Chapter 12

• One Step Forward •

The trees were painted the colors of autumn and whisked by so quickly that Harry could barely keep track of them. He stared at a little dark haired boy who sat in the compartment alone. He was frowning, concentrating on the box in his hand. Harry had never seen anything like it, it was square and smooth black. It must have served some purpose he thought as he watched the boy's hands glide over it.

The door to the compartment slid open, a young blonde woman walked in. Harry recognized her somehow. She smiled at him, looked around, and then disappeared again through the door. The boy did not move. He didn't even seem to acknowledge her presence however brief it had been.

The seconds ticked by and Harry found a seat, staring at the young boy. His hair was perfectly kept, falling just barely to his ears. His eyes seemed to flicker with a wicked spark. He smiled and then suddenly his fingers slid across the cube quickly. The cube shimmered and changed shape, turning into a sphere of exactly the same material. It shimmered slightly and Harry could see the reflection of everything around him.

"Git," a voice said and both Harry and the boy turned their heads to the door that had slid open. A dark haired boy quickly entered, sliding the door closed behind him just as quick. "Hey, you don't happen to have your wand handy do you?" he asked seriously but with a smirk on his face while struggling to hold the door closed. It seemed that people were trying to force it open.

The first boy smiled and one of his hands dropped from the ball he'd been playing with and reached into his cloak and pulled out his wand, flicking it up to the second. It seemed that what was about to happen didn't concern him as he turned to the sphere again, his hands roving over it slowly, searching for something.

Harry however couldn't seem to keep his eyes off the second boy. It was almost like staring in a mirror. He'd seen his father older, yes, but seeing him so young gave him the oddest feeling. James had somehow been able to catch the wand in the hand that already held his own wand. He rolled them in his hands, waiting for something.

Outside someone bellowed, and James jumped back from the door. The second wand seemed to fly from one hand to the other; he flicked them simultaneously as the door crashed open. Sirius had looked up again his hands slowed to a crawl over the sphere. His eyes were focused on James, trying to pierce his thoughts.

In a moment the train was ruckus. Three boys who had tried to force their way into the compartment were turned, all retching their guts out in the hallway. James stepped to the door, kicked one of the boys out as he was puking and then slid the door shut.

"Thanks mate," he said cheerfully as he laid the wand next to Sirius and took a seat across from him. "Bloody Slytherins don't like being called slime. I guess it's true when they say it's hard to accept the gruesome truth," he snickered.

The corners of Sirius' mouth turned up just slightly, the only real movement that Harry had seen on it in the last hour. "Name's James Potter," James said, offering his hand to the disbelieving Sirius.

"Oh shut up you prat. It hasn't been that long." Sirius said smirking, "It was your fault I was sent to stay with my aunt for the past several months. My family seem to believe you were corrupting me and having a bad influence. I can't even begin to figure out why. Oh, I also happen to agree that Slytherins are the slime of the world as well – my cousin's one of the worst," he added, his face breaking into a grin.

"Hey, you don't know how to get one of these things open do you?" Sirius questioned James, motioning towards the ball. "My father gave it to me as a present, but said I had to get it open first. Typically I wouldn't give it much thought, but the new Comet just got released and he knows I've been wanting it. I think this was his way to help me sneak one in. I've seen the damned thing open, but he never showed me what was inside."

James' eye rose slightly. "Do you really think he would have done that? He's always going on about keeping the rules and he never let us get away with anything. Even that one time, we caught Mrs. Jameson and the minister at the party your father was hosting and nicked her knickers. Your father knew who she was with in there and still felt it was right to punish us."

"Come on," Sirius said throwing him the ball, "you do know how to open it don't you. You're just stalling. What do you want?"

James looked aghast. Even though Harry had the feeling it was fake, because it was a bit overdone, it looked real. Harry stepped forward and tried to touch his fathers unruly hair, wanting to feel it, wanting to have touched his father even if just for a moment. He knew it was a memory; he knew it wouldn't happen; but he just felt the overwhelming urge to do it. However, just as he had thought, Harry's hand swept right through the hair.

