"Just drop it mate, alright?"

"I don't know if I can do that. I mean we both know you couldn't last night." He smiled at his own crude joke.

"John, please, don't be such a git, I really don't want anyone to find out about this." I was practically begging now, it was pathetic. I just had to hope that John and I were good enough mates that he'd keep his mouth shut. Surely six years of sleeping next to each other was enough to guarantee silence, if not support.

"It's not like you've got anything to be embarrassed about. She's fit. Everyone says that. Personally I wouldn't mind finding out exactly how much of herself she can change."

"Urgh…even I think that that's wrong"

John looked at me, with an extremely over-the-top scandalous look on his face "did I hear that right? Did the infamous Charlie Weasley just suggest that it's wrong to speak about women in a degrading way? I think I ought to alert the media. I can see the headline now "Hogwarts Girls Safe Again!" He looked over my shoulder towards the portrait hole "How come your Hufflepuff girlfriend always knows our passwords?"

"Because", I responded, "I tell her them. And if you call her my girlfriend again I'll be spilling your most intimate secrets over my morning pumpkin juice".

Tonks came bouncing over. "Who's spilling whose secrets?" she asked, intrigue written all over her face.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"Come on, Charles, just tell me the truth, puh-lease?" Merlin, it was hard to refuse her when she was looking at me like that and tugging on the edge of my t-shirt.

"I already told you the truth, Nymphadora." Using her given name was usually an easy way of distracting her from the topic at hand. She must be becoming accustomed to my ways because it didn't quite work this time.

"But I didn't believe you", she said obstinately, "Why won't you tell me what it is that he was saying to you? Does he fancy me?"

Just as I started to feel my heart rate speed up a little at the cheeky smile on her face she screwed up her nose and a bright red, a red that could only be described as Weasley Red, spread from the roots to the tips of her hair. I bit my lip; nothing is creepier than having my Tonks-feelings mixed up with images of various family members.

"No, Tonks, he doesn't." I said, retracting all complimentary thoughts, since her persistence was becoming irritating. "In fact, I expect he finds you just as annoying as I do when you keep deliberately making yourself look like a member of my family." A few minutes silence followed, during which Tonks pouted, lower lip stuck out like a child, and I resisted the urge to lean over and flick my tongue over it, or bite down on it, all the while fighting off the ideas about incest that had wormed their way into my head. Just as I decided she must have given up…

"Does he fancy you?"

"No, John's not gay, okay? He's not in love with you, or me, or anyone for that matter…at least as far as I know. He just wanted a quick chat!"

"But I heard something about keeping things quiet. Oh, wait, was he saying that he'd keep a secret for you, do you like him?"

"Oh, for Merlin's sake, Tonks!" I let out a frustrated sigh, "you're driving me insane, I promise to tell you, but only if you change your hair – you know I see enough red when I'm at home."

It was a ridiculous excuse really, but she's bought it before, and what was I supposed to say "Please change your hair back to black, I really hate the idea of wanting to shag one of my cousins"? She must still have some respect for my sanity, since a minute later it was back to the usual style, with the addition of the bubblegum-pink section at the front that she's been wearing a lot more lately.

"Happy now?"

I smiled, "Definitely. Ok, come up to the dorms, I'm not telling you in here, knowing your loud mouth you'll repeat it at the top of your lungs to my whole house". It wasn't the most typical way of inviting a girl up to your bedroom but after 6 years of friendship I was fairly sure any of the more typical lines would have her laughing her head off at me. I led the way up the staircase, feeling a secret swell of boyish pride at being seen leading a girl up to my room.

Tonks' cut my moment of joy short with a burst of uncontrollable laughter as I opened the door.

"What is it?" I asked, somewhat mortified.

"They're just a lot more…pompous than the Hufflepuff boys' dorms. You Gryffindors really are quite far up your own arses aren't you?" My flash of irritation at the insult to my house was quickly replaced by a flash of jealousy as I realised what she had said.

"Oh yeah, and how would you know what the boys' dorms look like?" I asked before I could stop myself.

"You're hardly one to talk Charlie, how many girls have you had up here anyway?" I heard what I thought might be jealousy in her voice, and I was so distracted by the victory dance my insides were doing that I forgot to answer the question.

"Lately?" I finally responded, "just one". I was being honest, the last girl I'd been with, a blonde from Ravenclaw, had had a thing about doing the Quidditch Captain in the locker rooms. I pushed that thought from my mind, this was Tonks, and not messing this up, not messing 'us' up, was far more important to me than all the girls I'd ever been near. She was also the only one who had always seemed genuinely interested in a friendship and not more.

