Life for Tonks, on the whole, was pretty good.

It was difficult for life to be anything other than good where she was concerned. She had great friends, a healthy family, and she had an amazing boyfriend — not that she would ever call Harry that. The trial for Richard Jeffers had gone through successfully, with the billionaire imprisoned in HMP Wandsworth for the next decade.

And, to further place a cherry on top of the cake of life, she had just been named Head Auror. Her dream job. The one constant desire she'd had in the fourteen years of her career, spanning her life fresh from leaving Hogwarts up until right that very moment.

However, therein lay the greatest issue that she faced. She was taking the office of her once-mentor, but mostly friend, Kingsley Shacklebolt, who had resigned from the office in order to devote all of his time to his campaign for Minister for Magic.

And that wasn't the issue, either. She'd fully endorsed his campaign, she'd even spoken publically to voice her support. She'd been at planning meetings, and she'd sat behind him as he made speeches in Diagon Alley and at private dinners. So no, that was not the issue.

The issue was that King was an arsehole.

There was perhaps an argument that she deserved his particular oeuvre of arseholery, given she and Harry had poked at him for the better part of the three's entire friendship. It wasn't an argument she wanted to hear in any capacity, but she was sure it existed.

The true facts of the matter, disregarding any harmless things she might've done first, was this. He'd hurt her, emotionally, to the tune of destroying hundreds of her most dear possessions. Sure they had in the end returned, but her innocence had not.

And, by taking the title of Head Auror, she was given the office of the Head Auror. King's domain. His Kingdom. His little palace.

Tonks just knew he'd done something to it. He'd thought up something so that she'd be completely embarrassed on the first day of her dream job. The perfect retaliation for a career's worth of minor irritation.

But, she would not stand for it.

Which was why she then stood outside of the Head Auror's office, her office, the evening before her first official day in the role, leaning against the wall as she waited for Harry to arrive.

She was not stupid enough to face whatever King had left in there by herself. That was suicide. And, pettily, she thought it was only fair that both she and Harry would suffer whatever fate King had deemed they were worthy of. They'd both been digging this grave of theirs. It was big enough for both of them.

Even as doom awaited them, Harry's arrival still made her smile like nothing else, his black hair wild, and seemingly everywhere all at once. His robes still half-covered in soot from the floo over, and his glasses a little askew from the various times he'd no doubt erratically moved them during the day. The beard he'd allowed himself to start growing.

His eyes, however, were forever arresting. Forever startling. Forever enthralling. And, they shone as he met her eyes and it was like nothing else Tonks had ever seen.

Brilliant. Utterly brilliant. And all, all, all for her.

Tonks knew that her hair was cycling through every colour under the sun, Harry's smile — and God, his smile — told her all that and more. But, she could not stand to do anything to change it. He was a collection of things that she could not imitate. A collection of things that no one could imitate.

"Hey baby," Harry said, already pulling her into his arms before she'd taken her back off of the wall she leaned against.

His voice saying that word just made her day better.

"Professor," she said, her head dipping in deference. Harry shook his head fondly, dropping a kiss to her lips. "How was your day. Did you inspire the future leaders of our country?"

"Well, one of the fourth years made a pretty compelling argument that the Patronus should be criminalised because 'it was an evil magic only used to torture an endangered and heavily marginalised species'," Harry told her. "It was written so convincingly that I was halfway to giving them full marks before I stopped for like two seconds and realised how insane what they were arguing for was."

"Still happy with your decision to leave here?"

Harry shrugged. "I don't get to see you every day."

Tonks grinned. "Good answer."

"But," he said, his eyes burning into her. "I actually like how I spend all of the rest of my working hours, outside of all the time I would've ordinarily spent talking to you."

"Sounds like you're on the fence," said Tonks. "Your old desk is still open, by the way. You'd be working under me, of course, but I'm sure you'd learn to love it."

Tonks watched his eyes as he glanced toward the floo he'd just walked through. She liked to imagine he was weighing his options. To stay, and deal with whatever was in her office, or to run into the fire, throw her onto his bed and for both of them to call in sick tomorrow.

"Tempting though that is," said Harry, grinning down at her, after his brief journey down the roads of his mind's fantasies. "I think I like hearing you call me Professor too much."

