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She was halfway to the Entrance Hall when someone stepped into her path.
Fleur stopped, her wand in her hand, ready to use a spell, but she stopped herself when she saw her uniform. She had seen that uniform around Hogwarts since the day the champions were chosen, and after Fleur noticed the uniform, only then she noticed who was wearing said uniform.
Pink hair. Athletic build. Auror robes.
Nymphadora Tonks.
The woman from the Daily Prophet article. Harry Potter's supposed secret lover, though Fleur had dismissed most of that story as the usual sensationalist rubbish the British papers loved to print.
But looking at her now, Fleur reconsidered. There was something protective in her posture.
"Fleur Delacour," Tonks said. It wasn't a question.
"Oui," Fleur replied carefully. "And you are ze Auror. Tonks, oui?"
"That's right." Tonks was trying to keep her expression pleasant, but Fleur could see the anger in her eyes. "I couldn't help but notice you've been asking a lot of questions about Harry Potter lately."
Fleur kept her own expression pleasant and mildly curious. "Oh? I was not aware anyone was paying such close attention to my conversations."
"I pay attention when people start digging into the life of someone I'm assigned to protect," Tonks said flatly. "So I'll ask again: why are you so interested in Harry Potter?"
Fleur considered her options. She could play innocent, pretend she didn't know what Tonks was talking about. She could deflect with charm and evasion, the way she'd been trained since childhood to handle uncomfortable situations.
No. Looking at the set of Tonks's jaw, Fleur recognized someone who wouldn't be easily manipulated or distracted. The innocent act would only annoy her, and an annoyed Auror was the last thing Fleur needed four days before facing a dragon.
"I am curious about one of my competitors," Fleur said simply, abandoning the exaggerated French accent she sometimes used to seem less threatening. "Surely that is not a crime?"
"Curious," Tonks repeated, her tone making it clear she didn't believe that was the whole story. "Funny, because I haven't noticed you asking around about Viktor Krum or Cedric Diggory. Just Harry. Why is that?"
Fleur tilted her head, studying the Auror. She could understand that all of this could be because this Auror was Harry's protector, trainer, or whatever she was to him, but from the way she was looking at her, Fleur knew this wasn't just a protector watching out for Harry because duty or orders demanded her to.
"If you must know," Fleur said, deciding honesty might serve her better than games, "Krum and Diggory are easy to assess. I know what I am dealing with there."
"Do you now?" Tonks's eyebrows rose. "Enlighten me."
Fleur shrugged. "Krum is like a charging bull. Powerful, yes, but predictable. He runs straight at his problems and tramples them. It works until someone is smart enough to step aside and let him crash into the wall himself."
The auror seemed like she wanted to smile, but her face turned serious once again. "And Diggory?"
"Diggory loves his 'Perfect Champion' mask," Fleur said, liking the conversation. "I am not sure if he is really like that, or if it is just a front he wears. But it does not matter. I watched him during the dueling race. He does everything by the book. Textbook technique, predictable patterns, no innovation. That kind of thinking is safe, but it is also predictable."
"So you've got everyone all figured out then?" Tonks said mockingly.
"Except for one. I dismissed Potter at first," Fleur admitted, and it grated to say it aloud. "Saw him as a child playing at a tournament he had no business entering. But then I watched him duel. Watched him defeat a seventh-year using nothing but first and second-year spells applied creatively. And then I learned certain things about his history."
"Like?" Tonks's voice had gone hard again.
"Like the fact that at twelve years old, he killed a basilisk in the Chamber of Secrets." Fleur watched Tonks's expression carefully. "Which I have just had confirmed by Ronald Weasley, though getting coherent information from that boy was like trying to extract teeth from a sleeping dragon."
Tonks snorted despite herself. "There isn't much new information Charlie's little brother can give you, he and Harry hasn't talked since Harry's name came out the Goblet of Fire."
"I noticed," Fleur said dryly. "So yes, Auror Tonks, I am curious about Harry Potter. The one I dismissed at first seems to be the biggest wild card in this tournament. So I want to know what I am dealing with."
There was a long pause. Tonks held her gaze, as if trying to scare her away, but Fleur didn't fear easily, and she held her gaze without looking away.
"I appreciate the honesty," Tonks said finally.
