"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?"
Tonks wasn't sure that she could respond. She was quite shocked that he was doing this. She had already agreed to marry him almost a week before but she never expected an actual ring or proposal from him. She figured that it would be a bit redundant and it wouldn't really be worth it for him to waste money on a ring that would only get used for less than a month.
Nevertheless here they were in a fancy London restaurant and he is on one knee proposing to her with an absolutely gorgeous ring. She must have been silent longer than he expected since he was beginning to look nervous. She struggled to find her voice only to throw her arms around him and plant several kisses right on his lips saying "yes" over and over in between kisses.
Harry pulled back slightly and took a hold of her hand again and placed the ring gently on her left hand ring finger. Tonks' right hand never left his shoulder. After the ring was securely in place Tonks got a closer look at the ring itself. She noticed that it was made of white gold and had a weaving design carved into the gold that came together where the diamond sat.
The diamond itself was the most beautiful part of the whole ring. The diamond was a light pink diamond that matched her eyes almost perfectly. Of course it wasn't her natural eye color but it was the color she most commonly chose to wear.
Harry noticed her studying the diamond. "I chose that diamond because it reminded me of your hair and eye color. It was almost a perfect match for your eyes that morning that we agreed to get married. I hope that you like it." He looked a bit nervous and Tonks wasn't sure why. He had just proposed to her and she had accepted and NOW he was nervous.
"Harry, I love it. It is the most beautiful ring I have ever seen." Harry smiled at the comment but still seemed decidedly nervous and he seemed to not be able to find a good place to focus his eyes.
"Harry what's wrong? Why are you so nervous now?" She asked
"Nym, I…Well…." His eyes kept darting around.
"What?"
"If you must know, with your hand on my shoulder and not letting me stand up, I can kind of see….."
"See what?" She was starting to get exasperated that he couldn't string a sentence together.
"Damn it Nym. I can see up your dress and it is a bit hard to feel comfortable down here without being tempted to keep looking." He finished in a whisper.
Tonks mouth opened in an 'O' shape and she blushed brighter than after her dream with Harry. No wonder he couldn't settle his eyes on anything. She immediately removed her hand and let him sit back down in his chair.
They were saved from the awkward moment by the waiter showing up with their Lemon tart dessert. Tonks hardly ate any of her dessert and kept looking at the ring and Harry with a smile on her face. Regardless of the dress issue that night was the single most romantic night of her life. She planned on thanking Harry appropriately when the returned to Privet Drive.
She couldn't wait to show her mother the ring. She knew only a few details about diamonds but she did know that pink diamonds are some of the rarest diamonds to find and that makes them very expensive. She was thrilled that Harry had spent so much money and put so much thought into the ring, and that dinner, even though they would only be engaged for another twenty days.
Harry paid the bill and took Tonks' hand and had the host call for a cab. The cab rolled up to restaurant ten minutes later and Harry gave him directions to the Leaky Cauldron. Neither of them said anything on the way back but they shared perhaps their most romantic moments together. As soon as they were in the cab Tonks leaned up against Harry and rested her head on his shoulder. They both had smiles on their faces the entire way to the Leaky Cauldron.
Tonks hailed the Knight Bus once again, after the cab was out of range and made a point to grab Harry's left hand with her right and bring her left hand around to rest on his arm while her head stayed in the same place, on his shoulder. They heard Stan mumbling about 'Lucky Neville Longbottom' as they passed. Harry couldn't help the chuckle on this and Tonks wasn't sure what was going on and what Neville had done to Stan.
Harry humored her and told her about his first time riding the Knight Bus. He was thankful that his scar had stayed hidden both on the trip over and the trip back. It held up his story from third year. Tonks laughed at the story and commented something about showing him just how lucky 'Neville Longbottom' really was when they got back.
Harry couldn't help but marvel at Tonks ability to embarrass Harry. It didn't matter if they were by themselves or in public, she could embarrass him like no other. He found himself wishing that they had gone to a Wizarding restaurant so that he could have worn robes and be able to hide his rather obvious reaction to Tonks' statement.
