"Nymphadora, you freeze right now!"

Automatically, Tonks did as she was told. It didn't matter how old she was, that tone of voice was one that she was never going to disobey. She was going to be forty and still obey that tone. Bad she mentioned how terrifying her mother could be? She was pretty damn terrifying. There were some Judges in the court system who got scared when they saw her and she was a solicitor, not a barrister! They didn't even interact with her that much!

"Nymphadora!"

"I'm freezing, I've frozen."

She even had her hands in the air, for Merlin's sake. Like she said, she wasn't stupid.

Andromeda came running up to her and pulled her away.

"Hwy!"

"Get away from there!"

"I wasn't doing anything!"

Well, technically she was but that was beside the point, she was on the defensive here! Especially when her mum used that tone with her, kt was automatic to deny everything when the "mum tone" was used!

"Just, het away!" Andromeda related, grabbing her by the wrist and forcibly yanking her away.

"Hey!"

Of course, this unexpected movement made her stumble which meant that she fell. Face first. Into the sand. Which she got a mouthful of. She was spending an awful lot of this holiday with sand in her mouth. How did her mum not fall down with her? That was unfair!

"You are not a child, Nymphadora, you know better than to touch a jellyfish," Andromeda scolded as she finished up spitting sand out.

"I'm not stupid! I wasn't going to touch it!" Tonks said defensively.

Andromeda raised an eyebrow and looked pointedly at her hand. The band she was holding a stick in.

"Well, not with my bare skin," she mumbled, looking away.

"You shouldn't be touching it with anything!"

"Poking it with a stick wouldn't have done anything to me!"

"Knowing your luck, it would."

Tonks opened and closed her mouth to disagree with that but no argument came to mind. Her mum was right, knowing her luck she would probably trip and land face first on it or something. And that was not something she wanted to explain to a lifeguard or a first aider or any medical professional really. Now that would be incredibly embarrassing.

So, with all of that in mind, she withdrew the stick. She still kept a hold of it, though. You never knew when it would be useful. It was a good stick, after all. You had to keep a good stick.

"Why did you even want to poke it with a stick anyway?" Andromeda asked in exasperation. "I did not take you for being cruel, Nymphadora."

"I didn't want to poke it! I wanted to see if I could sort of... prod it back to sea," she pointed towards the water's edge.

As she said it out loud, she realised how ridiculous that sounded. The jellyfish was definitely well stuck to the sand, poking it was hardly going to dislodge it. Actually, poking it might have hurt it, something she didn't want to do. Just because it was a jellyfish and stung people didn't mean that she had to hurt it. She would have to scoop it up to do that and, despite what her mother might think, she wasn't stupid enough to go around grabbing jellyfish!

"The tide will probably get it back ib."

"But that's not for hours yet and the sun could kill it by then," she argued. "If there weren't as many people around, I would levitate it back in but I can't!"

The little annoyances of them not really caring where they took their holiday. They didn't need to always be around magic. Except for a situation like this apparently. She couldn't just let it die!

Andromeda looked at her and then down at the jellyfish and then back at her again. She closed her eyes and Tonks was pretty sure that she was going to get told off which meant that what her mum said next cam complete surprise.

"A stick is completely ineffective for moving something like this. Go and find something you can scoop it up with." Tonks just stared at her, making Andromeda snap. "You said that you didn't want it to die so chop chop!"

She even clapped her hands at her as if that would get her moving. Which, to be fair, it did.

"I'm chopping, I'm chopping!" She said as she ran off, trying to think.

"That doesn't even make sense!" Andromeda called after her.

Of course, being the mature, grown-up adult that she was now, Tonks had run... straight to her father. Who was completely bemused by her quick summary of events which was neither quick nor succinct and involved a lot of hand gestures. It didn't help that he had to ask her to repeat herself twice; once because she had just been talking too quickly for him to even try and understand what she was talking about and twice because once he did understand what she was talking about, he didn't believe her.

What was so unbelievable about her trying to rescue a jellyfish?

"So, you poked it with a stick?" He asked, bewildered.

"Not the point of the story!"

Why was this taking so long? They had a life to save! Well, a jellyfish life, but still!

"Right. Yes. Of course," Ted said, blinking and then coming to his senses. "We have a jellyfish to save."

"Exactly! And I have no idea how!"

Thankfully her dad did have an idea. An incredibly good one, it turned out.

"This should be easy to get," Ted said confidently. "Every shop al9ng here should have them."

It turned out that her dad was wrong. Very wrong. Hilariously wrong, even.

"Ten shops along the beachfront and the first five don't have buckets and spades?" Ted asked incredulously. "What sort of seaside place is this?"

"One that doesn't have bucket and spades apparently," Tonks said, ineffectively pulling him along. "Come on, we need them!"

Shop number six turned out to be spades their lucky number. A whole wall of buckets and spades greeted them as soon as they walked in the door.

Tonks went a grabbed the closest set but her dad held her back.

"Dad! There's a jellyfish we need to save!"

"And we will, as soon as we get the right one."

All Tonks could do was groan.

"A bucket and space, really?" Andromeda asked as Tonks and Ted came running over to her.

And yes, that was her dad's idea. A bucket and spade. A plastic bucket and spade, to be exact. One of those kids ones that get sold in every shop along the seafront. It was bright pink. Obviously. She had taken the time to rummage through the massive bin in the shop to get it. Look, her priority was definitely saving the jellyfish but she had to have the right equipment to do so!

"How else did you think we were going to move it without magic?" Ted retorted.

For once, her mum didn't have an answer for them.

"Well, deal with it then," she said, gesturing at the very sad looking jellyfish.

Could jellyfish look sad? They didn't have faces, did they? Well, it was a sad lump of jelly or whatever it was made out of anyway.

"Just why were you so long getting back anyway?" Andromeda asked as Tonks carefully scooped up the jellyfish with the spade.

"Ask dad," she replied with an eye roll.

"Ted?" She turned to her husband with a raised eyebrow, hands on hips. "Why was I left with a stranded jellyfish for twenty minutes?"

He huffed and her and crossed his arms with a pout.

"We needed the right spade!"

"Edward Tonks!"

"Yes!" Tonks interrupted them with a cheer before her mum could give him a good telling off. "I did it!"

She even waved her spade in the air in celebration. A bad idea because she was immediately showered with sand. Gah! Some of it went in her mouth!

But that didn't matter because the jellyfish was safely in the water! And it had moved away! Yay! She just hoped that the jellyfish had moved itself and it wasn't all the waves. She might have sand in her mouth and a possible splinter in her hand from the wooden handled spade her dad had decided they needed but she had done it. She had saved a jellyfish.

"Well done," Andromeda said indulgently.

Tonks beamed.