"Is that what the secret's about, this girl?" For a minute, I thought she was talking about the Quidditch Girl, but I quickly realised I hadn't mentioned that out loud, and recovered in time to say,

"Yeah I guess it is." I took another breath. I'd never had to concentrate on my breathing as much as I was having to this afternoon. "Okay, Tonks, if I tell you about this you have to promise that you'll still be my friend, you won't be angry, and that you won't hit me". The girl packed a mean punch. I subconsciously rubbed my jaw remembering the time she slugged me when she caught me looking at her while she was changing after a Quidditch match. Apparently, there's no such thing as extenuating circumstances when it comes to friends 'perving' on other friends.

Her despairing voice pulled me back to reality. "Oh Gods Charlie, who have you shagged? If it's Lyssa I won't be impressed, she's far too innocent to be polluted by the likes of you, and it better not…" I'd tried many times to cut her off when she went off on one like this, and always failed, so I was making it my life's mission to find a way of shutting her up quickly and easily.

"Tonks!" I tried to cut her off, "stop rambling, I'm not interested in Alyssa Bell, okay? John was taking the piss 'cause he caught me saying someone's name while I was…well you don't need to know about that, but…" now I was the one rambling. "Anyway the point is, the girl, well she's a friend, and she's the only one who has been in my room for a long time..." She was still looking at me blankly so I tried to make it a little clearer, "and…she's the only one who's been in my room at The Burrow, and if you still haven't figured it out then you're stupider than you look…"

Perhaps that wasn't the best thing to say.

There was silence as she opened and closed her mouth. I shuffled my feet, kicked my bed post, and looked everywhere but at her "Oh fuck Charlie, I…err…I mean, you…me?"

It was hardly the best response I could have wished for. I must admit, I had hoped she'd either jump straight into my arms or just laugh the whole thing off as a joke. Of course, if it were the latter, I'd have to Avada myself anyway, so maybe I could face an obvious rejection just as easily. "Well" I said, "'Fuck, Charlie' wasn't really the response I was hoping for, at least, not without a 'me' in the middle anyway". I gave a sad smile at my own pathetic little joke, "don't worry about it, okay, let's just be friends still, it's not a big deal." I started moving towards the door.

"Hang on a minute!" I spun around at the sound of her voice, hope and fear clanging together inside me, "I've got something to say before you go pretending you never said anything."

"What?" I asked, still unable to look at her, in case I saw disgust, or worse, pity in her face.

"Fuck. Me. Charlie?" she said, and all I could do was blink, "was that better?"

"Eh?" To be honest her words seem to have got lost somewhere on their way to my brain, and hadn't registered yet. I suspected I knew where they had gotten stuck.

She laughed, "You're not very eloquent today are you dear? I asked you to fuck me. Preferably right here" she gestured towards the four-poster, "on your ridiculously ornate bed". She stamped her foot, "I always thought you were fit Charlie", I blinked again, "but you only ever looked at me like I was a friend" she drifted off, "well…apart from that time I changed my boobs to a double E after that quidditch match year". I subconsciously touched my jaw again, remembering the incident.

"Tell me I'm not misunderstanding you?"

I shook my head clear "You really want me? I mean, you want to…you're not just having me on, 'cause in about a minute I'm not going to be able to stop even if you are just taking the piss." Half of me was joking; the other half was worried that it might actually be true. I wanted her more in this moment than I'd ever wanted anyone.

"Would you just shut up and get on with it already Charlie boy"

I felt the familiar growl rising in my throat as I pushed her back onto the bed, effectively cutting her off before she'd even finished her sentence. I could feel her, all of her, underneath my hands and my lips and as she slid the zip down on my jeans I thought fleetingly of asking her to change her hair back to red so I could keep myself from coming all over the mattress like a kid.

I didn't dare ask.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

We were lying on the bed, me running my fingers through the pink streak, amazed at how it felt different from the black, softer.

"Are you ok?" I asked her "You're quiet, which is, erm, unlike you"

"You've exhausted me", she said absently, "I'm too tired to talk…stop grinning you smarmy git, you're not that good at it".

And that was all she said, for almost an hour. I continued smiling to myself; not only had I got what I'd been dreaming of for the last six months, I'd got what I'd been dreaming of for the last six years; I'd found a way to shut her up.

My life's mission had been accomplished.

Fin.

Author's Note:

I'm a relatively new writer, and I'm very new to fanfiction. I know my writing isn't great but I'd love to improve it, so any criticism or advice is welcome. Thanks!