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: The problem I had with this chapter was that its so long that it takes quite a while for me to pick apart each paragraph. I think I've really had it after doing it this last time so I'll just put it up. Please read, review, and most importantly…enjoy!

Chapter Six

Having barely just cast the spell mere moments ago, Tonks was surprised to see that, yes, the world was still indeed functioning around her. She sat on the edge of her bed, immobile and in shock. A million different questions and suppositions raced through her mind at the prospect of having to handle the repercussions that would follow her—rather them—because of what this meant.

Two days ago she had promised herself to cast an illness locator spell so that she could figure out what part of her body was causing her ailment. However, as soon as she'd gotten to her room, all she had wanted to do was lie down and sleep. Now, several spells and many persisting symptoms later, she'd finally decided to cast this one, never thinking that the results would come back the way they did.

There was a soft knock at the door, though being in the state she was in, she didn't have the presence of mind to answer. The person knocked for several long moments, but still she remained silent.

"Tonks are you okay?"

Harry pushed the door open. He knew that sometimes he would have to wait outside of her door before she bade him entrance. But never before did she ignore him altogether when she had personally invited him to her room. Making his way swiftly to where she sat, he kneeled in front of her trying to understand why she was staring right through him.

"Tonks?" He tried again. Still an answer was not forthcoming. He rested both his palms on her shoulders, shaking her slightly. Harry felt worry begin to settle in his body. Perhaps she was under some sort of spell.

Carefully holding the upper portion of her arm, he used his other hand to wave in front of her face.

"Dora…" Harry waited three beats, but was met with silence. "Dora, answer me right now or else I'm going to call Dumbledore along with anybody else who's competent enough to come and help you."

Tonks stared intently at the bespectacled boy who wasn't really a boy that kneeled in front of her. His forehead was wrinkled heavily with concern. His eyes, which were always intense, blazed even brighter. His never fading scar was more visible now even through the dimness of the room, and she wandered briefly if someone somewhere was laughing at her.

She blinked slowly, feeling the horrifying signs of moisture gather and pool at the corners of her eyes. Running her fingers through his wayward strands of hair, she nodded her head unhurriedly, hoping that her mouth would cooperate with her brain and start working.

"Ye-yes." Tonks looked at the ceiling, as if searching for divine answers, and took a deep cleansing breath. Focusing her eyes clearly on the person who stood before her, she nodded her head again, more surely.

"I'm alright…or at least I will be." Harry carefully looked over the woman who was sitting in front of him. The Tonks he knew never cried. An errant tear might fall from time to time...but that was it.

He paused in his thoughts.

There had been that occasion when he had unwittingly snuck up on her—one day during the summer before Sixth year—and he had found her in a state that was way beyond crying. Of course, back then, he had never really had cause to speak to her, but he had known, still, that something really horrible must have happened to make her sob, so.

That was why it was particularly strange to see the droplets of tears that still hung defiantly from the tips of her eyelashes.

He leaned forward, cupping her face within his palm and wiped away any signs of moisture that lingered on her cheeks.

"Tell me what happened." Tonks had been lulled by the concern she'd seen in the depth of his green irises. She had been further taken when he wiped her tears away. But his words woke her from her stupor.

She looked down at her fingers, which were now intertwined with each other and wondered if she had the courage to do it; if she cared enough for him to tell him what he needed to hear.

"Harry," she said, bringing her fingers to wrap around his larger ones. Slowly she lowered his hands away from her face. "There's something serious that we have to discuss."

Maybe it was the dull note in her tone or the flicker in her eyes, but one of the two things told him that she had bad news. He rose slowly to his feet and pulled out the chair that was under the desk, turning it to face her. Leaning forward in his seat he rolled back his shoulders carelessly in a gesture that was meant to voice his confusion.

"What's going on Dora?" His eyes were soft but attentive as he put his elbow on the arm of the chair. She, on the other hand, knew how miserable she must have looked. Nothing about her eyes were calm; in fact, she had to keep herself from shuddering when he called her Dora, a name that was spoken only when he felt his most affectionate.

Sighing, she looked at her hands, unable to hold his penetrating gaze further.

"God Harry, why do you have to make this so hard?" Harry 's brow creased in bewilderment. He tipped his body closer in her direction and placed his palms on her thighs.