Tonks for her part had to use her abilities to keep the blush off of her face when she felt Harry's 'excitement' poking into her arm before he shifted slightly. She tried to act like nothing at all had happened and kept the same smile on her face while staring forward and holding on to Harry so she wouldn't be thrown across the bus by the crazy driving.
Somehow for the second time that day they had ended up being the only people aboard the Knight Bus. Harry asked Stan about it as they were disembarking the bus.
"Everyone is afraid to go out after dark. 'Ou-know-'oo used to attack after dark."
Harry nodded that he understood and he and Tonks walked back from the park to Number Four Privet Drive. Tonks had not let go of his arm since they had left the restaurant and nothing changed upon arriving back at his relatives' house. All of the lights were out in the house and Harry figured that they had gone out to dinner. His relatives had taken to doing that a lot lately since they couldn't force Harry to cook and Aunt Petunia could only make microwavable meals.
Once they got into his room and closed the door Tonks took out her wand. She waved it in a complicated pattern and mumbled a few words at the end and a blue light shot out of her wand and covered the whole room before disappearing into the walls. Then she muttered something else that Harry vaguely recalled as an advanced locking charm.
"What was the first one?"
"That was a temporary anti-apparition ward. They only last for about 4 hours. They are mainly used by Aurors to stop people from fleeing after they lose a battle. That should take care of any mishaps like, Remus, from earlier.
Now, I think I said something about showing you how much I liked the ring once we got here." With that Tonks stepped forward and pulled Harry into the most sensual kiss of his entire life. Nothing he and Tonks had shared to that point came close to this. There was nothing hurried or lustful about it. It was more about two people that truly cared about the other's happiness. Love? No, not love. It was still too soon for that but he was definitely starting to care about Nymphadora Tonks and he was sure that she was feeling the same way about him.
For the first time since the arrangement had been made, both parties were truly content with the situation and had no doubt that this would work out in the end.
Neither one of them cared about the time and nothing more than kissing happened. At some point the both came to stop and decided to lie down. Harry chose to lie down behind Tonks and placed his arm around her stomach. She reached over with her hand and pulled his arm more securely around her and then held on to his hand. They fell asleep for this first time in each others arms.
1 Week Later
Quite a bit had happened over the last week Harry mused. It was Friday night and Tonks was already asleep. Ever since that night Harry had lain behind Tonks and held her as they slept. Their relationship had progressed slightly. The changes were more on the emotional side than on the physical side. There was not much more they could do on the physical side of the relationship. They both agreed that they weren't ready to go past kissing yet. The kissing had led to a little bit of feeling but they were both still too inexperienced and not in a huge hurry to jump the next hurdle.
The day after the proposal Tonks insisted on inviting her mom and Remus over. She wanted to show off her ring more than anything and it was hard to do being locked up in that room most of the time. Remus had respectfully declined claiming that he had been there when Harry picked it out and couldn't get away from the Order just then anyways. Harry new that Remus was unsure how to act in these situations and had copped out because of it.
Her mother had stopped by for a few hours that morning and Tonks was proudly displaying the ring for her. After she got over her initial excitement she decided to ask her mom about her revelation the previous night.
"Mum? Why was I born only eight months after you and daddy got married? Was I the reason you got married?"
"No, honey, you weren't the reason we got married. Actually your father and I were expecting to have this conversation a long time ago. You see I was disowned, as you know, from my family as soon as I was engaged to your father. I had no where to go after that and he allowed me to move in with him.
We were planning on getting married on November 12, 1973. Around the end of August that year I started to get really sick. It took almost a week before we figured out what it was. Since the only reason we had chosen to get married in November was because that is when I could get the time off from my job to go on the Honeymoon, we decided to get married right away and take the Honeymoon at the planned time. Neither one of us wanted me to be three months into my pregnancy by the time we got married just to be able to go on the honeymoon right afterwards.