"Nothing," James finally said, "well, not nothing. You're going to let me ride it if it is a broom right? If my parents hadn't felt that it was too hazardous it wouldn't have been destroyed."

"You and your flying machines," Sirius muttered. "It's a good thing they didn't have a photographer around or you might have been in a lot more trouble. When mother found out about that she sent me straight to my aunt without even telling me. I was just hauled off. They even went and hid the Floo powder, kept the owlery locked, and told the elves not to obey any orders from me unless it was to do with cleaning. They knew I'd try and contact you."

James was nodding and staring at the ball, rotating it slowly, as if looking for something. His hair was a tad bit longer than Harry's and continually fell over his glasses. "Yeah, well we'll have to fix that. Now that we can do magic I think we'll have to make some sort of fellytone like muggles have so that we can talk to each other without fireplaces."

"Yeah my mum'd be right livid about that, making things based on muggle gadgets. If you think you're going to just con her with that smile again you've gone…"

"Shh!" James said, one of his hands flipping up and down. "Watch the master," he said proudly and then pulled his hand back into an odd angle, twisting until his fingers came to stand on odd points. His eyes closed and his other hand moved along until every finger stopped. The sphere made a popping sound and grew wider, flattening out until it wasn't more than a few centimeters thick.

Sirius gasped and reached for it but James' hand was quicker and he thrust it into the blackness, making it disappear. "Oh yeah," James said smiling, "it's a broom."

He pulled his hand back out until the tip of a broom was showing and Sirius moaned with pleasure, "He got it for me," he said happily.

There was a knock on the door and James thrust the broom back down into the hole, and tossed the object back to Sirius. His wand was already out when the door began to open.

"Trolley dears, want anything?" an elderly woman asked as her head poked into the door.

Sirius smirked, but rattled his pockets and nodded. When the elderly lady disappeared leaving the two with a great deal of sweets Sirius reached into the device again, pulling out the broom. "You're always so tense James, you really need to relax. It's not like people are waiting outside the door to curse you."

The boys laughed together and Harry watched them as they traded stories about the time they'd spent apart. James had had a wonderful time, getting to go to the Quidditch world cup and even going into the players lockers. He was saving the best for last and when he pulled out a snitch signed by the Vratsa Vultures. Sirius knocked him over trying to get to it. They wrestled around and finally James gave up, letting Sirius look at it while he told his story.

Apparently the aunt he was sent to stay with was the same cousin Harry had the pleasure of meeting a few months before. Bellatrix Lestrange, had told her mother to invite Sirius over and so he'd been invited. At first it was because she needed a friend, but when Sirius had countered the attempts she found instead he was good to practice curses on.

Since he wasn't the best child her parents had also seen to it that he was taught manners, shown how a proper wizard should think. None of it seemed to have gone over very well with Sirius though. He claimed to have enraged his cousin so much that she cursed him in the night to keep him from talking for a whole week.

James had a good laugh as Sirius pulled out a little statue he'd talked about. "Think they'll miss it?" he snickered as he looked it over again carefully. "They worshipped this thing and all it is, is a statue."

"Well they're Slytherins right? Or were, that makes more sense. Slytherins aren't there for their heads."

"Neither are Gryffindors," Sirius snickered. "That's what you want to be isn't it?"

James eyes him. "So what do you want to be? Hufflepuff?"

Grinning, Sirius shook his head. "That damned hat won't put me in there or I'll tell it I refuse to accept and I won't take it off until it changes the house."

"So Ravenclaw then?" James said, his grin breaking even wider. "You want to go be one of their lot, nose stuck in a book all day? I could see you now walking around without even looking up."

Sirius snorted, almost choking the piece of chocolate he'd just put in his mouth.

The room began to fade, and Harry tried to reach for his father, he wanted to bring him to the world, he wanted to talk to him. The blackness engulfed him and another scene began to fade in.

With a great deal of effort Harry pulled his head from the Pensieve, finding himself staggering a little as he took a few steps backwards. He probably shouldn't have gone in as soon as he'd awoken, but then it was the only time he could be alone with it.

