The next morning was a bit boring compared to the way they had woken up the last couple of days. Neither one of them was engaged in a compromising position for which they were both silently relieved. While neither really complained about the compromising situations they were still a tiny bit embarrassing as of yet.
Harry had to do his best to act nonchalant that day. He couldn't get Tonks suspicions raised. The whole idea is to surprise her and that is hardly something he could do if she started to ask a whole bunch of questions. They talked a bit more and went over some more memories to pass the time. However these memories were a long shot from the ones witnessed the day before.
Harry, in a show a maturity and trust, voluntarily showed Tonks some of his childhood memories. Specifically he showed her the memories of which were already mentioned during the argument in the kitchen. He showed her the fire poker incident and how he was locked in the cupboard with nothing to eat or drink for a full day before they let him out to go to the hospital. He showed her Dudley and his gang beating him up several times each year until he finally went to Hogwarts. She was impressed at the memory of Harry apparating to the roof of his school while being chased by the gang, for accidental magic apparating is quite a feat. Harry showed her being forced to watch all of the holidays and parties from his cupboard and never being given anything. The last memory he showed her was of the time when he accidentally called his aunt 'mum' and how she freaked out and yelled at him telling him never to call her that again.
Harry knew that it wasn't exactly setting up the mood very well for the evening to come but it was a way to kill a few hours and now was as good a time as any to get some of these memories out of the way.
Tonks came out of the pensieve fit to kill. The more she got to know about Harry the more and more she was amazed by him. She couldn't understand how his own family could treat a child that way. She had half a mind to break her promise to stay out of their way and go downstairs to hex them into oblivion.
Harry saw her anger, and while he felt it too and probably to a greater extent but he knew nothing good would come out of hexing his relatives. "Nym?"
"What?" she snapped coming out of the hatred filled trance she was in. When she realized it was Harry and the hurt look that flashed across his face she regretted not being in control of her emotions. He did nothing wrong and she should actually be comforting him considering the memories she had just witnessed.
"I'm sorry Harry. My anger isn't directed at you." She got up from her chair and walked over to Harry and pulled him out of his seat and into a hug.
"I'm so sorry Harry. No one should have to grow up like that. Dumbledore should have never allowed it to happen. He should have kept an eye out for you." Her voice was coming out a bit choked and Harry pulled back and saw tears lining her eyes.
"Why are you apologizing, Nym? You haven't done anything to hurt me. It was them." He said pulling her back into the hug.
"I just can't believe that Dumbledore would leave you with people like that. You can't force somebody to take in a child and expect them to care for the child like they should. It seems like the older he gets the more detached he becomes from normal human feelings."
"Nym, please don't do anything to the Dursley's or tell Dumbledore any of this. The Dursleys won't matter to me anymore after my birthday. After that day, I will never return here and they can pretend that I never existed. We can all be happy. As far as Dumbledore is concerned, I don't want his pity. He has apologized for the way he has treated me recently and his decision to leave me here. That doesn't mean that I have forgiven him though.
It is one thing to apologize for past mistakes and it is another to prove that you are sorry. We will see where it goes from here. I may never trust him again the way I used to, but like it or not, I will need his help in this war.
Enough of this depressing conversation. I think we should go out to dinner tonight." He finished with a small smile to Tonks.
"Dinner? Why not just eat something here. We already missed lunch. We could just have an early dinner. Maybe we could use the extra time to do something a bit more…….fun?" Her grin was almost feral and had Harry not been set on giving her the ring that night he would have jumped at the chance to do something more fun.
"I thought we were trying to make this relationship as normal as possible. Don't normal couples go on dinner dates?"
"Don't normal couple snog each other senseless too?" She replied with the same grin.
"Merlin, Nym. We can always snog later on can't we. I doubt that dinner would take too long."
"Why are you so set to go to dinner? What is it that you are up to Mr. Potter?"
"Nothing Mrs. Potter. I just wanted to take you out to dinner. I thought it might be fun."
"Not Mrs. Potter….yet. Snogging can be fun too as you found out yesterday but then again going out to dinner would be nice too.
Did you have something specific in mind?"
"I asked Remus about some restaurant ideas in London and he gave me a few choices. We have a reservation for tonight and we need to leave here by 6:15. So that gives us about two hours to kill for now."
"And what would you have done with your reservation if I had not decided to go Mr. Potter? A little bit sure of yourself aren't you?"
