A/N: Hi people, yes, im back, with a new story this time. For anybody who was reading my other story sorry but I have officially put it on pause, sorry. I'm writing this story as an answer to a challenge from a friend. I hope you enjoy reading about my new favorite shipping pair.
Number twelve Grimmauld Place was a very quiet place on the night of July the 12th. During the days past it had been busy and bustling with a number of coming and goings of members of the order; but now it was still, and an eerie silence hung in the halls of the ancient house. It was nearing 2:00 a.m. now and the few occupants of the house that were there for the entire summer were asleep, mostly.
Mr. and Mrs. Weasley were both sound asleep in the first bedroom on the third floor, Ginny and Hermione were snoozing peacefully a few doors away. On the second floor Fred,George, Bill, and Percy were asleep in the second room; Percy had made a desperate and sincere apology to the family since Sirius died and had even quit his job at the ministry and had begun working with Bill at Gringotts.
In the room on the opposite side of the hall there were three more beds, containing; Remus Lupin, Nymphadora Tonks, and "Mad-Eye" Moody. They had been assigned to stay at the house the whole summer in order to protect Harry from any 'unforeseen' problems.
In the first room of the second floor there were still two more beds, one contained Ron Weasley, who was snoring up a storm, and the other contained…….Harry's pillow?
Harry Potter, the new owner of number twelve Grimmauld Place was not in bed where he was supposed to be at the moment. He was downstairs in the kitchen, sitting in a chair with his arms crossed over the table and resting his head on his hands. Harry had been found like this many times by the other occupants of the house, with silent tears running down his face as the memories of Sirius he was forced to remember by living in his old house.
Dumbledore had been waiting in the Dursley's kitchen for them when they got back from London, a letter in his hand that cleared Sirius of all charges, awarded Sirius the order of Merlin First Class, and signed the deed to the black manor over to Harry. Harry had been brought immediately to his new home where he was greeted by all his friends. Sirius's will had been read the day after he arrived, adding tens of thousands of galleons to Harry's Gringotts vault.
The rest of the two weeks he had been here had been rather uneventful, unless you counted Ron and Hermione finally going steady, in Harry's mind he felt it was about time they stopped dancing around each other and admitted their feelings for one another. Harry had felt a brief happiness the day they announced to him that they were going out, his joy had died quickly though as he soon became a third wheel to them. With Ron and Hermione dating they were so caught up with each other that Harry was left out in the cold. And so, for the past eight days since they started dating, Harry could honestly say he had never felt more alone in his entire life, including when he lived with the Dursleys.
Harry slowly rose from his chair and stumbled from the kitchen, the severe lack of sleep starting to get to him, Harry hadn't slept for two days now and hadn't slept decently since Sirius died; Harry actually feared going to sleep because of the barrage of nightmares he would have to face.
Harry slowly made his way down the hall to on the many spare bedrooms on the bottom floor, he stumbled into the door, tripping over his feet and slamming down hard onto the wooden floor. He was probably going to wake everybody else up, but he didn't seem to care at all, he was in a constant daze and had been for a few days now.
Harry managed to summon the energy to drag himself to the bed, pulling himself up on top of the blankets, no energy left to worry about how cold the room was or his lip which seemed to have started to bleed from his fall and was now beginning to leave drips of blood on the blankets. Harry allowed his eyes to close halfway as he tried to fight against the sleep that was slowly taking over. As he began to nod off he saw a figure standing into the door way, holding a wand with the lumos spell burning dulling at the tip.
"Harry?" it was clearly a feminine voice, Harry wasn't sure who it belonged to though. "Harry are you ok" she asked as she slowly approached him and knelt next to the bed. The dull light of the lumos spell light of the speakers face, in the dull light Harry could tell it was Tonks that had come to check what all the noise was. Harry's lips curled in a small smile at the sight of her, seeing Tonks made Harry feel much better, though he still couldn't understand why. Maybe it was because she was the only person who actually tried to treat him like one of the adults instead of like a child, that must be it.