It was a few days after his birthday, the first time he'd worked up enough courage to actually go into the Pensieve. Now he was having a hard time. Seeing things in the Pensieve was a good deal different from seeing pictures that moved or images in a mirror. He held his breath, focused and then looked around; trying to relieve some of the pain he was feeling.

Tonks was lying in the bed, her eyes open and even though it looked as if she were staring at him he knew she was asleep. Her rhythmic breathing and lack of focus was the key. Occasionally he'd seen her sleep like this, it was usually when she was so exhausted that she fell asleep before hitting the bed. But sometimes, when there were noises, her eyes shot open without her waking up.

Taking a moment to slow his breath down Harry looked into the Pensieve. He'd already sworn to himself that he would only watch one or two scenes a day and if he watched them all now there would be nothing to see later in the day. Besides, he still had some work to do.

Feeling slightly light-hearted Harry padded out to the kitchen and proceeded to make an extravagant breakfast. He marked off the previous day on the calendar on the wall and went back to his room. Tonks' eyes were still open but no longer looked as if they were focused on him, but on a vase on the other side of the wall.

Quietly he opened the trunk that Bambi was in and ran his hands along the egg. A few nights prior he'd almost had been caught in a clock tower, such an adventure, like all the others he'd had. Bambi reminded him of the island, the game of Jack and of Darrian, he never wanted to forget such things but even now they were fading from his memory as though they'd happened in another lifetime.

Harry grabbed the present Hermione had given him and pulled a quill from the inkwell on the desk, scribbling down another note.

The last pages of the book contained things he'd been thinking about, things he wanted to learn or do. It started with Show the others how to apparate. He'd been thinking about this for a long time, they were getting old enough that apparating would be something that they could do legally and it was really handy in situations like what had happened last year. He had just finished writing Learn how to use the Pensieve properly so I can remember everything. He looked back down to the book and underlined the word "everything." He hoped it was possible that certain things he had forgotten could be brought back.

There was a slight squeak behind him and Harry flipped around quickly to see Tonks rolling out of bed. "Morning Harry," she murmured as she walked past him, stopping to peak over his shoulder then continuing past the room. There was a muted yelp and a curse and Harry knew she'd caught her toe on the cabinet for the fifth time in the past week.

He smiled and stared at the door for a few minutes and had another thought. Quickly he turned back to the book and scribbled more words under where the quill had dripped a few splotches of ink. 'See if Tonks will help me learn things to teach the DA'. He sighed, then dropped the quill back into the inkwell and closed his book. He wanted to start training in force again. While Tonks had shown him a few things, there wasn't much they could do unless they were somewhere that no one would bother them about using magic.

The dream he'd had the night before had been a pleasant one, about: Hermione working with him in the library with Ginny and Luna interrupting to tell them they were late for DA meeting. Ron and Neville had been trying to teach the class when they'd finally arrived and everything was a mess. Harry laughed as he thought of the dream even though it was strange to think about it.

The day passed slowly with Harry doing little more than going through prank books and scribbling notes about spells or tricks he might be able to use in a fight. He really wished that the twins had more books about things other than pranks.

Tonks appeared again and Harry stared at her as she went through the drawers looking for something to wear. Her terrycloth robe she wore was a bit big for her but she loved to wear it, especially in the morning. "When are we going to get back to real training?" he questioned her as she found a white shirt with a single word printed in dark letters on the front. Harry thought it was a bit odd to wear a shirt that said muggle on it when no one in the muggle world would know what it meant.

Briefly, Tonks paused, but went back to searching for a pair of pants. "When we have time Harry, you know that I don't have much right now, and we can't do magic here anyway."

"Let's go back to the island then," Harry suggested quickly.

The shirt in Tonks' hand dropped to the floor and Harry could hear her take a long breath of air. "So you can see Korina again?" Tonks asked sharply in a voice that was very unlike her. "You know she likes you a lot."

"Korina was nice," Harry said quietly, wondering why Tonks was acting strange. "But I just had a lot more freedom there and I didn't always feel so miserable there."

