Moving. She bad completely forgotten about the fact that she was going to have to move out of her flat. Her landlord had warned her well before summer, around Easter, maybe? She couldn't remember what was happening around then unless it involved her cramming as much knowledge as she possibly could into her brain before her Academy exams. Which was, of course, when he told her about her flat and the fact that she would have to move out.

Apparently, he was selling all the flats he owned, this big renting company offered him a very impressive amount of money and he took it. And no, she couldn't renegotiate renting with them because they wanted to renovate the flats before they did any ranting. Would probably charge a stupid price for them when they were done too. A price that she most definitely wouldn't be able to afford. Which sucked.

All of this meant that she had to move out, technically she had been aware of this fact but then shoved it to the back of her mind and basically forgot about it until recently. As in, last week sort of recently. Two weeks before she had to move out. Fantastic. And now it was one day and okay, yes, she had technically secured an apartment. She hoped so, anyway because she hadn't actually gone and viewed the place. She had seen an ad in the paper and it had been within her price range so she had seized it. Simple as that. This was London, after all. You had to take what you could get, especially at such short notice. She was just glad that her application had gone through, she had filled it out so fast that she wasn't sure it had been in legible English in hindsight.

So now she had a place to live, a rent agreement in place and a feeling of relief. Everything was sorted. Everything was fine. It really was. Things were going her way for a change, you know?

She was going to have to temporarily move back home for about a month before the contract started for her new place but that was fine. Her parents were happy with that and so was she. It wasn't like she had been turfed out as soon as she turned eighteen, she had just wanted to spread her wings which was why she had moved out when she left school. Didn't mean she was sad about moving back home temporarily. It would be fun. It would be nice to actually eat with people during the week. Her flat got kind of lonely if she didn't go out out, you know? Oh, and access to a bath that didn't look like a ghost haunted it was also a plus. She never did really use the bath in her current place, just gave herself a quick shower in it. She had been too scared to do anything else. So yeah, moving back home for a month was hardly going to be a bad thing.

What wasn't going to be fun was packing up all her stuff. She hated packing. Hated it, hated it, hated jt. It should ne so easy too, there were so many spells that helped you pack but could she do any of them? No, she could not. At least she had now got to the point where her clothes actually went towards her trunk or suitcase, before they had all just blown about like they were in a hurricane. Small improvements. Though, could you really call them improvements when they gave her more work to do? Almost not worth it.

But you know what? Tonks looked around all her open drawers and sighed. The spells were better than nothing and she really didn't want to start the process of yanking out all of her clothes onto the floor and whatever other free space she could get. Even if she couldn't get them to fold themselves and put themselves in the suitcase, getting them out of her drawers and onto the bed was something, wasn't it?

She sighed heavily. Oh, who was she kidding? She had just given herself more work to do.

[xxxxxx]

And the day had come. Moving into her new place. This didn't feel nearly as weird as the first time she had moved. This just felt almost matter-of-fact.

"Thanks dad, I have kt from here," Tonks said as she swept her eyes over her trunk and pile of bags.

He had helped her bring them all downstairs. All she needed to do now was shrink them all down and shove them in her pocket. Thank Merlin for magic or who knows how much back and forth she would have had to do to get all her stuff over. She was dizzy just thinking about that amount of apparating.

Also thank Merlin her mum had taken pity on her and done the packing spells this time. It saved so much time. And her clothes actually fit into her trunk without her having to sit on it. That was always a plus and this way she could just move things from her trunk to her drawers and cupboard without too much fuss. Okay, one more check for stuff and a quick trip to the toilet and that was her sorted.

A round of hugs and kisses and "see you next weekend" (somehow, they were all actually off then), she was away. A quick apparition to the alleyway next to her block of flats and she was here.

Eurgh. She screwed up her nose. Did alleyways really always have to smell this bad? Did they always have to smell like pee? And this was alleyways particularly ripe. Lovely. Well, it wasn't like she was living here so she quickly removed herself from it and started going up to the fourth floor of the block of flats.

Forty-three, forty-four, ah, here she was. Forty-five. Her new home. Where she should hopefully have dinner soon, she was starving and there was an Indian place down the road. So, being very thankful that the landlord had posted the keys out to her (as weird and unsecure that wad), she shoved her ley in the door and -

What was this? No, seriously, what was this? She ducked out to check the number on the door and even double checked that her keys fit the lock and yes, it was the right place. This was her flat. Except, it couldn't be, right? There was no way that this could be for her. Just no way. This wasn't a place people could actually live in, right?

But no. This was her flat. This was the correct place. What in Merlin's name had she done to herself?

It was a flat you could live in. Technically. Liveable was definitely pushing it a bit. From the looks of it, either the landlord didn't bother making sure the place was clean after the precious tenants moved out or it was a crime scene. And there was a suspicious looking stain over in that corner that was making her lean somewhat towards the latter no matter how ridiculous that was.

Needless to say, it was a mess. Patchy carpet, weird water stains up the walls, loads of dirt everywhere and even an upended chair that had a hole in its back. Lovely.

Going further in didn't make anything better either. The dirt seemed to be a part of the place - it was like it had never seen soap and water. More bits of rubbish too, just on the floor. Quick vanishing charms took care of them because there was no way she was picking any of that up with her bare hands. She was pretty sure she saw one wrapper move and she did not want to be anywhere near whatever spider or mouse had made it its home.

Mould. There was mould right there. On the ceiling. Over her sink. Mould. A weird coloured one too that couldn't be healthy. Great. Just great.

Surprisingly, the bed looked play though she was scared to flip the mattress over to check that. But it was surprisingly clean and the covers looked new? She wasn't going to question that right now because all she wanted to do was flop down somewhere safe in despair and this was the only place.

Seriously, what had she done?