"What am I making harder?" He tried to catch her eyes, but she insisted on looking everywhere but at him. "Tonks, speak to me." Harry knew that she was having difficulty relaying whatever it was she was trying to say for whatever reason, and for that, he kept his voice soft yet reassuring.

"I—we—" Tonks let out a few loose and meaningless words, but none of them transformed into the ever elusive sentence. Silence settled in the air and she could feel him waiting, somewhat anxiously, for her to tell him what she had to say.

Tonks slid away from his touch as she stood on her feet. Pacing for a few seconds, she took a deep breath, finally resolving within herself that this was for the best. She turned and faced him.

"Harry I think that we should…what I mean to say is…all the wrong people are beginning to get suspicious about our relationship." She saw the instant change in his face as he rose slowly and hesitantly from his chair. "I know that you see that and that's—"

"And that's why I say fuck them." He took a few steps so that he stood directly in front of her. "Who cares—"

Tonks saw her chance to stop him and took it. For the second time that night she took her hands in his.

"That's the problem Harry." He looked down at her, apprehension traveling at full force through his body. "I know you don't care about what anyone would say about us," she let his hands go pointing to herself, "and though I have my reservations, I wouldn't care either. But what you and I think have nothing to do with it."

"It?" Harry stepped away from her, shaking his hands out of her grasp. "Is there a problem that I don't know about?" He watched her closely hoping that the anxiety he saw in her eyes was born out of something other than what he was secretly dreading.

Tonks was not surprised to see the amount of emotion that clouded his face. To most of the school, and even the wizarding community, Harry had flawlessly embodied an image of being completely unshakable. With that, he had gained an "attractive" I-don't-give-a-fuck-attitude. But she, along with his closest friends knew that most of it, if not all of it, was false. Yes, Harry was undoubtedly not the same person he was at age eleven, or even the same person he was when she'd first met him, but he was still as intense.

Tonks sighed again feeling the walls of her resolve beginning to crumble.

"Harry, you're seventeen and I'm…not." She watched as his irises seemed to double in size. Glancing quickly to her left and then back, she broke the hold his gaze momentarily had on her. "You're famous…everything you do is recorded and picked with a fine tooth comb." His Adam's apple did a soft bob as he swallowed. "All the attention will be too much to handle after everything that's happened," she paused to let her words sink in. "I'm just a distraction Harry. You need to have all your wits about you in order to defeat…him."

Harry heard all that she'd said, but was too shocked to make anything intelligible come out of his mouth. He was hurt yes, and he was stunned to say the least, but the most prevalent emotion that surged through his body was a hefty dose of anger.

He took a step in her direction so that they were standing inches from each other.

"Are you trying to tell me that you want us to stop seeing each other because you think that you're distracting me from what, of course, is my ultimate mission in life—killing Voldemort?" He said his enemy's name with even more venom than usual, knowing how the word made her cringe.

Tonks was not fooled by his quiet tone of voice. She'd heard it too many times not to know that Harry was, in fact, deeply angry.

"Harry, you know that I of all people understand that you're more than just the Boy-Who-Lived, and that your destiny is more than just killing…him, but they—"

"They," interrupted Harry, his voice raising a few increments. "Who the fuck is they?"

Tonks felt a moments flash of irritation settle over her at his refusal to at least see the reasoning behind her words.

"They, Harry, are the people who will be your classmates for the rest of this year. They are the people who will be writing vicious articles about you in the papers. They—"

Harry flung out his hand.

"Alright, I get it. So you've established who they are." He narrowed his eyes, hoping that she could see how wrong her thinking was. "Like I said before though, who the fuck cares about them?"

Tonks paused, trying to keep her temper under control. This was not about her. His anger, after all was to be expected. This was about her doing what was best for him.

"Harry, a lot of people believe that I'm naïve, at times," She took a few steps closer to him, making an effort to relinquish physical contact. "But I know that I'm not; just as I know that any hope for you to have possessed normal teenage naivety was stripped away when you got that scar."

Tonka looked at him seriously, willing him to agree with her.

"You're not naïve Harry, and if you would just think clearly for a minute you would see that what I'm saying is truly for the best."