"But?" Fleur prompted, sensing there was more.
"But you're wasting your time." Tonks's expression had shifted from defensive to something almost amused. "Ronald Weasley thinks with his cock, as you discovered. Can't tell you much beyond confirming stories you've already heard. Ginny Weasley doesn't know Harry that well, hero worship from a distance isn't the same as actual friendship. Same goes for most other Gryffindors. They know the legend, not the person."
"And the ones who do know him?" Fleur asked.
"The ones who actually know Harry well enough to tell you anything useful?" Tonks's smile was sharp. "They won't. Hermione Granger would hex you before she'd betray Harry's confidence. And anyone else close enough to have real information is loyal enough not to share it."
Fleur nodded slowly. She'd suspected as much, but having it confirmed saved her from wasting more time. "I appreciate your honesty as well."
"So you'll stop digging?" Tonks asked.
"I did not say that." Fleur allowed a small smile. "I will simply have to find other methods. Perhaps observation rather than interrogation."
Tonks's eyes narrowed. "You really don't give up, do you?"
"I am the French champion," Fleur said simply. "Giving up is not in my nature."
Another pause. The corridor around them was quiet, most students still at dinner. Somewhere in the distance, Fleur could hear the muffled sounds of the Great Hall.
"Why does it matter so much?" Tonks asked. "You've already assessed him as a threat. You know he's more capable than he appears. Why keep pushing for more?"
Fleur considered the question. Why did it matter? Why was she so fixated on understanding Harry Potter when she should be focusing entirely on her own preparations for the First Task?
"Because he is..." Fleur paused, searching for the right word. "Interesting."
Tonks's entire posture changed. She no longer seemed like a witch she was having a conversation with, but a soldier. She stepped forward, and suddenly the corridor felt smaller, more threatening.
"Interesting," Tonks repeated, her voice low and cold.
"Yes," Fleur said, refusing to back down even as every instinct told her she'd just stepped onto dangerous ground. "He is immune to my allure, which is rare. He killed a basilisk as a child, which should be impossible. He thinks creatively under pressure, which is valuable. He is—"
"Keep your Veela fangs away from him," Tonks interrupted, her voice cutting like a blade, "before someone cuts them off."
Fleur raised an eyebrow and almost laughed. It seemed the Article about the Secret Romance wasn't complete rubish. This Auror just made it very clear to Fleur that her relationship with Harry was anything but professional. Fleur was certain this girl was either already in a romantic relationship or, at the very least, had a crush on him and saw Fleur as someone challenging her place in Harry's mind. After all, Fleur knew she was breathtaking, and she knew compared to her, well, this Auror wasn't bad looking, but she was just a candle in front of the sun. Fleur was almost tempted to poke the lion again, just to see how she would react, but decided otherwise. She got enough information from her; she wouldn't get anything more out of it except for an enemy, and Fleur didn't need one right now.
"Is that a threat, Auror Tonks?" Fleur asked mildly.
"It's a warning," Tonks said, not backing down an inch. "One you'd be smart to heed."
Fleur felt a smile curve her lips despite herself. There was something almost admirable about this—the fierce protectiveness, the willingness to threaten a tournament champion on behalf of someone she cared about.
"Noted," Fleur said softly.
They stood there for a moment longer, neither backing down, sizing each other up.
Finally, Fleur stepped to the side, moving around Tonks with grace as usual. "Enjoy your evening, Auror."
She walked away, very aware of Tonks's eyes on her back. She didn't hurry, didn't show any sign that the confrontation had rattled her.
So that's how it is, Fleur thought. More complicated than the newspaper suggested. Potter has a loyal protector. Someone who cares about him deeply enough to threaten another champion.
It didn't make Harry Potter less interesting. If anything, it made him more so. She wondered what kind of person Harry Potter truly was to earn the fondness of an Auror and her loyalty, and the loyalty of the girl with wild hair like a male lion.
Fleur pushed open the heavy doors leading outside, the cool evening air washing over her face. The Beauxbatons carriage was visible in the distance.
Four more days until the First Task.
Four more days to prepare for a dragon.
The mystery of Harry Potter could wait. But it wouldn't wait forever.