Reaching down, Tonks picked up the shirt and pulled a pair of pants up. "It's because of the charms they put up to keep everyone happy. It makes it for good business when everyone's a little more cheerful than usual. They can only do it because no one can stop them, it's a typical practice there."

"We can't go back," she said quietly, "I wish we could sometimes but we can't, for a while at least. Maybe next summer," she added cheerfully, perking up visibly. She turned and headed back to the bathroom. Harry didn't hear the words she tagged on the end with a sad frown. "If you're still alive."

When the twins came home that evening Tonks disappeared as usual, but Harry wasn't sure if she was going to work or not, thought for some reason he didn't think she had to. After cleaning up, Harry sat on his bed making further notes in his book, deciding what it was he wanted to teach to the DA. The first dozen pages were filled with dozens of ideas and ways in which he could teach. There was Neville, who always needed someone to be there. Even though he had done quite well, he still needed someone to keep him in good spirits. Hermione could take care of herself and possibly even help share the teaching load. She was apt at everything that he taught her. Ron needed more help than most of the members, but with Hermione around he always seemed to do alright. Ginny was good, Luna was smart enough but she seemed to get distracted quite often.

As Harry ticked off the members in his head there was a crash and the front door clicked closed. In the other room he could hear hoarse giggling. Feeling odd, Harry placed his stuff to on the dresser next to the bed and stood up. The door flew open proclaiming Tonks' entrance. She was standing there, half hunched over and looking sort of insane. The door banged against the wall and she looked over to it "Shh!" she whispered into the air. "It's late, everyone's asleep."

One of her hands grabbed the door roughly and swung it to the door frame, slowing right before it snapped close and then moving tediously slow until the door clicked quietly. "There," she whispered to herself and then whirled around.

Just before the door had shut he could have sworn he saw two sets of eyes peeping from across the hall. Tonks straightened up a little and stared at Harry for a minute, trying to place him it seemed. "Oh," she uttered in a half-slurred, half-surprised voice, "you're suppose to be asleep."

Harry stared at her for what seemed like hours, but it was no longer than a minute. When she stepped forward his eyes fell away and he stepped forward to help her as she stumbled towards the bed. She groaned twice and stopped sort of waving in mid-air. Harry wasn't sure what was wrong with her. Tonks was not herself, he was well aware of that.

When she finally came to rest right in front of him she leaned down just slightly, she wasn't much taller than him, and looked right into his eyes. "You and I are friends, right?" she said loudly, and her hand shot to her mouth as if she could stop the sound from coming out of her mouth. Her hand struck Harry on the face and he jumped backwards as a reflex. She giggled obnoxiously and her hand fell onto Harry's face as if it were some sort of apology.

Before he jumped back he noticed a strong smell that seemed to be coming from her. Though he had never smelled it before he had a pretty good idea what it was and why she was acting this way.

"You're drunk!" he whispered fiercely.

"Nnnnnuhhhuhhh," Tonks said shaking her head far too vigorously. "I…" she paused, and dropped the tone of her voice, "don't get drunk. I'm just a little inabr… ineebree… smashed. It's just fine," she said. Her hand came to a rest on Harry's face again, "Happens all the time."

Since Harry had been around her, he hadn't once noticed her coming home like this. He knew it was a lie.

"Come on, you need to lie down, you can't even walk straight," Harry said softly. For some reason he felt slightly betrayed inside though, he didn't like her like this.

Shaking her head again forcefully Tonks blinked and almost fell over. Once she'd regained the balance she had somehow she looked at Harry and then flipped her head towards the restroom connected to their room. "I need," she said and then took several quick steps towards the door but never made it. Her head bobbed back and forth just a little bit before she leaned forward and threw up all over the hardwood floor.

She began to slump to the ground but Harry moved forward and caught her. "You're always so nice to me Harry, and you never look at me like all the other men," she slurred. "I just wish," she paused and brushed his hair away from his eyes. Harry was caught surprised when she reached down and kissed him on the lips.

