"Oof," went Tonks as she slammed her suitcase shut.

Only for it not to close properly. In fact, it almost threw itself completely open again. Dammit, she'd thought that she'd packed everything tightly in there. Sure, she had more clothes than days they were away but she needed to have some choices. And most of the extra were just t-shirts, they wouldn't take up that much space. Oh, and her boots that she was sneaking with her. The doc martins that her mum hated and would even more so since they were going to Spain with her. Look, they were her favourite shoes and she was pretty sure that she wasn't going to be able to wear them to Training so she was going to was them as much as she could in the meantime. That and they also looked great on her so why wouldn't she wear them? She brought shorts with her so she wouldn't be warm or anything. Well, that was the excuse she was going to use. She probably should learn how to do a tracking charm because she was pretty sure her mum was going to make them "disappear" at the first opportunity.

Shoving the shirts and underwear that had sprang out back in, Tonks tried to figure out the best way to get this damn thing closed. There had to be a way of doing it that did not involve her taking everything out and repacking it. There was no way she was going to put herself through that a second time. She hated packing, whether it was her school trunk or a holiday suitcase. Kt sucked and she wasn't good at it. Even sorting out her schoolbag had been a nightmare. Her professors were lucky that she gave them homework that didn't look like it had been dragged through a bush backwards.

Olay, maybe shoving her jeans in there without folding them had been a bad idea. If she took those out and folded the everything would be a bit flatter. Oh, and her socks could go in her boots that would free up some space and stop the zip from getting stuck on them. Okay, progress.

It was when she was sitting firmly on top of her suitcase, positioned in an extremely awkward angle as she tried to zip it closed that her mother walked in. Because of course her mother chose this moment to walk in.

All Andromeda did was tut and shake her head at her daughter.

"Really, Nymphadora?"

"I've almost got It! Almost got It!"

And nope. She hadn't got it. Her hand slipped off the zip and, of course, due to the aforementioned precarious angle that she'd been in, she went tumbling off the bed. Luckily, her head narrowly missed the corner of her bedside table. She cursed loudly. Which, yes, got another tut from her mother.

"I will get it," she promised.

"I'm sure you will."

Why did it sound like she didn't believe her? That was just mean.

"Make sure it's neatly in there," Andromeda added.

"I will."

"That means folded."

"I said I will, didn't I?"

"Don't be cheeky, Nymphadora."

"You're the one who keeps going on!"

That got her a scolding look which, Tonks was annoyed to discover, worked very effectively on her as she held her tongue. She was never going to win when it came to her mum, was she?

"At least everything is in the case," she said petulantly.

She was quite proud that she managed to get everything into one suitcase and two days early. That made a change than her usual rushing aro7nd. Granted, the only reason she was early was because her Apparition Test was tomorrow. Yes, it was scheduled the day before they left. She was going to be fine. Seriously. Lile her mum said, she knew how to apparate. She could do it. The test was going to be fine. Hence, the nervous packing she had done today. Hey, at least she'd got something dome which was more than could be said for some of the other tasks... no! She wasn't thinking of them. She was officially in holiday mode now where there were no thoughts at all except where she was eating. And maybe the best beach.

Andromeda shook her head and left the room. Without offering to help her pack. Meanie.

This was going to be the perfect distraction to her NEWT results. Two weeks of sun and shopping and relaxing. No thinking about the results that were going to decide her whole future at all. Nope. There would be no thinking. That's what holidays were for, no thinking. Even more so on this one because for the first time in seven hears, she didn't have holiday work to do! It was kind of weird, she kept on feeling like she was forgetting to do it. She had even checked her trunk twice for her work! And the trunk was empty except for old textbooks that were now getting stored in there. How pathetic was that?

But she was on her summer holidays, there was no holiday work and she was going to be going on holiday. It was great! Even if holiday was starting to not sound like a word anymore. That didn't matter because there would be no thinking for the next two weeks about anything. Not flats or tests or results or anything. This was going to be great.

And maybe there would be a cute guy or girl to have a good snog with. This was the first time ever that she felt confident enough that her abilities wouldn't randomly make her appearance change. She felt like she had a proper amount of control over them that she could go and act like a typical teenager and have some silly romances. Was that a stupid thing to look forward to? Maybe even a bit childish? Yes, she was well aware of that but one, she was still a teenager, only seventeen and two, sometimes you needed a bit of silliness. Not everything in life was meant to be serious and boring.

She had had a few silly romances at school, not that she ever let it get past the snogging stage because people got weird over her ability to change herself and everyone at Hogwarts knew that she could change herself. Between creeps that wanted her to look like their weird fantasy or ones that flinched every time she changed her haor colour, people were just weird Which sucked. Hence the not even really trying when at school, there was just no point. But no one in Spain would know which meant that no one would ask her to change certain things about her to make her more attractive. That would be nice. And no, she still hadn't gotten over the fact that stupid Wilkes had told her that she would look good with a pointier nose. What did that even mean? He certainly hadn't appreciated the beak she'd made her nose morph into. His squeal was extremely satisfying to hear.

But Spain would be different. More fun. Nothing was supposed to be permanent when you were on holiday. Yeah. It was going to be fun.