Harry knew that in the state he was in, there was no room for thinking clearly. But he also knew that even in his most sane moment, he would never see the rationale in what she was telling him. Life had to be lived; he of all people knew that. He knew better than anyone that this very day—today—could be the last. We had nothing left but to enjoy what little pleasures we could get from moments spent with family and friends. There was no room for caring about the opinion of others. What he did, and with whom or when he did it, was not anyone's concern; reaping whatever happiness while he could was all that really mattered, and frankly, everyone—including the staff at the Daily Prophet—could go fuck themselves.

Simple.

Why then, after all this time—all this time with him, all this time on earth—couldn't she understand that?

A light bulb flashed suddenly in Harry's head as something occurred to him. Perhaps she did understand that, but something happened to make her doubt her own beliefs.

"Tonks, why don't you tell me what's really going on here."

She had watched his eyes as they stared intently at her, and she felt herself becoming increasingly concerned. Harry had a way of accurately accessing people—though he never let on—that she found eerily uncanny. A weight pressed further on her when he asked her that question.

But she couldn't break now.

"What's really going on here is that we shouldn't be seeing each other anymore." She took a single step backwards and sighed. There, she thought, she'd finally said it out loud.

He took a step to lessen the gap that had developed between them.

"But why are you telling me this now, of all times?" Harry watched her carefully, trying to gauge what she was thinking, or at least feeling, by her reactions. "Why not before, when we almost got caught during the summer? Or the time when you screamed my name so loud that you had to tell everyone that you'd seen a mouse and that I was the only one around that could kill it, and that was all they'd heard." Harry mercilessly continued. "Why not last week when Snape barged in to your class and we thought for sure that he had come to tell us that we were busted." He felt his voice becoming louder from the intensity of the moment and the conviction of his words. "What happened today that you're telling me all of this right now?" Harry saw when her gaze broke from his and searched to focus on anywhere but on him. He also noticed when her chin trembled for the briefest of moments, and then stopped.

She couldn't watch him while he ranted like this. She couldn't hold his gaze as he searched her with his exceptionally accessing eyes.

Tonks wanted desperately to tell him. But then that…that would change everything. And she was the adult. And she was the Auror. And she had to keep things in control...

Tonks felt her chin shake as the intensity of her thoughts clouded her emotions. Fortunately for her own preservation, she pulled herself together before it developed into anything more.

His hands went to her shoulders and stayed there.

"Tonks, tell me what happened." Still she wouldn't look at him. "I can help you with it if you just tell me what the problem is."

Another idea suddenly occurred to him, one that had him shaking internally. Harry took her chin in his hands, forcing her to raise her head and meet his eyes.

"Did somebody threaten you?" Anger that was already familiar to him seemed, for a brief moment, as if it would overtake his senses.

Tonks' eyes widened at the suggestion. She shook her head resolutely, thinking that the idea, alone, was preposterous. She was an Auror after all. She could take of herself.

"Then what is it," he pressed. Soon his voice sounded as if it were on some sort of magical automatic repeat, like one of those scratched…what was it that Muggles called it…oh yes, CD's. He kept asking her a varied version of the same thing over and over and over again, until finally, she couldn't take it anymore.

"I'm pregnant Harry," she shouted. The shock of hearing herself say those words made her heart constrict. Her legs felt unstable and her body was shaky and weak. Tonks bent her head, backing slowly away from him to sit on the edge of the bed. She sighed unsteadily. Raising her head, she spoke softly to him. "I found out shortly before you came here."

Harry wasn't sure he'd heard right. Had she really said the P word? Had she actually just tacitly told him that in a few months he would be someone's father? Harry felt his knees wobble and he realized that he had to sit down. He sat in the chair that was still facing the bed Tonks was occupying.

She watched as he made his way to her chair, his face looking dazed.

God, she shouldn't have told him.

When in the near future, the time came for him to finally face Voldemort, he shouldn't have to think about this. It was a distraction.

If things had gone according to her plan, perhaps she would have bared everything to him once he'd defeated Voldemort. Now, his mind would be consumed by thoughts of the baby when he was fighting, likely costing him his life. She knew this supposition to be fact because she was an Auror, and there was a reason Aurors, more often than not, had no families of their own; had no loved ones to distract them from their job.

Tonks was taken out of her thoughts by his abrupt stance. Her head came up as she followed his dazed eyes with her own.

