A/N: Written for the Quidditch League Fanfiction Competition. Tonks has her first night by herself in her new flat, but it turned out to be not as lonely as she thought it would be.
Penates, responsible for the wellbeing
The first day after you have moved out of your parents' house you are supposed to feel not only free, but also — as Tonks had just figured it out — a bit lonely. There she stood, in the middle of the living-room — her living-room. The one she had bought with her own gold, sure she needed some help from her father in his role of sailor of magical and Muggle proprieties to find to her such a bargain, a flat in the centre of London that she had been able to buy after only a year of Auror training.
After all the festivities he had insisted upon having, she found herself alone, alone except for the owl he had bought her, a long-eared owl he had named Penates. Yeah, as if Nymphadora wasn't enough, now her father had been the responsible for another awful name in her life. Still, he had convinced her to keep the name upon saying that Penates were the gods responsible for wellbeing and he needed to make sure she would have someone looking after her when he could not. What an Auror she would be if she needed an owl to look after her, right? Ted was a great mythology nerd as her mother called him. At least the owl's name had a better and more profound meaning than hers.
Tonks sighed and went to the side of his cage, setting him free to fly. Surprisingly though, he did not go through the open window as she had thought he would; he flew to the empty chair by the table. A half-smile came to her lips.
'Well, if you wanna stay and share my lovely dinner,' she grinned. 'I'm not stopping you.'
She went to sit and pulled the sandwich her mother had made a few hours earlier, afraid that she would be intoxicated by her own food if Tonks decided to have an adventure with the cooker. She tore a piece of the bread and let it fall near the owl, Penates had it down his throat the next second.
'Good, isn't it?' she asked. 'Don't get used to it, though. Mum's way better with food than I am. In fact if I were you, this would be the last meal I'd share with me. Believe me, you don't wanna try my chicken soup!' she laughed.
Half an hour later, a pork sandwich in her stomach and a charm to unpack several boxes later, Tonks and Penates were still in the middle of the living-room, which now was completely disorganised with robes and all half of her belongings were the ought not to be. She exhaled heavily and the owl looked at her, tilting his head to lie perpendicular to his side, getting a chuckle from her. Magic had not worked as she hoped it would, or perhaps she just had her hopes to high, she had never been one to be too good with household spells, not matter how hard Andromeda tried to teach her, she was too much of a daddy's girl to be able to wave her wand and watch as everything fell into place as her mother could.
Tonks got her scarlet Auror robes and put them aside — she would need it the next morning before she headed to the Ministry — before reaching for her pyjamas and throwing them on the bed as she entered the bedroom. As she went back to the living-room she saw Penates holding her favourite T-shirt of The Weird Sisters with its beak. Angered, she felt the familiar tickling sensation that indicated her hair had changed to orange to meet her feelings and dashed to him, but to her surprise, he opened its beak as soon as she had a hold on the T-shirt. She frowned and watched as Penates flew to the box where her clothes were and brought another T-shirt to her.
'Thanks,' she muttered after a few seconds of being flabbergasted.
With his help, in two hours' time her new flat was so organised that even Andromeda would not be able to find a single quill out of place. Though Tonks suspected that her mother would still turn to her and say, 'Let's see for how long you can keep it that way.' Tonks shrugged. She wasn't there to live in an organised flat either way. She reached for the Comet 260 in the corner of her room and eyed Penates before tilting her head towards the window.
'Up for a fly?' She winked and opened the window pane. It was a cloudy night, which meant that she probably would end up a bit wet if she flew too high, but it was still better than reading any of the hundreds of books Mad-Eye had sent to her. Not that they weren't interesting, but they were nothing compared to a few hours on a broomstick, especially after she had already spent a couple of hours working on her new flat. She figured she deserved a night out.
Tonks mounted the broom and kicked the floor, flying out the window and Penates followed her. She laughed out loud at the sensation of the wind on her face, it had been a good while since she had just enjoyed being on a broom. She forced the Comet to go as fast as it could until her broom was shaking with speed and her owl was a tiny dot behind her. Tonks slowed down and turned to get back to Penates. As intelligent as he seemed to be with helping her, he was still an owl and could not compare with a broomstick. As soon as she neared him, the owl began to follow her closely and she smiled, flying up in the sky with her new owl and no one to tell her to get back home because it was getting late. Soon she had lost track of time, but failed to care about it. For that night, it was just her and her owl in the cloudy sky of London.
Until Penates went straight down to a tree, for a second Tonks thought he was going to crash, but he dived between the leaves and emerged with a rat in his beak. Apparently he had taken her suggestion to get his own dinner. She headed back to home and closed the window after Penates had entered. A grin upon her lips as she realised that her father could not have given her a better friend. She flicked her wand towards the fireplace to warm the place a bit and turned to see him on the table, dead bits of rat all over him and blood staining the wood. Well, perhaps she could have had a better friend, but they could still work it out if Penates, the responsible for her wellbeing, learnt to eat in his cage only.