Nymphadora Tonks
Tonks stood in the empty corridor, watching the space where Fleur Delacour had disappeared, her hands clenched into fists at her sides.
Keep away from him, Delacour, she thought fiercely. He's got enough to deal with without you sniffing around.
The protective anger was still hot in her chest, making her magic crackle under her skin. Her hair had shifted from pink to an aggressive red without her conscious choice, reflecting the emotion she was trying to control.
She'd meant every word of that warning. If Fleur Delacour thought she could use her Veela heritage to manipulate Harry, to get close to him for whatever purpose, gathering intelligence, gaining an advantage, or something worse, Tonks would make sure she regretted it.
He's immune to her allure anyway, Tonks reminded herself. She said so herself. He's not going to fall for whatever game she might be playing.
That should have been comforting. It wasn't quite.
Because Fleur hadn't seemed like she was planning to use her allure. She'd seemed genuinely curious, genuinely interested in understanding what made Harry tick. And somehow, that felt more dangerous than simple manipulation would have been.
Tonks shook her head sharply, forcing her hair back to pink. She had training to prepare for tomorrow. Harry needed to practice combining his shield work with aerial maneuvers, needed to refine his dragon-fighting strategy, needed to—
"He is quite interesting."
The words echoed in Tonks's mind, Fleur's voice carrying that slight French accent, that thoughtful tone.
She stood there in the empty corridor long after Fleur's footsteps had faded, her fists at her sides, her magic crackling just beneath the skin of her knuckles.
Her hair was red. She could feel it without touching it, that particular heat at her scalp that meant her Metamorphmagus abilities had slipped the leash again, responding to anger she hadn't given them permission to broadcast. She forced it back to pink. It held for three seconds, then bled into a muddy auburn that wasn't any color she'd choose voluntarily.
Tonks pressed her back against the corridor wall, the stone cool through her robes, and closed her eyes.
She'd won the confrontation. She knew that. Fleur had walked away, had received the warning clearly, had even seemed to respect it on some level. Tonks had done her job, protected Harry, established boundaries, made her position unmistakable.
So why did she feel like she'd lost something?
Because Fleur Delacour was beautiful.
Not beautiful in the way Tonks could be beautiful, which was to say, artificially, on demand, by reshaping her nose or widening her eyes or giving herself cheekbones that could cut glass. Tonks could look like anyone. She'd looked like a hundred different women, had tried on faces the way other girls tried on earrings, discarding each one when it didn't feel right.
None of them had ever carried what Fleur carried. That weight of presence, the way she held her spine, the way her chin lifted when she was being challenged, the certainty in every movement that said she'd been born knowing exactly how much space she deserved to occupy in the world.
Tonks had watched boys walk into walls around Fleur. She'd watched grown men fumble their sentences. And yes, some of that was the allure, that passive magical field that turned coherent thought into mush. But not all of it. Strip the allure away entirely, and Fleur Delacour would still be the kind of woman who made rooms go quiet when she entered them.
Tonks had never made a room go quiet. She'd made rooms go loud, usually by knocking something over.
Stop it, she told herself. This isn't about you and her. This isn't a competition.
Except it was, wasn't it? Not a competition she'd entered willingly, not a contest she could win through effort or skill or wanting it badly enough.
Fleur was three years older than Harry. Seventeen to fourteen was... acceptable. A Beauxbatons seventh-year and a Hogwarts fourth-year. Unusual, but not scandalous.
Tonks was five years older.
Nineteen and fourteen.
She'd done the maths before, obviously. She'd done the maths the first time she'd noticed her hair turning pink around him. She'd done the maths after Hogsmeade, after the first cheek kiss, after the real kiss in this very corridor. The numbers never changed, no matter how many times she ran them.
She stopped that train of thought before it could reach the station.
The point was, three years was a gap you could step across. Five years was one you had to jump.
And Fleur was breathtaking.
Not pretty. Not attractive. Not even gorgeous, because gorgeous implied effort, implied trying. Fleur Delacour was breathtaking the way a sunrise was breathtaking. It felt like looking at an angel.
Tonks's hair flickered. Brown. Pink. Brown. She pressed the heels of her hands against her eyes.