Harry panicked as he realized Tonks kissing him. The fact Tonks just vomited didn't help the already awkward situation. The kiss was and wasn't like the one he received from Cho Chang. It was still wet, but a different kind of wet, a putrid kind Harry did not like. Tonks obviously felt differently about the kiss and pressed harder into Harry. All Harry could smell was her vile breath under his nose. Harry broke away from Tonks almost as quickly as she kissed him. She looked at him like a lost child then collapsed into his arms. Her dead weight made it difficult for Harry to keep hold of her.

At the door Harry saw the twins standing there, gawking. "Help me," he muttered as he tried to drag her over to the bed. It only took a minute for both of them to rush forward and help him lay her in the bed. Harry ran for a rag right away and once he'd gotten it he proceeded to clean her up a bit.

The twins were staring at him when he went back for a bucket. It had been a long time, but Dudley had thrown up a lot when he was younger, sometimes just to make Harry clean it up. "She kissed you," George said stupidly, "and you pulled away."

"She's drunk," Harry pointed out.

George shook his head. "You really need to learn a little more about her, Harry," he said quietly. "She's still quite aware of what's happening when she's drunk, she just does things that she'd refrain from doing otherwise."

With a glance towards Tonks Harry was on his knee's cleaning up the mess. "Like what?" he asked before the twins walked off. He really did want to know more about her. She seemed to know everything about him and he'd barely heard a word about her. She took him to the island, and she had never said very much about how she'd ended up there other than she had been in trouble.

"Well there was the time she came to the headquarters pretty messed up last year," Fred pointed out and George followed him, laughing.

"Yeah, well Snape was there at the time and chastised her for coming to the headquarters in that state."

Fred laughed, "Well she never liked Snape much. She'd told us a few times before then, and… well,"

"He won't ever forget your name," George snickered.

Harry slopped the last bit of the waste into the bucket along with the rag and looked at them. "What does that mean?" he demanded.

Fred and George looked at each other and then back to Harry their faces spread so wide in a grin that Harry was hoping that they were joking. "Well somehow Tonks learned this tattoo spell," George said seriously even though his face was almost breaking with a grin. "I've never heard one like it."

"She didn't," Harry whispered, his eyes wide.

"Yep," Fred said, "right on his ass. 'I love Harry Potter' with a little heart on the end."

"But, why?" Harry asked after they'd left the room, he was astonished that she had done such a thing. Harry dumped the foul water down the sink and rinsed the rag he had been using as he continued. "She'd barely knew me, if she even knew me at all."

"Nah, this was during term, after we'd left school. Mum can't keep us out of the order any longer. Anyway, she seemed to have heard some nasty things about your aunt and uncle before she'd gone out and when Snape said some things about you afterwards… Well she didn't take it well," Fred said quietly.

"Sure wish we'd thought of it," George added, "he'd have had a tattoo of the Gryffindor on his back."

"But… how?" Harry asked incredulously as he wrung the rag out for the last time, "Snape wouldn't just let Tonks tattoo him, and there must have been someone else around to stop him."

"The only one around other than us was…" Fred started, but paused.

They two looked between themselves and Harry knew who else was around. It was obvious, they had left a long time before it had happened. And afterwards, Tonks was in the hospital. "Sirius," he muttered, "who would have helped if he could have."

"Oh, he did," George said quickly. "But Tonks had already knocked Snape out. He showed her where the best spot would be. While she was doing it. he watched the whole time. Looked as if he were about to win the Quidditch cup. I think if he hadn't been worried about Dumbledore coming down on him he would have added his name there as well."

Harry blinked. "But why? Did Sirius tell her to do it?"

"No, she was already on her way when Sirius came downstairs. He and Snape stayed out of each others way whenever they were at the same place."

Something occurred to Harry and he looked up, shaking his head. "But Snape… he was at Hogwarts every day."

"Oh he came by the headquarters a good bit, nights and weekends mostly, but he was always around." Fred pointed out.

"Does anyone else know?" Harry asked, dropping his voice without thinking as if he were trying to keep the secret from some invisible fiend.