"Tonks" he whispered so gently that he could barely hear his own voice.
A sly smile played across the young aurors face, "Wotcher Harry" she said with a small laugh. She frowned though "You really need to get some sleep Harry, Sirius wouldn't want you moping around like this, it isn't healthy for you. Grief is one thing, but your taking it to an extreme Harry" her voice was so full of worry that Harry couldn't help but feel slightly ashamed for his behavior.
"Sorry Nymph" he muttered, he had taken to calling her by this name since she so obviously hated her first name. Indeed she was now glaring at Harry, though her worry for his well being didn't allow much anger in the glare. "I cant sleep Tonks, can you lay here a while, just till I fall asleep?"
Tonks looked slightly alarmed at the request but reasoned with herself that it couldn't take more than a few minutes for Harry to fall asleep, he was obviously ready to drop off any moment. "Sure Harry, I've been waiting to get in bed with you" she grinned as she said this and gave him a wink managing to get a laugh from Harry, she had taken to playful flirting with Harry in attempts to get his mind off of Sirius.
Tonks put her wand out and climbed on top of the blankets with Harry, she hadn't failed to notice how cold the room was and she quickly snuggled up close to him, burying her face in his chest and sliding her arms around him in an attempt to keep warm. She shivered from how cold the room was and Harry place his arms round her, tossing his cloak over her to keep her warm. She smiled at the gesture and wrapped her legs around his, getting as close to him as possible.
"Thanks for staying Tonks" Harry whispered as he began to fall asleep, his eyes fully shut and body finally relaxing.
"Sure thing Harry" she whispered back, sleep beginning to over take her once more, she hadn't fully awaken from her peaceful slumber when she came down to check on Harry. She thought she heard Harry mumble something else but she couldn't understand what he was saying, he was apparently talking in his sleep.
'I'll just stay here a few more minutes, rest my eyes' she thought to herself as she let her eyes flutter and close, her breathing slowing and her body relaxing. Once more she was off in her dreams, asleep in Harry's arms.
Harry had the best night sleep of the summer so far, though it had lasted only a short time, and he was groggy and inexplicably sore, there had at least been no nightmares. He looked at the little clock on the nightstand and was shocked to see it read only 6:00 a.m., he'd only been asleep for four hours, though he did feel refreshed after the long nap. He wondered why he had woken after only four hours of sleep, the reason soon became obvious.
There was a door connecting the other spare bedroom to his on the ground floor, and the door was literally shaking from the shouting going on in the other room. Harry stumbled out of bed, rubbing the sleep from his eyes and walked to the door. He turned the knob and opened the door halfway, sliding into the room to see who was yelling. He instantly recognized the tall and silver haired form of Albus Dumbledore, oddly enough he was the one yelling. Harry didn't like it when the head master yelled, it was incredibly intimidating to have such a powerful wizard angry with you.
He wondered who had made him so angry and looked his right, his eyes widened in shock as he say a young woman with curly, dark green hair, looking downward at the floor, silent tears streaming down her face and biting her bottom lip to keep from crying aloud as she listened to the old man yelling at her.
"…COMPLETELY IRRESPONSIBLE OF YOU NYMPHADORA TONKS" Dumbledore was continuing on as if she had committed some sort of crime, Harry stuck around since he had gone unnoticed so far. "…NEVER WOULD HAVE THOUGHT YOU ACTUALLY ACT UPON SUCH FEELINGS, WHAT WERE YOU THINKING, SLEEPING WITH A BOY FIVE YEARS YOUNGER THAN YOU, AND THE BOY YOUR SUPPOSED TO BE PROTECTING AT THAT!!!" Harry realized with alarm why Dumbledore was yelling at Tonks, he suddenly recalled the events of last night of a few moments before he had fallen asleep.
Apparently Dumbledore was under the impression that he and Tonks had fooled around last night, judging by the way Tonks was stuttering and trying to explain that nothing had happened. Dumbledore looked as though he were ready to begin shouting again so Harry loudly cleared his throat. Dumbledore and Tonks both turned to see who had walked in on them.
