Anne said. "But we can talk about that later." She turned to Harry. "I'd like to know what happened two days ago."

"Okay," said Harry, with a firm nod. "First, I feel I have to ask a difficult question." He looked at Hugh. "Do you know of your parentage?"

Hugh shot back in his seat. "I do, yes," he said. "My Dad told me when I left for university around four years ago. Why?"

"You're aware that Margery Jeffers is your mother, correct?"

Hugh sighed. "Yes. I know it was an affair too if you were still yet more curious about the finest details of my life," he said. "Why does that matter?"

"This case began under the assumption that its purpose was to protect Sally-Anne," Jane said, her voice even. "As it would turn out, that was not true. The true target was you, Mr Sumner."

"What?" Hugh asked, his voice climbing in pitch. "Someone wanted to kill me because of who my mum is?"

"Yes," Harry said. He caught a withering look from Hugh. "There is no easy way to say this, but the threat on your life was orchestrated by Richard Jeffers. While I understand that may not mean a thing to you, we have proof, through the use of magic, that is incontrovertible. He, through his nephew, a wizard, attempted to kill you. The attack against your father was so as to further paint the mirage that it was a wizarding supremacist group behind it all."

"This—this can't be possible," said Hugh, waving his hands in front of his face. "I've known him for twenty years. He took me to golf when I was growing up, just the two of us. There's no way."

"The motives of those that perform such crimes are very difficult to understand," Jane stated.

"There's nothing to understand. You've got it wrong."

Harry sighed.

"I am afraid that we do not," said Jane. "It will be difficult to accept, but the truth of the matter is as such. Richard Jeffers placed a threat against your life. He offered his nephew a seven-figure-sum to perform the act and, through the intervention of Mr Potter and Ms Tonks, that threat was prevented."

"That's just ridiculous," said Hugh, shaking his head in disbelief. "I mean, there's no reason. He never mentioned anything like this before. After my Dad got hurt, he's been right by our side through the whole wedding."

"He likely did that to ensure that you were none the wiser about the attack on your life. The closer you and he were, the easier it would be."

"This is obviously not the sort of thing we'd ever want to tell you," said Harry. He met Jane and Dudley's eyes. "The trial, when it comes to that, will be open and shut. Magic obviously makes life a lot more complicated but, in matters of justice, things become very simple when magic is used properly."

"It all just seems very convenient for you," said Hugh. "You have this power over everyone else, and the first person you say is 'guilty' is the richest man here, and I bet you'll seize his assets. It's all a little too easy."

Harry stood.

"I'll give you some time to come to terms with this," he said, already walking to the door. "You may be asked to come forward and present your view of the events of what has transpired. Likely, you won't though." He opened the door. "Have a good day, and try to enjoy your honeymoon."

As he left, he gave one look to Sally-Anne. She had reached out to take Hugh's hand in silent solidarity. But, to his surprise, Harry found that she was looking at him.

She did not stare balefully at him, as Harry might well have imagined that she might. She just watched as he left, and only when she noticed their shared gaze, did she offer him an expression.

A small smile. Barely there. Gone after a blink. But, a smile nonetheless.

He smiled back. And then he went on his way.

By the time he'd returned to Tonks, he found her packing her bags. Not by magic, but by hand.

She grinned at his arrival, her head lifting to meet his lips as he rushed to bring her into his arms. She laughed when he picked her up and threw the pair of them into bed, her arms threading around his neck, her hands threading into the mess of his hair.

"Hey, baby," Harry said to her.

"Someone missed me," she mumbled in the brief time part apart they allowed one another for air. "You could've made me get up, you know. I wouldn't have killed you for it."

Harry shook his head, dropping kisses from her cheek to her jaw to her ear. "There's no use in both of us suffering," he said. "And you seemed really comfy."

"I was," Tonks agreed. "Didn't sleep much after you left though."

"Yeah?" Harry asked. "How come?"

"Just didn't." She smiled. "Spent the time thinking."

"What about?"

She gave him a soft look. Blue eyes swirling into green. "Us, obviously," she told him. "Mostly about how weird these past few days have been."

Harry smiled. His hands dropped to the hem of her shirt, pulling it up and stroking at her skin beneath. "Yeah. Like nothing else."

"Right?" she agreed. "And don't take this the wrong way, but I got worried for a moment. That this was only good because it feels just…different. That we're in this place we've never been in, and you're hot and I'm hot, and we're lonely and we just needed something to ease that away."

Harry didn't leave her touch, though he did still. "It's a little difficult to take that anything other than badly."

"There is a but coming, I promise," Tonks reassured. "In all my awful attempts at relationships, even friendships, I've always had this horrible feeling that everything is just constantly changing. That I can never be comfortable, or be happy with anyone. That all I'm good for is a moment in someone's life and then I disappear. People just seem to get bored of me, I guess."

"I don't."

Tonks beamed with a smile, bright enough to light the world and the sky and everything in between.

