AN: Decided I wanted to do a little filler fic between Like A Falling Star and Standing Firm and this was the result. Takes place after chapter 97 of LAFS but before chapter 98. Hope you enjoy!

Did Tonks ever mention how annoying it was to be born in April? Because it was, it was dreadfully annoying. Because it was just downright unfair. And don't go on about the fact that April was when the weather started to get better and the flowers started to bloom and all that rot. None of that mattered. Not now anyway.

This was all her parents' fault. They just had to have her in April and this was the result. She had to wait all this time to get her apparition license. At least, she hoped so. She was doing the final practice round today before her actual test. Which would be taking place in the summer holidays. In the summer holidays. Who even took tests during the summer? Especially when they were your holidays? The last one before you entered the working world as an actual adult! Saps who were born in April, that's who. Which was her. And like only six others. Well, she didn't think that they were all born in April. They were all born in the summer and late Spring. The only ones of the year that wouldn't have complete freedom to go wherever they wanted without having to rely on their parents. Not until mid-July anyway. Which, okay, was only something like six weeks away and NEWTs would be taking up about four weeks of the time but still!

Okay, and she could technically get around without her parents. She could call the Knight bus or, for less chaotic and traumatic ways of travelling she did know how to take a normal bus and call a taxi. Her father was muggleborn and was very firm about her (and her mother) being able to navigate the world that way. But they were slower (not the Knight bus) and they cost money. Apparition was quick and free. Mostly. Some places charged you before allowing you access to certain apparition points in buildings but she doubted she would be going to those places. All of which was beside the point because she was going to have to wait until the summer holidays to take her stupid test. That was ages away.

Okay, technically her holidays started in less than a week and she'd already sat her NEWTs so she was really just hanging around the school until her leaving ceremony and there was no work to do so she was sort of already on her holidays? But that didn't matter, she wanted to complain so she was complaining! Even of it was only in her head. It made her feel better.

Know what was also unfair? The fact that after this year they were going to start teaching apparition to sixth years instead of seventh years. Which meant that everyone else in Hogwarts was now going to be able to learn it a whole year earlier than her. How was that fair? They should have to wait until seventh year just like everyone else had had to. She couldn't believe that Fred and George Weasley were going to learn how to do it earlier than she did. Somehow that didn't feel right or particularly safe on that note. At least show wasn't going to be in Hogwarts anymore. Other people were though. Eh, that was going to be McGonagall's problem once they turned sixteen. She absentmindedly wondered if London was far enough away from Scotland to be safe from whatever explosion would occur when they started learning? Maybe she would be sick that day and go to the continent. For safety. Surely France would be far enough away?

Oh, why was she even thinking of that right now? It wasn't like it was important, her mind just kind of wandered there, she couldn't help that she couldn't focus properly on what was currently happening.

It was times like this that she missed Charlie. He would understand how annoying and unfair this all was. She needed to get herself a new best friend. Or a second one at least because just because he wasn't here with her didn't mean that he wasn't her best friend anymore. Oh my god that sounded soppy. Look what he'd driven her to! Why did best friends even matter when school was basically over? Charlie was still her best friend where ever he was and it wasn't like she was alone, she had friends. Gah. She was being stupid. Of course, Charlie was her best friend and of course she had friends. And she was going to have to wrote a letter to him because it really had been too long since she'd done that and she wasn't about to be a bad friend. Friend didn't sound like a word anymore.

Speaking of Charlie, he never learned to apparate before he left. Unless he got private lessons that he never told her about but she doubted that. Private ones were one, more expensive - sharing four instructors for a whole year at Hogwarts really split up the cost, and two, she was pretty sure that it would have been illegal or against regulations because he was too young. Would the Dragon Reserve have taught him? She would have to ask. Surely, he would have mentioned being able to apparate in his letters? Then again, Charlie tended to focus on the most random of things. She got a full scroll all about dragon scales the other month. Dragon scales. And not even on their uses, that would have at least been useful knowledge for her (She had to pass NEWT Potions to become an Auror, after all). No, this was a full scroll on how they looked and felt and how each individual one was different and amazing. It was basically a love letter to dragon scales. That boy had problems. She couldn't believe that they actually let him anywhere near dragons after that letter. He probably spent his felted time sniffing the poor creatures or something.

"Are you paying attention, Miss Tonks," a disapproving voice snapped her out of her thoughts.

She sheepishly looked up at the crochety woman who was taking them out on this final practice before their exam. It was someone different to who'd been teaching them this whole time. Good thing too because the woman was not a good teacher. She wasn't even good around people so Merlin knew why she was doing this.

"Yes, miss," she said hurriedly as the woman's frown deepened.

She couldn't even remember the woman's name. Mills? Quentin? She didn't know. Whatever. All she knew that the woman gave her a sniff and proceeded to yet again tell them how to apparate. Which was particularly annoying when they'd all successfully done it in the Great Hall at Hogwarts. And she spoke in this really stupid voice too, like they were all idiots or something. Which they weren't by the way. Obviously. Granted she was the one trying to reassure herself of this inside her own head which was either idiotic or a sign of insanity. She would take the insanity; it was somewhat more bearable to other people than plain idiocy she found.

"Miss Tonks, please pay attention or else I highly doubt that you will pass the test."

Merlin, why did she have to have such a grating voice?

"Yes, miss," she said through gritted teeth.