"Oh Harry. Oh dear, I do apologize, we must have woken you. I'm afraid I wasn't thinking clearly a few moments ago, you see I dropped in early this morning to check to see how you were doing, I was on my way to the ministry to speak with the minister fudge and I walked in on a rather……unexpected site." He explained quickly as he through a angry look once more at Tonks.
"I uh…heard you yelling at Tonks sir, and you've got the wrong idea" he said hurriedly to his head master. "I was having trouble sleeping last night and Tonks came down to check on me. I asked her to stay with me till I fell asleep and I guess we just…..bother fell asleep is all" he explained quickly.
Dumbledore looked at first relieved then rather upset with himself, he turned to Tonks and started apologizing profusely for yelling at her, she told him not to worry about it.
"I do apologize Harry. I suppose I should be more trusting in your and Tonks's ability with good judgment" Dumbledore apologized once more before heading off to the ministry.
Harry and Tonks were both fully awake now, it was hard to be drowsy after baring witness to an angry Dumbledore. They both headed for the kitchen and sat down at the table next to each other.
"Nobody else up yet?" Harry asked curiously, wondering if anybody had actually slept through Dumbledores yelling.
"Only Moody, he's up every morning by four. He headed off the ministry a little before Dumbledore arrived." Tonks tried to speak steadily but she still had a quiver in her voice from being yelled at by the head master.
Harry noticed her lip quivering and he felt sorry for her, it was mostly his fault that she had gotten into trouble. "Sorry for getting him mad at you Tonks" Harry apologized in a quiet voice. Tonks just flashed a smile at him and acted like it was no big deal.
"So what's on your agenda for today Mr. Potter" he asked, taking up a mock voice of Professor McGonagall.
Harry just shook his head and stood up from the table, pushing his chair back under as he did so. "I'm going to try out that gym that Sirius mentioned in his will, some good old physical activity to keep my mind off of things. Who knows" he said as he started for the door. "Maybe it'll keep be to tired to get you into real trouble" he gave her an evil grin as she through a piece of toast at him from the table.
"The gym huh? Can I join you, an auror is the perfect trainer you know" Tonks stood up from the table as well and walked past Harry. They toward the back of the house and found the door. It hand an extremely rusty knob and lock, but Harry pulled the key from his pocket and tried, as soon as the key touched the lock the door sprung open for them.
As soon as they stepped through the door the Gym lit up from several lights in the ceiling. The gym had everything, free weights, a running track, a swimming pool, a boxing ring, and all sorts of training equipment. There was even a magic dueling arena; Harry could tell right away the room had been magically enlarged to accommodate for everything that was here.
"Wow" Tonks muttered from beside him, Harrys thoughts mimicked her words, the gym was absolutely stunning to say the least. They both ran upstairs to get some more suitable training cloths and met back in the gym after a few minutes.
"What do you think we should do first Nymph?" Harry asked, earning himself a smack to the head.
"Oh I don't know" Tonks stood there thinking as Harry rubbed the side of his head which was smarting from the smack. "How about some boxing, you know how to box Harry?" Harry nodded but was barely able to due to suppressed laughter, he couldn't imagine Tonks trying to box, and he had the distinct impression he would win with out breaking a sweat.
Tonks gave him a reproachful look as if she had read his mind. "Don't underestimate me Harry, I'm a very powerful Auror you know" she jumped into the ring and pulled out her wand, summoning some boxing gloves for the two of them as Harry climbed in after her.
"That maybe so my dear Nymphadora" She glared at him "But we're not using magic in the ring are we? No, no, no. just our raw power, I think you may find yourself coming up short when raw power is the key to winning". Tonks vowed to make Harry eat those words.
Nearly an hour later Harry was panting and sweating for dear life as he sat on a stool in his corner, his face was getting bloody and several large and painful bruises were fully developed along his ribs, chest, stomach, arms, and his face. Tonks on the other hand had only one tiny cut on her arm from a lucky swing Harry had managed around the fourth round, though she was panting and sweating even more than Harry, her tank top was completely soaked through and it was distracting Harry from blocking some major blows.