So we got married, as you know, on September 23, 1973 and you were born May 23, 1974. So the answer, as I said, is 'No, you were not the reason we got married'. You were, however, the reason we got married two months earlier than planned." She said with a smile.
Harry who was holding Tonks hand throughout the whole thing realized that she was really nervous that her parents only married because of her and maybe they didn't really love each other. He felt her relax as her mother explained the situation to her and she was smiling too at the end. Andromeda took her leave shortly after that and Harry felt like he had a better understanding of her earlier outburst.
They killed the rest of the day going over Tonks' memories of her Auror training as well as her work with the Order the previous year. Harry was shocked at the amount of training that Aurors had to go through. He was amazed at the shear number of hexes and curses that they learned and asked Tonks to demonstrate a few for him so he could learn then even if he couldn't practice them. He wasn't really all that impressed with what he saw of the Order. He and his friends had pieced together pretty much the same information they had only it had taken them slightly longer.
Apparently Harry was Tonks' fourth 'boyfriend.' He wasn't sure if he could actually be considered that or not since they never actually dated. He was appalled at the way her other boyfriends had acted. In the four years since she graduated Hogwarts her three relationships had only taken up about five weeks of that time. He couldn't understand why people wanted her to change and he told Tonks as much. This comment, of course, led to another heavy snogging session.
On the third day Harry showed Tonks his memories at Hogwarts. He showed her his first four years and left the fifth for later. He could still remember her reaction as they came out of the pensieve.
"Merlin, Harry. What haven't you done yet?"
"I haven't snogged a girl in a broom closet yet, or an empty classroom, or even the astronomy tower for that matter."
"And you had better not. Unless I show up for a visit."
"Not to worry, Nym, not to worry. I don't want to snog anyone except you."
"That's good Mr. Potter. I would hate to have to use some of my Auror level spells on you. Seriously though I can't believe everything that has happened there so far.
I know that most of the parents would pull their kids out of Hogwarts if they knew half of what had gone on in that school. It is supposed to be one of the safest places in the world and yet you have ended up against Voldemort or at least a death eater there for three out of the five years. The basilisk was awesome by the way. What was the deal with the sword?"
Harry went on the explain everything she had seen in detail. By the end she was crying again and hugging him as if there was no tomorrow. He didn't quite know how to handle the extreme emotional changes that women seem accustomed to displaying. He knew the rebirth of Voldemort would terrify her too and it did. Nobody outside of a few people at the ministry, Dumbledore, and Harry had ever seen what Voldemort actually looked like. Everyone else that has met him has either served him or died.
Tonks changed the subject after they had lunch. She had a feeling that Harry really didn't like to talk about what happened and only showed the memories to satisfy her. So she decided to go on to something a bit more light-hearted. She teased him about his abysmal dancing skills and told him that he had a lot of work to do if he wanted to dance with her on their wedding day. Wedding or not, she would not dance with him if he was going to ruin her good shoes. He took the teasing good-naturedly and they decided to start work on dance lessons the next weekend.
Just before bed Harry decided to drop the final bomb, which very well could change Tonks' mind about marrying him. He showed her his fifth year at Hogwarts and the prophecy along with it. He couldn't in good conscience marry her without her knowing the truth and being given the option to back out.
She took it in stride, which shocked him, like everything else. She told him that it didn't take a genius to figure out that Voldemort wanted him dead for some reason. It would be impossible to keep him away from the war but she never expected any different. Both of them would fight in this war and both of them would get hurt. The only thing she prayed for was that no matter how hurt they got that they would live to see the end of it.
She informed him that as soon as the wedding was over with and she got a chance to she was going to go after Delores Umbridge. Harry had not known that the blood quill was illegal. He didn't think that they would be allowed as school punishment but he didn't know they were illegal. She had actually pulled her wand on 'memory' Umbridge when she threatened him with the cruciatus and told him it was her who had set the dementors against him. Then she realized that it wouldn't do any good against the memory version.