She glowed with it, her very being luminescent, the room glowing with it all.

"But you don't," said Tonks, and Harry wanted to live inside the feeling of seeing her smile like that. "We've known one another for years, and I've never, ever got that feeling with you. With you, I don't feel like things have to change. I can get comfortable with you because, for seven years, I've never felt temporary when I'm with you. That means a lot to me."

Harry kissed Tonks. Easily, joyfully. Never drifting from one another.

"I feel like I'm me when I'm with you," said Harry. "Things just feel clear when I'm with you."

He sat up from between her thighs, pulling her along with him so that she sat in his lap, her legs around his hips.

"So," Harry began, staring into her swirling eyes, "what does that make us?"

"I'd want it to mean partners because 'partners' sounds way cooler than boyfriend and girlfriend," said Tonks. "But we're — well I suppose I'm — an Auror, and that word would get complicated if we used it."

"Girlfriend sounds so juvenile too," said Harry. "Daphne would insist that I use it. Said it was 'the only way I could prove what I meant to her', whatever the fuck that means."

Harry looked down immediately after he spoke, away from Tonks, in stunned amazement of what he'd said.

"You don't mention her very often," said Tonks. "And with good reason. She's a cunt."

"I think I can say, with time passed, that she and I met at the wrong time, and wanted different things," said Harry, his voice quietly distant. "However, that word in my head is just always connected to Daphne."

"I have no idea how someone could get hung up over a word," said Tonks. Harry laughed. "That does leave us at a bit of a dead-end, though."

"In private, it's easy," said Harry. He took her cheek into his palm. "You're my baby."

Tonks took his cheeks in her hands. "And you're my baby," she said. "It's just such a nice word, isn't it?"

"It is when you say it."

Tonks kissed him. "Yeah, it just fits with us, I think," she said. "But, in public, it's not quite right."

"Yeah, it's too…private. It's only meant for us," Harry agreed. His thumb stroked her cheek. "And there's really nothing else. I mean, there's paramour, but that makes it sound like I'm a vampire."

"Significant other makes me feel like I'm at couple's therapy," Tonks said. "It screams 'failing relationship'."

Harry pulled his head back to look at her, bemused. "When have you been to couple's therapy?"

"Once for a case, once for an actual relationship," said Tonks. "There was a witch in Newcastle who was slipping love potions into the water she gave to clients, only they were cheap potions so sometimes the patients would hallucinate afterwards. A guy was in a dingy boat in the middle of the city centre, fully convinced he was an Olympic yachtsman. Simple enough case."

"And the relationship?"

She winced. "David Wood — Oliver's brother," she said. Harry nodded, remembering the name. They'd gone out immediately after the war for a while. "He thought our problems were because we didn't talk, and not, y'know, the war I'd fought in."

Harry brought her into his chest for a hug.

"Did you ever talk about the war?" Tonks asked, her hair darkening into black. "With someone, I mean."

"Not for a while," said Harry. "At first I thought it was the last thing I needed. I had to relive it every day, in front of every person that wants to know what it's like to be the chosen one."

"I'm sorry."

Harry drew Tonks tighter to him. "It's okay," he said. "Eventually, it was Ron that got me to do it. Said he'd seen a muggle specialist with permission from the Ministry, and it'd really helped." He guided his knuckles across the length of her back. "Have you?"

She smiled into his neck. "A bit, yeah," she said. "It did help. There's just days when it gets to be a bit too much."

"Yeah."

Tonks sank into his arms for one moment more, before shooting back so that they could look at one another.

"However, today definitely isn't one of those days," said Tonks, her hair rapidly twisting into her violet, nearly blown back with the force of the change. "Today is a great day, and it will only get better when we figure out what we're going to call each other when we go out together."

Harry allowed his eyes to close to a moment, and for his mind's eye to take over.

He thought of days spent together at his house and at her house, curled up with one another. Afternoons at the Burrow, being fed into exhaustion and collapsing into a loveseat side by side. Coffeehouses and pubs, with all of their friends. Saturdays going out and Sundays spent flying through the clear sky together.

His life, but with her beside him. Because, as he'd known all along, everything was better when Tonks was there.

"Tonks."

She looked at him, her eyes wide with confusion. "Yeah?"

"That's what I'm calling you," Harry decided. "And I can just be Harry."

She sighed, though she smiled."But that's what everyone calls us."

"Yeah. But, it's not about what we say." Harry kissed her. "It's how we say it."

Tonks took his jaw in her hands and kissed him, so so tenderly. She pulled him back with her into bed, and once more they faded into one another. With the gentlest of shifts and with the utmost affection.

…..

When it came time to check out of the Lansbury Hotel, Harry found himself at once dreading and looking forward to it. Dreading, as it meant he and Tonks detaching themselves from one another to again get dressed and hastily finish their packing. And truthfully, he would miss the room they were then being forced out of, if only for the memories they'd formed in there.

Yet, with just one look at Tonks, he knew that there was nothing to dread. The future would hold far more of them.