The twins shook their heads. "Remus was out on a mission and mum was at home, it was just after she'd had a fight with us about joining the order – that's why we were there in the first place."

"So why didn't anyone tell?" Harry asked, confused, the twins would have jumped at the idea to let everyone know such a thing.

"Well see, we were going to," George said.

"But when Tonks woke up the next morning she knew what she'd done and she made all of swear not to tell anyone," Fred added quickly.

"You told me."

"Yeah, well we're pretty sure that she'll only get a little mad at us, after all you're the one she kissed." Fred said, getting a little too personal for Harry and he suddenly was feeling a little boxed in.

Harry looked at Fred, "and what's that suppose to mean?" he demanded, knowing full well what Fred was implying.

"Well…" Fred started not sure how to say it without being too blatant. He had seen Harry in bad moods before and now it seemed as though he was headed full bore into one.

"Nothing," George said, feeling the same way Fred was. "You're tired, Harry. Go to bed, we can talk about things tomorrow."

Harry glanced at the bedroom door, feeling terrified all of the sudden, he wasn't afraid in the same way he was afraid of Voldemort. What the difference was though, he couldn't say. Closing his eye and gritting his teeth he moved forward opening the door and closing it behind him. He was already dressed for bed but the smell that permeated through the room made him choke. He moved to the window and opened it to let the night air flow in. It was chilly, but he could bear that.

Slowly he slipped into bed thinking about what the twins had said and what Tonks had done. She'd kissed him. She had gotten piss drunk, then come home, and kissed him. The twins seemed to think it was something that she wanted to do, but something she wouldn't have done otherwise. But he remembered her eyes as she stared at him. There was something there, something he had never seen before.

Shivering, he pulled the covers over him more and began to drift off. It wasn't long before he awoke though,. Tonks was shivering and he could tell that it had been a bad idea to open the window. He started to roll to the side of the bed to close it but Tonks caught the arm which had been lying in her side. "Come closer," she said. Her words were still slightly slurred. "Warm me up."

"But the window," Harry said, trying to get her to let go.

She would not. She pulled him closer to him until she was holding his arm to her chest. He could hear her crying softly. "Just keep me warm Harry, please." Tonks whispered.

Having no other choice, Harry slipped his other arm under her and pulled her as close as he could to him. "It's alright, I've already cleaned everything up, you'll be fine tomorrow," he said, trying to make the best he could of the situation.

"You don't have to stay here," she said, and Harry could feel her body shake with the soft sobs as she tried to form words. "I know I'm a screw up and I'm not the right person for you, but every time I try and tell myself I can't be with you, you smile and tell me it's alright."

The words she said meant so much that Harry almost pulled away to think. He knew he wasn't the best person for her to be saying this to, he didn't understand it as well as he would have liked to. Hermione would, but he couldn't think about Hermione while Tonks was crying right next to him. "Shh," he whispered in her ear, holding her tighter. "You need some sleep."

It was all Harry could do, but it worked. Her soft sobbing died slowly and her body relaxed in his hold. At one point he began to pull his arm away from her but she gripped it and he could hear her saying, "don't let go."

•

Something wasn't right.

The moment Harry woke up he felt it. It wasn't the slight pulsating in his scar, he was used to that. The chilly air was different, but not something that was completely new. He had left the window open before. Then as the wind flicked against the back of his neck he remembered why he left the window open.

It was like a great avalanche and his whole nervous system froze momentarily. One by one images of what had happened the night before flooded over him and other images, things he didn't understand. There was the drunk Tonks puking, cleaning up, an imaginative idea of Snape laying on the ground as a drunk Tonks tattooed him. Then there was the moment he went to bed. But there was more. Another face, and an image so vivid that Harry almost shot out of bed in surprise.

Standing over the sink, Harry splashed water over his face repeatedly, trying to make the thought go away.

Korina.

Everything was there. The club, oh he remembered the club, the girls, and the drinking. A taste filled his mouth and Harry spat it out, splashing more water on his face. He gripped the cabinet and stared at himself in the mirror, trying to make sense of everything. They were jumbled pictures, but it was there.