You can look like anyone, whispered the voice in her head that she'd been arguing with since puberty. You can look like Fleur if you want to. You've got the ability. Shape the nose, widen the eyes, add the silver-gold hair, stretch yourself taller—
She could. She absolutely could. She'd done it before, not Fleur specifically, but she'd worn other women's faces when her own felt insufficient. At Hogwarts, during fifth year, she'd walked into a Hogsmeade weekend wearing the face of a witch from a magazine cover just to see if the boy she fancied would notice her.
He had. He'd stared at her all afternoon. And when she'd gone home and washed the borrowed face off, she'd sat on her bed and cried until her mum came in and held her without asking why.
Because that was the thing about being a Metamorphmagus that nobody told you. You could be anyone, but you were still you underneath all of it. Every borrowed face was a confession that your own wasn't enough.
And Harry had kissed her.
The thought hit different now than it had five minutes ago.
Harry had kissed her. Not a mask. Not a performance. Not some borrowed face she'd pulled from a magazine or a memory. He'd kissed clumsy, pink-haired, knock-over-a-suit-of-armour-on-the-way-to-class Nymphadora Tonks, in a hidden classroom with bad lighting and dust in the corners, and he'd kissed her like she was the only real thing in the room.
He'd never asked her to change.
Not once. Not a single time in all their training sessions, all their beautiful moments, all the hours they'd spent in that classroom with the door warded shut. He'd never looked at her and said Can you make your hair longer? or Can you look more like— or What if you were—
Not like Marcus Belby had.
The memory surfaced before Tonks could stop it, fourth year at Hogwarts, fifteen years old, standing in a corridor not so different from this one. Marcus, a year above her, handsome in that sharp-jawed Ravenclaw way, leaning close and whispering, You could look like anyone, Tonks. Anyone at all. Don't you think it'd be fun if you looked like—
She'd done it. Changed her face for him, right there in the corridor. Made herself taller, sharper, gave herself the high cheekbones and dark eyes of the seventh-year Slytherin he'd been staring at during lunch. And Marcus had grinned, that wide, delighted, greedy grin, and kissed the face that wasn't hers, and Tonks had stood there with someone else's lips and felt absolutely nothing.
She'd cried about it later. Alone in her dormitory, her real face back on, staring at the ceiling and wondering if anyone would ever want the original when the copies were so much better.
Harry did.
Harry looked at her, pink hair, heart-shaped face, the nose she'd been born with instead of the dozens she could choose, and his eyes went soft in a way that made her chest ache. He looked at her the way people looked at things they were afraid to lose. Not at what she could become. At what she already was.
Fleur Delacour could keep her effortless gravity and her silver-gold hair and her beauty that made rooms go quiet. She could keep all of it.
Because Harry Potter had seen Tonks's real face, the one she hid behind a hundred others, the one she wasn't always sure she liked, the one that felt too round and too young and too ordinary, and he'd chosen it. Chosen it. Over every other face she could have offered him.
A giggle escaped her. Small and stupid and completely involuntary, the kind of sound that would have embarrassed her if anyone else had been in the corridor. She pressed her fingers to her lips, but the smile underneath them wouldn't stop.
He kissed me. He kissed this face. He didn't want anyone else's.
Her hair flushed pink, real pink, warm and vivid, the colour it went when she was genuinely happy rather than forcing it. She could feel the heat of it at her pussy.
And then, the memory of the kiss shifted. Not the sweet part. The other part. The part where his hands had found her waist and pulled her closer. The part where that small, involuntary sound had crawled up from somewhere deep in her throat. The part where his body had pressed against hers, and she'd felt him...all of him.
Tonks's breath caught.
Heat pooled low in her belly, and she felt herself clench, a pulse between her thighs that made her shift her weight where she stood. Her knickers felt damp suddenly. Not dramatically, not embarrassingly, just that first warm bloom of wetness that said her body had made a decision her brain was still debating.
Oh, she thought. Oh, that's—
She pressed her thighs together. It didn't help. If anything, the pressure made it worse, sent a second pulse of heat radiating outward that made her nipples tighten beneath her bra.
She thought about his hands. Those Seeker's hands, the way they'd gripped her waist with a confidence that had surprised both of them. She thought about what those hands might feel like elsewhere, sliding up her ribs, cupping her breasts through the thin cotton of her jumper, his thumbs finding her nipples and—
Nymphadora Tonks, you are standing in a public corridor having filthy thoughts about a fourteen-year-old boy you are supposed to be training.