"If I can't get my future wife to even go to dinner with me then there couldn't have been much hoping in me getting you down the aisle now would there."
"Then it's an awfully good thing that I would like to go to dinner with tonight. But since you decided to postpone a full night of snogging just to go eat we have nothing to do to keep us busy until then."
"I can think of something Nym."
"Is that so Mr. Potter? And what is it that you have in mind?"
"I think I would rather show you, it might be more…………fun." With that Harry latched his lips to Tonks' and they both lost their footing and ended up on the bed.
Neither of them paid much attention to the time which was really a bad thing. At exactly 5:30 Remus apparated into the room and was shocked at the scene before him. Tonks and Harry kissing each other passionately and Tonks' shirt was already half unbuttoned. He might have directly disapparated instead of interrupting but Harry had already made the plans for this evening. He was thankful that he had the presence of mind to not have the ring box in his hand when he disapparated just in case Tonks was still in the room when he arrived. He decided to clear his throat and get the couple's attention.
Tonks and Harry bolted out of the bed looking like deer caught in head lights. Tonks quickly turned her back to Remus to re-button the top three buttons, which she didn't even remember how they had gotten undone. She glanced over at Harry and saw that he looked about as red as she felt and knew that he was extremely embarrassed about being caught in that kind of a situation by one of the people that he considered to be his real family.
Remus was more amused than anything else. He tried his hardest to not show any amusement and act more the role of the disapproving father but it was a miserable failure. "Harry could I talk to you for a second? Alone."
"Um..sure thing Remus." He looked over at Tonks. She nodded in understanding.
"I'll just go get ready for dinner. Is there any type of dress code for this restaurant?"
"No. Dress nicely but comfortably Nym." She nodded and went through the wardrobe to get something to wear. She knew that she had to be somewhat quick in the shower since Harry would probably want to get cleaned up too.
"Nym? What is that all about?" Remus questioned as soon as Tonks left the room.
"I wanted something to call her other than Tonks that nobody else would call her. Not to mention that after my birthday she won't be a Tonks anymore. Now that I think about it we will need to come up with something for everyone else to call her after her name change." Harry didn't realize he was babbling. He was just glad that Remus appeared to glaze over the fact that he apparated into a room in which someone he considered a son was snogging a gorgeous older woman while rolling around on a SINGLE bed in the room that they both shared. Not to mention the three buttons that had ended up open on Tonks' blouse.
"Ah. That makes sense." He couldn't resist teasing Harry any longer and felt no need to restrain himself. "Now Harry before I give you this ring I have a few questions for you." He continued completely ignoring the horrified look on Harry's face when he realized where the questions were headed.
"My first question as you can probably guess is why there is only one bed in the room? I noticed this yesterday but chose not to mention it but it seems like it might be something to be addressed now."
"Nym and I figured that if we were going to be getting married we may as well get used to sleeping in the same bed. That's all I swear." He was starting to have a mild panic attack.
"The next question I have is what did Andromeda say to Tonks yesterday when she only noticed one bed in the room?" If it was even possible Harry looked more panicked than before. He hadn't actually considered that and Tonks never brought it up but surely her mom noticed that all of her stuff was here and there was only one bed. Did she get the wrong impression?
"S-She never actually said anything or Nym at least didn't mention it."
"Now for the million pound question. What the hell was going on in here when I showed up?" He said in his best teacher/lecture voice.
"Tonks lost something on the bed and I was helping to look for it?" It was more of a question than a statement and Remus look told him he didn't buy it for a second.
"Um….Well… you see…..we started kissing and…."
Remus finally lost his composure and doubled over in laughter. Harry was thankful for the silencing charms that Nym placed on the room when she moved in. He couldn't believe that Remus would have him on like that. The more he thought about it the funnier it became and Harry himself starting chuckling a bit.
"Y-You know Harry that you are really lucky. I almost apparated with the box in my hand. What would you have done then?"
"I honestly lost track of time Remus. I had no idea it was already 5:30."
"This I can believe." Remus commented dryly. "What with your current extra curricular activities and such I would be surprised if you had missed dinner all together.
No matter now though. Here is the ring be sure to take it with you when you get ready. No doubt Tonks will be a bit bored now that I interrupted you two and you will be busy getting ready. I wouldn't put it past her to snoop around here a bit. Good luck with dinner and have fun." He finished with a wink and disapparated before Harry had a chance to comment.