Something had brought it back. Whatever wall there had been that had blocked out the memory had crumbled in only a moment. A shiver ran up Harry's spine. Everything that he did... everything that had happened confused him. He took a deep breath and remembered where he was, remembered that what had happened between him and Korina was the past.

To top it all when Harry walked back into the room Tonks was waking up. He stared at her, surprised, her face had changed.

"Is there something on my face?" she asked even before opening her eyes.

"No," Harry mumbled but couldn't tear his eyes away from her. "You changed."

The hands, which had been lying out in front of her jumped to her face and then, a moment later, she pulled them away and she was normal again. "Sorry," she mumbled.

"Go back," Harry said without thinking, completely unable to stop himself. He liked what she had looked like.

Tonks stared at him but nodded slowly. Her face visibly relaxed and melted away, unlike when she usually had to screw up her face and concentrate. "Is that what you really look like?" he asked mutedly, staring at her.

His stares seemed to bother her a good deal but she didn't tell him that. "Yes," she said as she nodded. "When I have really strong emotions I can't hold the morph I've taken."

"Strong emotions?" Harry asked quietly, as he stepped towards her, wondering why she would have had such emotions. "Last night you had strong emotions?"

"Dolt," Tonks said, a soft smile on her face. "Last night you held me like we were more than just... you know, friends. Do you think that we could be – more than just friends? I've been having these feelings every time I think about you," she said softly, and her hand started to move to her face again to cover it.

Harry had still been unable to tear his eyes away from her, before she'd been attractive, but now, in someway she was better. Maybe because she was younger, she didn't look more than seventeen or eighteen. He reached forward and grabbed her hand. "It's alright, I just have never seen the real you. Why do you hide your face anyway? I thought you were almost thirty when I first met you, you were younger than everyone else, but not young." he asked as he found a seat next to her. He wasn't sure what he was doing exactly, but he knew what the fluttering in his stomach was.

"I... when I first joined the Aurors no one took me seriously because I looked like a little kid," she said sadly. "I didn't age normally after I was eleven; I think my body doesn't age like most peoples, so when I first started I looked fourteen. It didn't take me long to discover that most of the guys wouldn't respect me until I was older looking so I changed my appearance. Most people didn't even know that I was the same person. And you wouldn't believe how many people actually talked to me like a real person."

"So no one really knows what you look like anymore?" Harry asked quietly.

Tonks slipped her hand into his and held it for a second. When she finally answered, she spoke softly, but firmly. "No one's seen my real face in almost four years." The fluttering in Harry's stomach became almost unbearable. "But I'm showing you Harry, because I don't think I would want you to know me any differently." Then, in a surprising gesture closed her eyes and leaned towards him.

"That... I..." he stuttered, staring at her, not knowing if he should kiss her or not. His heart was beating so fast that he thought it might break his chest right open.

"Shh," Tonks said, placing her finger to his lips. When she removed it, her own lips were so close that Harry had little choice but to accept it.

When their lips touched Harry felt the fluttering in his stomach disappear. One of his hands slipped around her as she pulled him down into a laying position on the bed. Though he didn't have any idea what to do his body responded to her movement and he continued to hold the kiss until he had almost run out of breath. He pulled away briefly and stared down at her, but he wanted more, he liked the kiss and he dropped his head to give one to her. He was too fast unfortunately and their noses collided.

Harry pulled back again, not sure what to do. Underneath him, Tonks giggled slightly. It looked good, having her under him and laughing. But an image from before struck Harry hard, he'd been in the same position with Korina at one point. Harry jerked back harder, not sure how to react to it.

Tonks was staring at him, her now blue eyes looking deeply disturbed, as if she had been rejected. Then the pain in his scar heightened so much that he fell over and screamed. His hands were covering the scar, as if they could somehow take away the pain. He could feel the blood flowing freely through his closed fingers and he heard people in the background. Somewhere, in his mind he could hear a cold laugh and a cruel voice whisper in his ear that he would never be allowed such happiness.

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