The scolding didn't work. Her body didn't care about the age gap or the professional complications or the fact that anyone could walk around the corner. Her body cared about the way Harry's mouth had tasted, about the hardness she'd felt pressed against her hip when they'd been close enough to share breath, about the way his voice had gone rough and low when he'd said I can't pretend this is just training.
Tonks exhaled slowly, willing the heat to settle. It didn't settle. It sat in her core like banked coals, waiting.
Later, she told herself, and the word felt less like discipline and more like a promise. Later.
She pushed off the wall, straightened her robes, and walked toward the hidden classroom. Her reflection caught briefly in a darkened window as she passed, pink hair, flushed cheeks, eyes too bright, the look of a woman who'd just been thinking about something she shouldn't have been thinking about in a hallway.
Fleur Delacour could turn heads with a glance. Could make men forget their own names. Could walk into any room in the world and own it.
But Harry Potter had kissed Tonks's real face. And that was worth so much more.
Her hair stayed brilliantly, defiantly pink the entire way.
❾¾
❾¾
Harry was already there.
He sat cross-legged on one of the desks, his wand balanced across his knee, Hermione's dragon research spread in a messy halo around him. His hair was doing its usual impression of a bird's nest caught in a windstorm, and he had ink on his left thumb and a smear of what looked like chocolate on his jaw.
He looked up when she entered and grinned. That grin, lopsided, a little shy, a little reckless, and Tonks felt the heat she'd barely gotten under control flare up in her belly like someone had blown on the coals.
Professional. You are a professional. You are an Auror of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement and you are here to train this boy to survive a dragon, not to think about his hands.
"You're late," Harry said.
"I'm fashionably delayed," Tonks corrected, shrugging off her outer robe and tossing it onto a chair. Beneath it, she wore jeans and a jumper, the soft grey one, the one that was slightly too big and kept sliding off one shoulder. She hadn't chosen it for any particular reason. She hadn't.
"That's not a thing."
"It's absolutely a thing. Aurors are never late, Harry. We arrive precisely when we mean to."
"That's Gandalf."
Tonks blinked. "Who?"
"Muggle thing. Never mind." Harry slid off the desk, gathering the scrolls into a rough pile. "Hermione sent updated notes. She's found a potential weakness in the Hungarian Horntail's fire pattern, apparently there's a two-second recharge window between sustained blasts. Something about the fire glands needing to—"
"Great," Tonks said, and she meant it, she did, except her brain was replaying the corridor and her own damp knickers and the way Fleur had said interesting, and none of that was conducive to listening to fire gland recharge rates.
Harry paused. "You okay?"
"Fine. Brilliant. Let's get started." Tonks clapped her hands together, the sound too loud in the quiet room. "Water shields. I want to see how your three-shield configuration holds up against sustained assault. We'll simulate dragon fire intervals based on what Hermione's research suggests."
Harry studied her for a moment longer, those beautiful green eyes that Tonks wanted to look at, to get lost in, then nodded and moved to the centre of the room.
They started.
And almost immediately, Tonks knew she was in trouble.
Not because Harry was struggling. He was brilliant, as usual; his three-shield configuration sprang into existence with barely a pause, three rotating water barriers at different heights. He'd improved since yesterday. The shields held longer, rotated faster, the water denser and more opaque.
The problem was her.
Tonks fired an Incendio at his shields, the kind she'd thrown at him a hundred times. The fire hit his water barrier, hissed into steam, dispersed. Harry adjusted, reinforced, held.
"Good," Tonks said. "Again."
She fired. He blocked. Steam. Hiss. Repeat.
"Faster intervals," Harry called. "Hermione's notes say the Horntail can burst every four seconds."
Tonks increased the pace. Fire. Block. Fire. Block. The rhythm should have been consuming, should have required her full attention to maintain the right intensity and timing. Instead, she was watching his hands.
Those Seeker's hands.
The way his wand moved. The way his left hand hung at his side, fingers flexing unconsciously, ready to catch his broom the moment he summoned it. The way his forearms tensed when he pushed more power into the spell, lean muscle visible where his sleeves had been rolled up.
