Author: J.A.K.

Rating: R

Author's Notes: This story starts in the middle of Tonks and Harry's relationship. There will be a few flashbacks alluding to situations and events that happened in the past between the two, but I felt it best to start here because the crux of this story lies in them being together not in how they came to be together. I also wanted to warn everyone that this is a darker Harry; less like the one written in books 1 through 4 and more like the Harry written in book 5.

AN 2: Wow! I didn't expect to get so many positive responses from you guys (thanks SO MUCH for each and every last review). I officially think it's safe to say that this fic is a keeper. So with that said: enjoy the story! Wait…before you start enjoying anything, beware of the fact that Harry is 17 years old and has grown a little, and has possibly even changed a bit from the carefree Harry we've known for sometime now. He's got a shit load of burdens pressing down on him, some of which he might not feel obligated to carry out. That's just some food for thought. Now you can enjoy the story!

Chapter Two

It wasn't until class ended and all the students had left the room that Harry found an opportunity to talk at length with Tonks. Studying her now, he saw that she had taken off her wizarding robe and had flung it haphazardly across the back of her chair. The Muggle pant suit she wore in place of her robes didn't surprise him as she, out of all the witches and wizards he'd become acquainted with (besides Hermione), seemed to have a strange affinity with non-magical life.

Today her hair was a short dark brown that was styled back and away from her face. There was no sunlight in the room, but something about her features exuded a type of sheen that made her skin glow fiercely.

Only when silence continued to linger between the two of them for countless more seconds did she stop cleaning the countertops from its various spills and acknowledge his presence.

"You can't keep watching me like that while I'm teaching, Harry." Her eyes fixed steadily on his, and held a hint of severity hidden beneath the surface. "I can't focus on what I'm saying, I can't…" she bowed her head for a moment and then sighed, catching his gaze again. "I can't look anywhere but at you." Her voice was even as it spoke. "Your friends aren't foolish Harry. They know something's happening with you," she stepped closer to him, glancing briefly at the locked door, "It'll only take one slip between the two of us before they realize what's truly going on."

He turned his back on her and sat on one of the many desks that surrounded him, crossing his feet at the ankles. There was no sound in the room as he regarded her silently from where he was. She watched him with imploring eyes, perhaps wordlessly begging him to curb his reckless attitude: 'an attitude that seemed to have a blatant disregard for order.' He was certain that those were the words that were running through her head because he knew the speech all too well. After all, he'd heard it countless times before; just never from her. In a way that was strange to him, her position felt a small bit like betrayal and he very quickly gained the sensation of his back being pressed against a wall. The feeling made his defenses stand on edge.

Harry shrugged his shoulders unconcernedly.

"Ron and Hermione already know what's going on between the two of us."

The look that flashed across her face might have been comical if the matter wasn't so serious. She dropped her hands which had become folded during the interim of silence, and made three quick strides to stand in front of him. Harry watched her with slightly narrowed eyes as obvious shock and anxiety filtered her system.

"What do you mean they know?" Tonks almost couldn't believe what she was hearing. "How long have they known." She didn't miss the fact that his demeanor had become defensive and slightly petulant.

Harry rolled his eyes and looked at the ceiling trying to appear as unaffected as possible.

"I don't know how long they've known." He focused his gaze on the woman standing before him before he continued "It doesn't really matter though." With that said he stood on his feet prepared to make his way around her and leave.

Tonks narrowed her eyes and tilted her head so that he could experience the full effect of her glare.

"What do you mean it doesn't really matter?" She pressed her hand against his chest when he looked over her shoulder and attempted to pass her. "Were you planning on telling me about this?"

Harry felt a surge of irritation rush through his veins. He had only found out about this information less than an hour ago, and he'd been planning on telling her as soon as class had finished. He stepped back looking down at her angry face.

"Should I have told you the news before or after you bitched me out about 'watching you while you were teaching?'" His voice rose to a falsetto pitch on the last words of his statement.