"Well?" Her voice was rough and gravely. "What do you have to say?"

Harry stood there, still unsure he'd heard right.

Just in case he had heard right, sitting down wasn't the answer to his problems right now either. Right now he needed to get some air.

"I uh…" Harry glanced behind him for several seconds and then turned back to face her. He refused to meet her eyes, because he wasn't sure he could handle such a feat quite yet. Instead he took a large gulp of air, clutched for the doorknob that was suddenly filling his right had, and left the room, closing the door firmly behind him.

Breathing heavily and staring into the empty space for countless minutes, he finally decided that he needed a place where he could properly think the whole matter through.

Ginny was walking as quietly as her footsteps would allow her down the darkly lit hallways of the castle. Though the air surrounding her was unusually cool for this time of year, warmth permeated her body as her mind floated in delight at the prospect of whom she was going to see tonight.

Her bouncy steps came to an undiscerning halt as her eyes spied what appeared to be a figure hunched in the small steeple located inside the wall. A frown quickly marred her soft features as she hesitantly made her way closer to the dark figure. Though she wasn't afraid of her gatecrasher—as Hogwarts was almost as impenetrable as Gringotts Bank—she knew that the person could spell disaster if he or she reported her for roaming the halls during sleeping hours.

Then again, whomever that was, was in danger of her doing the same.

"Hello?"

The person raised their head slowly.

Though her wand provided light enough for her to put one foot in front of the other, the moonlight still hid all the important details that would allow her insight into the identity of the student.

"Ginny," came the warbled, questioning voice.

As soon as she heard her name emitted from the boys' lips she knew who he was, but her confusion increased tenfold.

She stepped closer to him until she could see his face. Ginny felt her brow furrowing in bewilderment as she sat down beside him.

"Harry what are you doing here?" She could see that his cheeks had dried tear tracks on them. His eyes were slightly glassy and unfocused, as if he'd only just stopped crying. His shoulders, however, were slightly tremulous as they heaved in and out under the pressure of his elongated breaths.

Harry didn't like the way Ginny had invited herself to sit next to him. Perhaps he had sent mixed messages when he had spoken, but the only reason why he'd responded to her voice was because he was just as confused by her presence as she was by his. He turned his head and his body away from her so that she would get the hint. However, after about thirty silent seconds Harry went from suggestive to obvious and turned his head back to face her.

"Go away Ginny."

Ginny was not so easily offended by his words or tone so she simply continued to sit where she was, boring a questioning hole into his skull.

"I'm not going to leave until you tell me why you're sitting here at this hour of the night, crying."

Horrified that she had discovered that much, Harry made two quick hard jerks with open palms down the sides of his face and stood, preparing to leave. He was in no mood to talk.

Ginny reached for his arm, holding him back from his departure. She rose up from her seat so she was standing next to him.

"You sit down Harry and I'll leave." She let go of his arm and started backing away, hands raised in a placating manner. "Whatever's going on I'm sure Ron and Hermione will help you, right?" Ginny flashed a sincere smile as she stopped in her tracks. "Feel better." And with that she turned to leave.

Harry watched as she made two whole steps in the opposite direction before he decided to call her back.

"Wait, Ginny," he said.

Ginny's surprise marred her smooth features.

She turned to face him, but before she gave him all of her attention, she quickly glanced at her watch. Though time hadn't passed by too fast since she first ran into Harry, she still hoped that whatever he was going to say would be quick.

Harry had seen the genuine concern that was etched on her face before she had turned to leave and in that instant, had made an impromptu decision.

He was going to tell her.

She was not only someone he could trust with his life, but more importantly, she was someone that wouldn't make him feel guilty for disappointing her by his actions.

He turned around and made his way back to his seat. Another bout of silence fell over them, but this time he didn't feel obligated to speak. Whatever he revealed to her now would be of his own assertion.

Ginny moved closer and stood over him. She could tell he was struggling to find the right words, so she sat next to him and waited, semi-patiently, as he gathered his thoughts.

Harry too a deep breath and stared at his folded hands.

"Everything…" he stopped, still unused to the feeling of telling someone outside of Hermione, Ron, and Tonks his problems. Maybe it would help if he looked at her square on. Tonks had always told him that the direct approach was best when broaching a difficult subject of conversation. Perhaps it was that way of thinking that caused so many people to think that she was blunt.