Tonks's next Incendio came half a second late. Harry noticed. His eyes flicked to her, a question forming on his face, but she fired again before he could ask it.
"Keep your focus on the shields," she said, aware of the irony.
You keep your focus on the shields, you absolute disaster of a woman.
They continued. Harry's performance was excellent. Tonks's was not. Her fire spells came at uneven intervals, her intensity wavered between too weak and too strong, and twice she lost her aim entirely, sending flames wide of Harry's position.
She was thinking about the corridor. About Fleur's assessment of Harry — interesting — and about Hermione's hand on Harry's arm, and about the warmth still pooled between her own thighs. She was thinking about all of it at once, a tangle of jealousy and pride and arousal that made her hands unsteady and her timing sloppy.
Harry dropped his shields and turned to face her fully. "Tonks."
"What?" Too sharp. She softened it. "What is it?"
"You've missed your timing six times in the last ten minutes. You sent a fire spell at the ceiling." He pointed upward, where a scorch mark was still smoking. "The ceiling, Tonks."
"I was testing your peripheral awareness."
"You were aiming at my shields and hit the ceiling. Those are in opposite directions."
"Maybe your shields moved."
Harry crossed his arms. "What's going on?"
"Nothing. Let's keep going. I want to see your water cannon, the pressurized offensive variant. Hit the dummy." She pointed to the practice figure propped against the far wall.
Harry didn't move. "Tonks—"
"The dummy, Harry. Show me what you've got."
He held her gaze for a long moment, clearly wanting to push the issue. Then he turned, raised his wand, and cast.
"Aqua Scutum!"
The twisted variant shot from his wand, a compressed jet of water, dense and fast, aimed directly at the practice dummy thirty meters away.
Tonks was supposed to shield.
She knew this. They'd established the protocol two days ago; whenever Harry tested offensive variants, Tonks maintained a defensive spell as backup, a safety net in case the water ricocheted or the spell destabilized. She'd done it automatically every single time.
This time, she was staring at the way his shoulders flexed when he cast, the way his weight shifted forward onto his front foot, the way his jaw set with concentration, and the jet of water hit the practice dummy, blew through it, ricocheted off the stone wall behind it with a sound like a gunshot, and slammed into Tonks's chest.
The impact knocked her back two full steps. Water exploded across her front, drenching her from throat to thighs. It was cold, conjured water always was, and the shock of it against her flushed skin made her gasp, a sharp intake of breath that echoed off the classroom walls.
"Tonks!"
Harry was already running. His wand was up, face white with panic, closing the distance between them in seconds. "Merlin — I'm sorry — are you okay? I didn't — the ricochet — you were supposed to shield—"
"I know I was supposed to shield," Tonks managed, her voice slightly strangled. Water dripped from her chin, from her hair, which had gone a shocked white before flushing back to pink, from the hem of her jumper. The grey wool was plastered to her body, clinging to every line and curve. Her nipples stood out against the wet fabric like someone had drawn arrows pointing at them.
She crossed her arms over her chest quickly. Not quickly enough, based on the way Harry's eyes had dropped for half a second before snapping back to her face.
"Are you hurt?" Harry asked, and to his credit, he was maintaining very determined eye contact. His ears were red.
"I'm fine. It's just water." Tonks wrung out the hem of her jumper, succeeding only in pulling the wet fabric tighter against her stomach. She gave up. "I should have had my shield up. That's on me."
"You always have your shield up," Harry said, and the panic was fading from his voice now, replaced by that quiet, stubborn concern that she'd learned meant he wasn't going to let something go. "You've never missed a backup shield. Not once. What's going on?"
"Nothing."
"Bollocks."
Tonks looked up. Harry was standing close. Water still dripped from her hair onto the stone between them, and somewhere behind her the practice dummy lay in splintered pieces.
"Just a long day," Tonks tried. "Lots of standing around looking official. You know how—"
"Don't."
Harry's hand came up and caught hers, his fingers warm against her cold, wet skin.
"Don't shut me out," he said. "You've spent weeks telling me to be honest with you, to talk about what I'm feeling instead of bottling it up. So don't stand there soaking wet and tell me nothing when I can see something's eating at you."