Tonks sighed and cast her stare downwards, collecting herself before she said the wrong things to him. She knew that Harry could be difficult when he wanted to be and she also knew that, for whatever reason, he was purposely being more difficult than the situation called for. Right now, what the situation required was his cooperation, as her own nerves were bent by the idea of their affair being revealed to the entire wizarding world. She took another deep breath before she brought her eyes up to meet his.

"Harry I didn't say you couldn't watch me while I taught, I simply—" She cut herself off realizing that no further explanation was needed. He understood what she had been trying to say, he was just being deliberately ignorant. "The more important thing now is the fact that you didn't feel it necessary to tell me that your friends know that we've been—"

This time it was Harry who cut her off, his voice rising over hers.

"I found out during this class, alright, as in less than one hour ago." He gave her a slightly disgusted look and took a wide step to the right to get around her body.

She watched the back of his robes walk away from her for a few still seconds before moving to grab his arm.

"Do you imagine me to be some kind of a mind reader now?" Her own words were said in a hushed tone that was fraught with irritation. He whirled around with a speed that seemed almost unnatural, but was fueled heavily by anger.

"I don't know Tonks, you're the mighty Auror, you're the one that's been teaching me occlumency for more than a year; you tell me." Harry watched as a hue of pink surfaced on her cheeks and instantly felt like an ass for even allowing the matter to develop into the argument it was now. She stepped back from him and it seemed as if her whole body deflated right before his eyes.

She focused her gaze on his face and stared at him intently.

"Harry, I'm not trying to attack you."

He nodded his head in consent, moving closer to her while reaching out with his arms to rest his hands on her shoulders.

"I know that, it's just…" Tonks placed her palm on his cheek, caressing it lightly before moving her hand down to rest it on the nape of his neck where her fingers sifted gingerly through the strands that lay there.

"Stress, Harry. We all get it." Harry nodded his head again, knowing that his reaction didn't come purely from stress, but not wanting to talk further on the issue. He moved his hands down so that they rested on her waist and pulled her body up against his.

Her eyes closed involuntarily as he un-tucked the back of her shirt from her pants while his fingers slowly slipped underneath her shirt. His hands seemed to be tracing some sort of invisible pattern as he gently rubbed the skin that made up the small of her back. Harry leisurely kissed the corners of her mouth before kissing her directly on the lips. There was a half-smile on his mouth when she moved her other arm to encircle his neck and pull his head closer to hers.

Engaged wholly by the act of parting her lips with his tongue, he was slightly surprised when she pulled away from him before he got a chance to deepen the kiss.

"Harry you should go to your next class."

Harry silently contemplated that notion for half of a second before deciding that what he did now had way more satisfying results than going to a class that forced him to endure Snape's presence for a little over two hours.

His decision was made.

Tonks felt surprise run through her body as Harry lifted her slightly off of the ground and placed her on the desk he had been sitting on less than a minute ago.

There was a small grin on his face as his fingers reached for the front of her blouse and undid the first of several buttons that secured her top. She reached for his hand, stopping it before it could make its way further down.

"What are you doing?" She asked, her breath coming in short huffs, as his antics were having what could be seen as equally positive and negative effects on her.

He smiled thinking that she should know exactly what he was doing.

Harry brought both of his palms to either side of her face and stared at her intensely for countesses seconds while his focus shifted from her eyes to her lips and back again to her eyes. He allowed his thumbs to stroke her cheeks languidly before leaning in to kiss the skin that was exposed on the side of her neck. Skillfully concentrating on that area for some time, he finally heard the sound that he'd been waiting to hear all day.

Tonks knew that she wasn't setting a good example by allowing him to—as clichéd as it sounded—have his way with her, but the sensations that his tongue was creating against her neck overrode all rational thought. She moved her head back so that he could have better access to a spot that Harry had very quickly found out to be her erogenous zone.