The lobby of the hotel was quiet as they descended into it from the lift. The other guests were given their rooms for a day more than Harry and Tonks had, and so there was no rush to the front desk. Very few people milled around the restaurant, either, with only the odd sleepy-looking couple sitting down for afternoon tea.

To his own eyes, the lobby looked strikingly different to how it'd looked when Harry and Tonks had first arrived. The accoutrements of the room had been invasively gaudy, yet then they could not stand to permeate his mind, so utterly taken was it by other, far more interesting thoughts. The gold seemed dull, the paintings tasteless.

Truly, the only thing to look at was Tonks. He did so often, and unabashedly so.

Just as Tonks did to Harry, to his profound joy.

The front desk was then manned by the very same man as before. He was still called Terrence, he still frowned at their choice in attire — pyjamas and leather jackets, more so out of a hurry to get dressed than any active impropriety — and he still quickly fastened a smile on his face when they did eventually reach the desk.

"Here to check out, thanks," Harry said. "The name's Tonks."

"I remember," Terrence said, his hands dropping to fish around for the logbook. "Did you enjoy your stay here at the Lansbury Hotel?"

Harry looked at Tonks. Tonks looked at Harry.

"Yeah, we did," Tonks said. "The staff were wonderful, as were all the services."

He passed over the logbook and a pen, for Tonks to sign. "And your room?" Terrence asked.

She signed with one swipe of the pen and passed the logbook back. "Very, very comfy."

"Wonderful," said Terrence, stuffing the logbook beneath his desk once again. He clapped his hands together loudly. "Well, I do hope you come back."

"So do we."

"Wait," Harry said. He reached into the pocket of his jacket, pulling out the muggle money he kept in there for any occasion he might require it. He placed around two hundred pounds on the desk. "Could you pass this along to Joshua?"

Terrence smiled. It was a little more earnest this time. "Certainly, Sir."

The walk to the edge of the hotel's grounds was oddly quiet. Tonks busied herself with pulling away her wards and re-rendering the air inert. The Lansbury returned to its natural, usual state.

The journey from the hotel's front doors to their apparition point was not just a journey away from his very last place of work, but also the job he'd worked there. The very last place he could honestly call himself an Auror.

He did not look back.

As they reached the treeline that they'd first landed on at the beginning of the week, Tonks had only just finished pulling apart the wards. Given it was the middle of the day, and so the golf course was open for use, they were forced to trace the treeline so as to avoid detection.

With their journey complete, all there was left to do was leave.

Back to the real world.

Harry looked to Tonks. He allowed his eyes to capture her; her change, her everything.

He would see her again, they both knew, but there could never be too much time spent with Tonks. Tonks, in her part, watched his eyes, and the look he held, and she just smiled.

"I'll see you soon," said Tonks, walking into Harry's arms. She kissed him. "Actually, how about tonight?"

Harry smiled. "Yeah?"

"I know it's soon," she said, shrugging demurely. "But, I don't really want to wait any longer than that."

"Me either."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

"My place or yours?"

"Yours. It has the Indian we both like."

"But your bed is bigger."

"How do you know?"

"Because my bed is tiny. It's impossible that yours is smaller."

"Oh, we're definitely going to yours."

"That's a fun idea in theory, but when you wake up tomorrow on the floor, you can pay for your own chiropractor."

"If I'm falling on the floor, you're coming with me."

"Then you can pay for both of our chiropractors."

Harry smiled. He kissed her again, and again, and again.

Eventually, eventually, they pulled themselves off of one another long enough to apparate away.

"I'll see you tonight," Harry said, just before he closed his eyes and willed himself away.

"I'll see you soon," Tonks said, as he faded into the aether.

Yet, as he opened his eyes, Harry did not find himself at Grimmauld Place, but at Ron and Hermione's apartment, as if by magic.

Fortunately, as Harry walked into their kitchen, he found both Hermione and Ron sitting in there.

Unfortunately, they were kissing.

"Evening," he said, sending them sprawling apart. First in shock, and then in embarrassment, still.

"H-Harry," Hermione greeted, red-faced. She rushed over to the stovetop, stirring a curry that did not require stirring, one hand upon her baby bump. "What are you doing here?"

Harry shrugged. "I've absolutely no idea."

"How did the case go?" Ron asked.

"Yeah grand," Harry said, distracted. His eyes shot wide. "Oh! I know why I'm here."

Ron and Hermione shared a worried look. "Why is that?" Hermione asked.

"I'm not going to meet with Demelza."

"Well — why not?" Ron asked. "She's a lovely girl, you'd be really happy with her if you gave her a chance, I know you would."

"I won't." Harry shook his head. "I've met someone."

"Really?"

"Yeah, I've met someone."

"Who?"

Harry grinned. The sort of grin he'd worn only very recently, and one he expected to where a lot more in coming times.

"Tonks," Harry said.

And said, as Harry knew, in the way that only he could.