He took another deep breath and brought his gaze up to meet hers.

"Everything is wrong."

The despondency in his voice alarmed Ginny but she didn't let it show.

"What do you mean when you say…everything is wrong," she asked.

Harry faltered as his words stopped at the tip of his tongue. They were still too incredible to say out loud. The concept was still too fresh.

"I," he began. "I got…"

Ginny waited with baited breath, hoping that whatever he would reveal wasn't too fantastic.

Harry closed his eyes with clenched jaws and blurted out the statement.

"I got someone pregnant."

Ginny gasped.

Of all the things she had thought he could say, that one was fifty ideas removed from all of them. Unable to hold her incredulity to herself, she couldn't help but ask the most reasonable question that followed such a declaration.

"Who is it?"

Harry hadn't thought the conversation through this far and was rendered speechless. Lowering his head, he turned his face away from her and rested his forehead on his already propped up knee.

Ginny knew when she had overstepped her boundaries and immediately began to back track.

"That isn't important though…" her words tailed off and blended with the ensuing silence. Not sure what to say she began to study, instead, the back of his tense shoulders and the side of his set jaw.

Poor Harry, she mused. Just when he thought he had enough problems, along came another one.

Harry kept his mouth shut, not knowing what else he could say. He wasn't going to tell her it was Tonks that he'd shagged silly and gotten pregnant. And he definitely wasn't going to talk about how the whole situation made him feel. He ardently hoped that she would get the hint and leave things where they were.

Ginny did get it. And with one last long glance at Harry she stood.

"We can talk whenever you need to, okay?"

Her friend merely gave a slow nod.

"Bye Harry."

Ginny waited but he didn't respond, so she turned and left.

She was almost where she was supposed to be when she left the common room thirty minutes ago, but she was no closer in figuring out who it was that Harry had gotten pregnant.

She had trekked this path a hundred times before and had no need to pay special attention to where she walked. Ginny took sure steady steps as her mind wandered far away from her surroundings.

As far as she knew, Harry hadn't been involved with anyone since those two short flings in the beginning of Sixth year, and quite frankly, she couldn't see Harry shagging either of those two girls anyway.

The only other females that he was around on a regular basis were Hermione and Professor To…

She gasped as her thought trailed off mid sentence.

Her steps faltered and she had to pay closer attention to the ground.

It could have been Hermione though. At least the thought of those two being together was more conceivable than him and…

A picture of Ron's possessive glances and equally possessive touch ruined the base of that concept. Hermione's fleeting looks at her brother when she thought no one was watching shattered the illusion altogether. And besides, guilt wasn't one of the expressions that Harry's face had held when she'd seen him.

It had to have been Tonks. And truly, the more she thought about it the more and more it made sense. One wouldn't catch it if he or she weren't looking for it, but the signs were all there.

Her mind fumbled to clarify everything she had just gathered.

Had Harry really impregnated their Professor? The mere thought was ridiculous, and yet it made the most amount of sense.

Her mind was so preoccupied with her incredible discovery that she didn't see the person standing in front of her, and she bumped into him.

She stopped in her tracks, startled.

"Where were you," he asked in a low voice.

She tilted her chin and looked him squarely in the face. The lines on his skin were lax and devoid of emotion. His eyes, which usually were severe, were narrowed but not accusing.

Ginny stammered to get out an answer that would belie the unmentionable events of her night.

"I-I was helping a friend."

He looked as if he wanted to ask more, but he simply disregarded the issue. Pulling her closer, he craned his head to the side and combed his limber fingers through her hair.

"You're here now, and that's all that really matters."

Almost forgetting why she had been late in the first place, Ginny emitted a contented sigh as she gladly leaned her weight into her lover of three months. Complacency, however, soon left her mind as she thought of Harry's situation. She had promised him that she wouldn't tell anyone, and she wouldn't. But as she lightly reflected his surprising declaration, Ginny couldn't help but wonder if the time would ever come when she would be able to tell her family and friends that she was having her own secret relationship with none other than Draco Malfoy.

AN 3: Do you like? Please review if you do, as reviews are muchly appreciated and greatly adored. If you don't, respond anyway so I can know what to change or add in future chapters.

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