Harry knew that once he heard her moan his name, all thoughts about going to class, on both their parts, were gone. He slowly moved away from her neck and placed his hands on her waist so that he could move in between her legs.

"I'm sorry," He said, watching her intently as his fingers once again set upon the familiar task of unbuttoning her shirt.

Argument already forgotten, Tonks threw him a confused look as she glanced over his shoulder, making sure once again that the door was indeed locked. The last thing they needed was a professor catching them in such a compromising situation; or even worse…a student. The tabloids would be filled with his or her interview that would no doubt expound in great detail about how they found Harry Potter and their Defense Against the Dark Arts professor in an intimate position.

Harry noticed her sudden switch in attention and knew where her gaze had wandered off to. He wasn't concerned by the door, however, remembering that he had foreseen their exchange, and had taken measure to make sure there would be no unexpected spectators to what they were about to do.

He gently tugged the rest of her shirt out of her pants and reached for the last few closed buttons that remained. Harry watched as her breath quickened with both anticipation and excitement. Kissing her briefly but deeply, he pulled the shirt from around her shoulders, helping her to pull her wrists through the cuffs.

"I'm sorry for being such an ass." He said sincerely, throwing the shirt on the floor next to them. Lightly squeezing the sides of her waist, he pulled her securely against him, enjoying the feel of her body pressed so closely to his. One of his hands ran up the narrow expanse of her back and toyed with the clasp of her bra teasingly.

Harry knew that he had acquired a need to have the last word in any argument. But he could admit to himself that sometimes he pushed too hard; and that was simply not acceptable when it same to the person sitting before him.

"You don't deserve that," he said, moving his other hand so that it rested on the underside of her thigh.

Tonks knew what they were doing was wrong. It was wrong for the most basic reasons, but also because this was a classroom; and the thing underneath her was a desk; and they were about to have mind blowing sex on that very same desk.

She watched as he waited for her to respond to his statement.

Winding her fingers around his neck and up through the messy strands of his hair, she opened her mouth to respond, but was cut short by a knock on the door.

They both stood, frozen in each others arms, as silence mercilessly greeted them.

"Professor, is Harry in there?"

Harry knew that voice.

That was Ron's voice.

He distanced himself from the woman that was in front of him and looked, a bit anxiously, from her to the door as she hurriedly put herself back together.

Tonks' entire body was flushed with nervousness. She quickly shooed Harry out of her way and stood by the door, putting her hand on the lock.

"Tonks, I know Harry is in there with you," he paused unsure of what he could say that would convince them of his good intentions "I'm just trying to spare him another unexcused lateness to Snape's class, that's all."

That made Tonks throw a disapproving look at Harry, as she had forgotten that he had potions—of all classes—next; if she had remembered, she would never have allowed him to stay with her for so long.

Harry merely shrugged his shoulders at her glance and looked down.

Tonks shook her head, turning back to the situation at hand, and opened the door.

Ron instantly walked straight to Harry, flinging both his hands out in apparent frustration. She looked at them a bit stupidly for a second, before gathering her wits and closing the door behind him.

Harry had prepared himself for Ron as soon as he'd heard his voice. When his friend came charging through the door, he steeled himself even more, knowing very well that look of determination that had settled in his eyes. It was still quite a shock, however, to see such an ornate amount of anger settle over his features as he opened his mouth to speak.

Ron looked at Harry for a moment wondering silently if he actually wanted to get expelled from Hogwarts, because, right now, there were enough things stacked against him that could have him booted out from school. Going from least to greatest offense, Harry had not only been having an affair with their professor, but he had been late to Snape's class five consecutive times, which was why he couldn't help the venom and heat that accompanied his words as they left his mouth.

"What the bloody hell is wrong with you?"

AN 3: That was a little humor on my part by making Ron think to himself that being late to Snape's class was a more serious offense than Harry's relationship with Tonks. LOL. By the way, reviews are muchly appreciated and greatly adored.

Remember: Embrace the ship of Tonks and Harry forever!!!