You know what the best thing about coming home was? Not her parents, though obviously that was be main draw. Not even proper food. No, it was the bath. The gloriously deep, sparkling clean bath. Oh, sure, technically she had a bath in her flat. A small, narrow, grotty thing that always had suspicious black spots on it. She had only used it once and she'd got a rash after that one. So that meant she definitely hadn't used it since except for holding her head over it as she washed her hair. Thank Merlin for the showers in the Academy, that's all she was saying.

Now she was all clean and shiny and smelling good. None of which she had been for the past week. It felt like she'd shed several layers of skin. It was glorious. She actually felt like a human being, which was good, and could sit and chill with her parents. Something she had been prevented from doing because as soon as she had walked in the door her mother had pointed up the stairs to the bathroom without even speaking to her. Like she said, she had wanted to use the bath but she hadn't thought that she smelled or looked that bad.

She had just finished catching them up on what was now going on with her training. Her mother wasn't very impressed.

"Is it really necessary for you to learn the muggle way of fighting?" Andromeda asked, scrunching up her nose.

Tonks shrugged, getting a disapproving look from her mother for that action.

"Moody seems to think so."

"Auror Moody."

Tonks rolled her eyes. Yeah, yeah. Respect and all that. But he had been the one to tell her to drop the Auror in front of his name when they were training. She just had to use it when they were around others.

"Yeah, Auror Moody. He said it's not what people expect."

Ted chuckled at that. "That's certainly true."

"Ted!" Andromeda hissed. "Don't encourage her."

"There's nothing to encourage her about," he defended himself. "It's a part of her training. It's not like I can say go ahead and do it."

"You should be saying not to do it, if you could say anything," Andromeda muttered.

"But we can't."

If it was anyone else, Tonks would say her mum was pouting but, of course, Andromeda Tonks didn't pout. She just got annoyed. And showed that with her bottom lip poking out ever so slightly.

"You and Dora make the exact same face when you don't get your way," Ted said with a chuckle.

"We do not!" Both women exclaimed at the same time which just made Ted laugh.

The two of them threw cushions at him. It didn't exactly help the situation because Ted just laughed harder.

"Like mother, like daughter," he said once he had recovered which caused both of them to roll their eyes. "See!"

No more cushions were thrown at him. Mainly because there were no more to throw. Tonks was just glad that all of this meant that she didn't have to endure her mother going on about had to hand combat and the usefulness (or lack of usefulness) of it. Maybe Ted had done that deliberately. Looking at her father gave nothing away, he was still looking extremely amused, but that didn't mean he didn't do it.

"Onto more civilised topics," Andromeda said pointedly with a sniff. "How are you finding dancing?"

Tonks pulled a face which got her a scolding look. Sometimes she thought that her mother thought she was still a teenager and she could scold her into good behaviour. Okay, technically the scolding looks and glares did still work but her mother didn't need to know that.

And honestly, what did her mother think she thought of dancing? She knew her mother loved it but that didn't mean that she had to and Andromeda knew that.

"It's hard," Tonks admitted honestly. "My limbs don't seem to want to go in the proper positions."

Not without her feeling incredibly awkward anyway.

"What's more difficult, the hand-to-hand combat training or learning how to dance?" Ted asked.

"I would say it would be the hand-to-hand work," Andromeda said matter-of-factly before Tonks could say anything. "And it would be harder on the body."

"Not necessarily," Ted disagreed.

And that was how Tonks had both of her parents staring expectantly at her.

"The muggle combat is hard," she admitted reluctantly, mainly because she felt like it shouldn't be as hard as she was finding it, making her mother look triumphant. "But it's easier than dancing."

"Dancing is not hard, Nymphadora," Andromeda informed her.

"It is!"

"Nonsense."

Tonks gave her a look. It was okay for those who had been brought up with fancy balls. Or actually had some natural grace. Neither of which applied to her.

"Have you met me, mum?"

Andromeda rolled her eyes. "Stop being so dramatic."

"I'm not! I'm telling the truth!"

"No, you are being ridiculous."

"You're the one being ridiculous!"

That got her a glare but Tonks wasn't backing down.

Oh, it was easy for her mother to look all disbelieving and sceptical. She had been taught how to dance as soon as she was steady on her feet, if her stories were to be believed. And Tonks believed her. Ballroom dancing was an extremely important skill for an upper-class pureblood to have. Which, of course, meant that the Blacks had to excel at it. And her mother definitely excelled. Tonks could remember watching her parents dance at Ministry Balls when she was younger and was dragged along to such things. Her mother always looked amazing and was definitely the best dancer there every time. Her dad was good too but her mother was spectacular.

"Then show me how to do it," Tonks said impulsively. "Because even the best instructor the Academy and Moody could get is exasperated with me."

"Fine then," Andromeda said, getting up and putting her hands on her hips.

It was then that Tonks belatedly realised that this might be one of her worse ideas...

[xxxxxx]

It was an hour later and they were both now sitting on the sofa, Andromeda shaking her head.

"I don't understand. I just don't understand."

"I told you," Tonks sulked.

Oh, she was feeling a bit smug because she had proved her mum wrong but that also meant that she had just shown Andromeda just how bad she was at dancing. Which was plain embarrassing.

"You don't seem to have any coordination at all."

"You expected me to have some?" Tonks asked incredulously.

Had her mother even met her? Hello? She was the child who had so many accidents that her parents learned an awful lot of emergency healing both out of necessity and annoyance at having to go to St Mungo's and experience their long wait times. Andromeda really thought that her daughter bad coordination? Ha. As if.

"Are you sure you have been having dancing lessons?"

"Hey!"

Now, that was just plain insulting.

"Nymphadora, you can't even do a simple turn."

"That was just once! And I forgot to move one of my feet!"

"A key part of dancing!"

"I did tell you!"