"I'll still call you that even if you work here," Tonks said, before shaking her head. Her hair shook from pink to blonde as she did. "Actually, what am I saying, I'll join you. King hasn't fucked with Hogwarts."

"Yet," Harry corrected. "I'm still terrified I'm going to go to a class one day, and he'll have polyjuiced himself as one of my students so that he can kill me."

"He wouldn't kill you."

"I'm not putting limits on what I think that man is capable of," Harry said. "God, I hope he gets the Minister job. If he doesn't, he'll have all the time in the world to plot to ruin our lives."

Tonks winced.

She'd go canvassing for King next weekend. She'd take out adverts in the paper. Anything.

"So, other than whatever is through that door," Harry said, "how're you feeling, Head Auror Tonks?"

"Looking forward to it," she said, her voice. "It's a nice achievement, but it's just the beginning of what I really want to do."

Harry smiled brightly. "And how do you really feel?"

Tonks groaned. "So fucking happy."

Harry took her cheek in his hand, pulling her mouth against his. Tonks sighed against him.

"The only thing, I suppose, standing in between you and that," Harry said, his eyes disappearing over her shoulder, "is that door."

Tonks fell against his chest. The impact was probably best described as an affectionate headbutt.

"Oomph," Harry wheezed out. "No baby, this needs to happen. The sooner we get in there, the sooner we get out."

"But what if he ruins my shit again? Except this time, it's my records he breaks, and he messes the spell up and then they're ruined forever," Tonks wondered, her words forming fast. "And that's totally possible, by the way. I've seen his NEWTs. He barely got an O in Charms. I have no faith in him."

"I'm sure he'll be thrilled to hear that so close to the election." He brushed her cheek with his thumb, the passing touch of his skin soothing her more than it likely should've. "But, if he does fuck it up, you can just go to his apartment and fight him. And you'd win too. He's probably really slow now."

King definitely wasn't slow — if he lived to see a thousand he'd still be quicker than nearly everyone Tonks had met — but Merlin was Harry good at finding the right thing to say when he wanted to.

With nothing else that needed to be said, they left one another's arms to turn and address the door properly.

The wards had already been re-keyed so as to allow her direct access, and so the door unlocked without any effort expended. The chandelier that hung above soon bathed the room in light as it registered their presence.

The office appeared as it always did. Ancient and austere. Just as King had liked it.

No change was always the worst sign. That meant he'd taken the effort to fully hide whatever it was he'd hidden. If a gift was there, waiting for her, Tonks would've had time to accept her fate and embrace her new reality. With this blind hell, all she had to do was panic.

Fortunately, she was not panicking for long.

As she made the mistake of reaching out to rest her hand upon the desk to turn her head and survey the room at large. An unknowing mistake, but a mistake nonetheless.

The very second she did, the room exploded into pink glitter. Literally exploded.

Gone was everything — the desk, the blinds, the shelves of books — all transfigured into mounds upon mounds of pink, which coalesced to form one giant sand dune of glitter.

She hated pink.

Tonks looked toward Harry. In the explosion, he'd been covered head to toe. He swiped an arm across his face to reveal his features again.

He drew his wand. "Evanesco," he cast, spitting out several hundred grains of glitter as he did.

Unfortunately, nothing happened.

"How is that possible?" Tonks asked, herself spitting out glitter as she spoke. "He'd have to cast an anti-vanishing charm on the glitter nearly individually for it to stick."

So, either he'd done that, or he'd invented an entirely new spell purely for purposes of pissing her off.

Tonks didn't know which one was worse.

She groaned. "Can we just go to yours?" she asked. "I'll deal with this in the morning. Just not now."

Harry smiled, reaching over to take her hand in his. "Of course, baby."

Even then, she smiled. "Thank you."

Yet, as they turned around to leave, they instead stilled again, as they found a piece of parchment clipped onto the back of the door. One that had not been there when they entered, and one that stuck out especially then as it was the only thing in the room not pink.

Upon it, only two words were inscribed.

Checkmate.

King.

"You could go and fight him, if you want?"

Tonks turned into Harry's arms, along herself the comfort. Harry kissed her brow, his beard brushing against her skin, her eyes fluttering closed. "It's okay," she said. "Let's just go home."

Harry smiled, and in an instant they were at her apartment.

He threaded his fingers into her hair and pulled her mouth to his. And Tonks sank into him. As he kissed her like only he could.