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Written for;

The Variety Drabble Challenge - CharlieTonks

The Fanfiction Marathon 2.0 - CharlieTonks

Never The Right Time

Sometimes, love doesn't work out the way it's supposed to. It isn't all pink hearts and flowers and chocolates. It is heartache, it is pain, it is awful. One thing people get right, is that love rules your life. You're either in love with someone who loves you back, and then it's good. Or you're in love with someone who doesn't love you back, and then it's bad. Or you're in love with someone who loves you back and it's just never the right time. Then it's horrible.

Take Tonks and I for example. We were made for one another. She's perfect for me and I for her. And yet. It didn't work. Because the timing was never right.

In school, we wanted to have fun. We were best friends, we were trouble makers, but neither of us was interested in love then. Oh, we loved each other, have no doubt, but then it was innocent and fun and friendly. She was my other half, even back then, though neither of us gave it much thought. Not the right time, for either of us.

When we left school, Tonks went straight into the Auror Academy. She didn't have time for a relationship then, hell, she barely had time for a friend. Moody ran her ragged, and she was so tired all the time that there was nothing to be done. While I pined away after her, unsure of my future, and missing my friend, she was getting a head start on her future. So it wasn't the right time for her then.

Just as she finished her training, I got the offer from the Dragon Reserve. It was only a year contract, and surely we could be apart for a year? She'd wait for me, and I wouldn't have time to even look at another woman. She was excited for me. She encouraged me. It was only a year. It wasn't the right time for me.

Only that year wasn't just a year. I fell in love with the reserve, and they fell in love with me. Within six months, I knew it was what I wanted to do with my life and I'd been offered an open ended contract. Tonks was working hard in her first year as a rookie Auror, and even if I went home, she'd barely be around. She told me to stay. We had time, we were young. It just wasn't the right time for us.

Except, the right time never came.

Years passed, the letters slowed to a trickle, and the next thing I heard, she was married and expecting a baby. That was a blow. And it hurt. And then the war, and I had to go home, because I couldn't stay away while everyone I loved was in danger.

She came to me, in the middle of the night. She sat beside me on the sofa and apologised to me. She told me she did love me, but it wouldn't have worked. It was never the right time. I wanted to argue with her, but I couldn't. Because she was right. It hadn't been the right time for us. So I hugged her, and I told her it was alright.

And then she died.

And it would never be the right time for us.

We didn't even get a chance.