They both finished getting ready and walked out of Number Four Privet Drive and found an empty alley. Tonks checked both ways and when she was sure there were no muggles in the area she held out her wand hand and the Knight Bus popped into existence. Harry was getting annoyed at the way Stan Shunpike was eyeing Tonks so he took a hold of her hand when they sat down.
Harry couldn't really blame Stan for staring. He had a hard time not staring at her too. She had chosen a short black summer dress for the evening. There was nothing fancy about it but the way she looked in it stunned him. The dress itself was extremely short, only going down to mid thigh. Her hot pink hair and light pink eyes standing out even more. Harry thought her appearance was an attempt to divert the blood flow of every man in Britain that evening. He mused for a few seconds as to where she could have possibly hidden her wand and that did nothing to help his blood flow problem. He felt a bit overdressed compared to her but he was still comfortable with his choice of clothing. He had chosen to wear loose fitting black slacks and a green silk dress shirt that he had bought in London a few days ago.
Tonks saw the way that Stan was staring at her. She knew that things like that would happen when she chose that dress. It was simple but she filled it out nicely. She was pleased when it had her desired effect, which was to make Harry somewhat possessive of her this evening. She was by no means a submissive person but she wanted everyone to know that she was with him and him with her.
The Knight Bus took only seven minutes to get into London since they were the only people aboard. They had about forty minutes to get to the restaurant so Harry hailed a cab and they both got in. The driver told them it would be about twenty-five minutes before they got there. Nodding that he heard the man Harry turned to Tonks.
"Nym? What exactly did you mum say about there only being one bed in the room?"
She gave him an odd look for his troubles but took pity on him. "She actually didn't mind. She knows that we are getting married and married couples sleep together. She did ask how well we had gotten to know each other though.
I had to assure her that we didn't know everything about each other yet, but other than that she seemed fairly understanding. I think it is because her and my father knew everything about each other long before their marriage happened." She trailed off and seemed to be thinking of something."
"Oh Merlin, Oh Merlin." She sat up straight and wide eyed.
"What is Nym?" Harry was a bit worried at the sudden change in mood.
"I was only born 8 months after my parents got married. I was the reason they got married. Oh Merlin. I can't believe I never put the dates together before. She was pregnant with me when they got married."
"Nym, calm down. It doesn't really change anything does it?" Harry tried to comfort her. The last thing he needed was her panicked right before he tried to propose to her. He knew she wouldn't say no but that was beside the point.
"Your parents love each other and they love you. It doesn't really matter if you were conceived before they got married or not does it? It doesn't change their feelings or yours."
"Your right of course. It was just a bit of a shock. I wonder if that is why she thought I was pregnant when I told her we were getting married."
"Let's not worry about it right now. We are almost at the restaurant. There will be plenty of time to go over this stuff later on." They pulled up to restaurant not more than five seconds after he finished his comment.
"The Belvedere? This is when dad proposed to mum. They come here every year for their anniversary." Tonks exclaimed.
"Wow. Then we know it must be a good restaurant then." Harry responded while inwardly trying to keep the smile off his face. 'What are the odds that Remus would choose the same restaurant that Mr. Tonks proposed to his wife in?'
Harry asked the host if their table was ready yet.
"Of course, sir, right this way. They could not have asked for a better table. The ended out on the back dining area which overlooked the park. Since it was getting close to dark it was fairly cool outside and the park was clearing of the kids and making way for the more adult crowd.
After perusing the menu Tonks settled on the Grilled lobster Box Tree, sauce mornay and Harry chose the Confit of salmon fleur de sel- jus blond de canard. To drink they both settled with water since Harry could not get any of the fine wine that they offered. Dinner took about an hour to arrive and Harry and Tonks passed the time away talking about things they wanted to do for their lives and avoiding subjects like Harry's memories.
The dinner turned out to be one of the best seafood meals either of them had ever had. The talking died down while they ate but the time passed quickly. At least it seemed quick to Harry. The waiter came back by to see if they wanted dessert to which they both responded they would have the Lemon Tart.
Harry took advantage of the lull in between dinner and dessert. He stood up from the table and walked over to Tonks' side. As he approached he took a deep breath to compose himself and to make sure he wouldn't sound like an idiot. He kneeled down on his right knee and took Tonks left hand in his right hand and with his left he pulled the ring out of his pocket, already out of the box.
"Nym, I know that our situation is rather unique but I remember promising myself and you that I would do everything in my power to make you happy. So, Nymphadora Anne Tonks, Will you marry me?"