She didn't comment on Harry's use of the cruciatus against Bellatrix since it did not work and she knew he was not in a proper state of mind. She didn't want to bring it up for nothing to come from it.
That night when they were both in bed, they had shifted since they had fallen asleep the first time, Tonks held on to Harry and started speaking to him even though he was asleep. What Tonks didn't know is that he woke up to her voice and heard most of what she had said. She used the chance with him 'asleep' in her arms to voice her thoughts about him. She would never truly understand how someone that had been through everything he had could still care about other people. He loved his friends and she hoped that someday he would make up with Ron. She must have talked for a good hour before succumbing to sleep once again and Harry never once made any move to let her know he was awake.
Harry was glad that he and Ron had finally made up but knew he couldn't make any changes to the wedding plans because of it.
Remus had come over the previous afternoon at Harry's request. Harry was loosing his mind as his fiancé and future mother-in-law bombarded him with different magazines and clippings. All he caught were a few words about dresses, colors, and patterns. He had no idea what the hell was going on and desperately want someone to talk to about 'normal' things.
Shortly after Remus arrived, Tonks dragged Harry into a conversation he had to participate in.
"Harry, who is going to be your best man?"
"That is a good question." He looked deep in thought for a moment and then a huge smile broke out onto his face as he turned to Remus. "Remus? Would you like to be my best man?"
"I'm old enough to be your father Harry. Wouldn't you rather have someone your own age?"
"The only person that I could truly call my friend that is my age is Ron, but you know what happened with that. I know some other people and get along with them but they aren't really what you would consider for a best man. I've known you for three years. You're the closest thing to a father I have and the best 'guy' friend that I have right now. Please consider it Remus."
Remus seemed like he was going to decline and then assumed the same, deep in thought, look that Harry had only minutes before. He finally relented and agreed to be Harry's best man. The next order of business was the maid of honor.
Tonks didn't really have any friends outside the order. Her two friends from school were invited to the wedding but she hadn't seen them since graduation. She got along with Hestia Jones alright, but that would create complications since Hestia's niece was one of her friends. Her mother was also an option but it would be weird for your mother to act as your matron of honor. The only other options were: Mrs. Weasley, not likely, Ginny, or Hermione. She got along great with Hermione and Ginny and the two of them really hit it off at headquarters last year. The problem with Ginny would be the awkwardness of the situation due to her infatuation with Harry. Hermione seemed like the best choice and was agreed upon be everyone.
Just after they woke up the next morning Harry received a rather lengthy message from Ron. Well lengthy for Ron at least.
Harry,
Mate, I hope I can still call you that; I wanted to apologize for the way I acted after your announcement. Hermione has been yelling at me non-stop since then and even Ginny has started to help recently. After listening to the whole thing in their words it made everything seem clearer. I was being a prat about something that I had no right to be a prat about. I mean, if Ginny can get passed it then why couldn't I?. I still stick by the fact that the two of you would have been good together but I also know that when you decide to do something that there is no changing your mind. So I just wanted to say I was sorry and hope that you can forgive me. I've got to go for now. Mum just finished making dinner.
Ron
He thought about the note until Tonks was done in the shower trying to decide whether or not to forgive him. In the end there really was no choice. He knew Ron well enough to know that Ron would say things that would make him angry and likewise he would make Ron angry sometimes too. He wasn't sure they would ever be the same as they were before fourth year though. Ron was his best friend in the world, well him and Hermione, and he would forgive him. He just wished that Ron would let go of his jealousy. He never wanted ninety percent of the things that happened to him nor did he really care about the money he had. He just wanted his friends and family. That was his main reason for forgiving Ron.
He sent off a letter, after breakfast was over, with Pig. He knew that with the tiny owl it would not reach Grimmauld Place until that night. He had yet to hear back from Ron but he didn't really expect to since he would have just received the letter an hour or so ago.
He turned on his side and tightened his grip on Tonks and positioned himself in a comfortable position. Then he leaned forward and kissed the back of her head. He thought he felt her squeeze his hand but he couldn't be sure and fell into a good night's sleep.