Apparently Harry had been wrong about power being the key element in this sport, he and swung with all his might and succeeded in thoroughly tiring himself out early in the match. Tonks had danced around him with very graceful moves, using speed and momentum to pummel him, rather than sheer force.
"Ready to quit yet…….Harry……you seem ………rather tired" she paused in between words to try to catch her breath, all that dancing had cost her more stamina than his raw power approach. Harry just grinned at her and stood up from his stool, kicking it out of the ring. Tonks quickly did the same and jumped out to center ring, beginning her dance routine again.
Unfortunately for her she was using the same routine over an over again on Harry, and Harry was beginning to pick up on this. He counted her steps under his breath as she moved around him.
"Left, left, right, left, right, right, left, punch!" he stumbled back as her blow caught his square in the jaw, neither of them were wearing any padding other than the gloves. Harry got his hands back up and crouched down this time, he was waiting for her to try her punch, this time he would catch her off guard and nail her.
"left, right, right, right, left, right, left, left……..NOW" he shouted as he dodged to the left and swung hard, his fist crashing against the side of her head and sending her flying across the ring. His muscle advantage finally kicking in.
Tonks quickly stood up, looking rather shocked as she felt the side of her face. She unstrapped her gloves and threw them down, Harry did the same thinking the match was over, but got a rude awakening.
As he dropped his gloved Tonks slammed into him full force, her shoulder driving into his bruised body like mutant football linebacker going after the unsuspecting quarter back. He landed hard on his back with Tonks on top of his, straddling him.
Harry looked up at Tonks as she leaned down, placing her hands on his chest and leaning down on them, making Harry flinch in pain.
"Give up yet Potter?" she asked as if enjoying a joke. Harry just nodded his head unable to speak.
"Oh ok then, now hold still, I still haven't got the hang of this spell yet." She sat up once more straddling him and placed her hands gently on his chest, a small glow emanating from her hands. Harry closed his eyes as he felt considerable pleasure from whatever it was Tonks was doing to him.
"All done" she said in a sweet voice. Harry opened his eyes and looked over his body, all his cuts and bruises had been healed. He looked up at Tonks, wondering why she was still on top of him, she was giving him a rather shy smile and started to blush, realizing what she was doing.
She quickly stood up and turned away from him as if she had done something wrong. Harry pulled himself to his feet and wondered why she looked so embarrassed, he remembered the events of this morning though, the way Dumbledore had reacted to seeing them together, though he didn't really understand why it was such a big deal.
"I guess that's it for boxing, at least for today anyway. What do you want to do next Harry?" she asked as she looked around at all the other activities there were, her eyes lingering on the magical dueling arena.
"Actually I'd like to ask you a question about this morning" Tonks started to look a little worried but she nodded for him to go ahead and ask. "Why was Dumbledore so upset with you when he thought we slept together, it shouldn't have been a big deal to him should it. After my birthday a few weeks I'll legally be of age in the wizarding world, and your obviously old enough to make your own decisions. Why was he so upset"
Tonks bit her lip and starred down at the floor for a few minutes before she looked up at Harry, she answered slowly, as if choosing her words carefully, like she was trying to hide something from him, "Well, I am supposed to be protecting you Harry, although I really should keep my distance given certain…..circumstances. I talked to Dumbledore before I came to stay here, he had second thoughts about letting me stay after I told him what I needed to, but he agreed in the end."
Harry just looked more confused now than ever, "That doesn't really answer my question Tonks" she wouldn't tell him anything further though.
"Lets go try out that magical dueling arena, how bout it Harry?" she asked with an exited look in her eyes. Harry decided he ask her again some other time as he headed for the arena.
A/N I have only one thing to ask of all those who read this. Please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please review. Just click the little icon down in the left hand corner of the screen. Thank you, see ya next chapter