Tonks stared at their joined hands. His thumb was moving in a small circle against her knuckles, probably unconscious, probably something he didn't even know he was doing. The touch made her chest feel like it was being squeezed.
"Harry..."
"Is it about the First Task? Did something happen? Did Dumbledore—"
"It's not the Task," Tonks said. "It's not—" She exhaled, and the sound was ragged. "Harry, how do you feel about... us?"
"Us," he repeated.
"Yes. Us. You and me. This." She gestured vaguely with her free hand at the room around them, at the ward-sealed door, at the space between their bodies. "The age gap. The secrecy. All of it. How do you actually feel about it?"
"You want to know if it bothers me," he said finally.
"Yes."
"The age gap."
"Yes."
"Five years."
"I can count, Harry."
His mouth formed a smile. He looked down at their hands, then back up at her face, and when he spoke, his voice had that rough tone that made her pussy feel like it was soaking.
"I've never been fourteen," Harry said. "Not the way everyone else is fourteen. I was eleven when I killed a man with my bare hands. I was twelve when I fought a basilisk with a sword I pulled from a hat. I was thirteen when I drove off a hundred dementors to save my godfather from having his soul ripped out." He squeezed her hand. "I know the numbers, Tonks. I know what they look like from the outside. But I also know what they feel like from the inside, and from the inside, the gap between us has never been the thing I'm worried about."
Tonks swallowed. "Harry—"
"No, let me finish." The stubbornness appeared in his face. "I've spent my whole life being told what I am by other people. The Dursleys told me I was a freak. Ron told me I was a cheater. Half this school told me I don't belong in this tournament. And every single one of them was wrong."
His free hand came up and cupped her face. His palm was warm against her cold cheek, and she leaned into it before she could stop herself.
"I'm not going to let someone else's opinion decide that this is wrong," Harry said. "Not when it's the one thing that's felt right since my name came out of that Goblet." His eyes felt like they were looking at her soul. "When I'm with you..training, talking, just sitting in this stupid classroom eating sandwiches...I don't feel like a fourteen-year-old kid in over his head. I feel like me. Just me. And that's...Tonks, do you know how rare that is? Do you know how few people in my life have ever made me feel like I was enough just being myself?"
Tonks's throat was tight. She could feel tears building behind her eyes, hot and unwelcome, and she blinked them back furiously.
"So no," Harry said quietly. "It doesn't bother me. I'd deal with ten times worse for this. For you. It feels right for me." His thumb traced her cheekbone the way she'd traced his, that first day after training when she'd checked his nose and pretended she wasn't falling. "The question is whether it bothers you. Does it feel wrong to you, Tonks?"
Tonks didn't need to think.
"No," Tonks whispered. "It doesn't feel wrong."
And it didn't.
Harry's expression softened, and that stupid smile returned on his face.
"Good," he said simply. And then: "So stop worrying about whatever put that look in your eyes and just... be here. With me."
Tonks laughed. "Since when are you the wise one in this relationship?"
"Since my teacher started losing duels to water ricochets."
"Oi. That was a tactical miscalculation—"
"You were staring at the ceiling."
"I was assessing structural integrity—"
"You were staring at the ceiling, Tonks."
She laughed again, and Harry grinned at her, making the classroom feel warmer.
There was a beat of silence. Then:
"What about Hermione?"
The question left Tonks's mouth before she'd fully decided to ask it. It just came out, carried on the momentum of honesty, and she couldn't take it back.
Harry's brow furrowed. "What about Hermione?"
"You two are close." Tonks kept her voice light. Casual. She was very bad at casual, and Harry probably knew it. "Very close."
"She's my best friend," Harry said, as though that explained everything. "Has been since first year. We nearly died together fighting a troll when we were eleven. That kind of thing bonds people."
"It does," Tonks agreed carefully. "And she's... she cares about you."
"I care about her too. She's one of the few people who's never turned on me." Harry's expression was open. "What's this about?"
"Nothing," Tonks said. "I just—"
"We're friends, Tonks. That's all."
Tonks was not sure if she believed him, not that he was lying to her, but she felt that Harry had feelings for Hermione, but he simply hadn't realised it yet, or maybe Harry hadn't realised that Hermione had fallen for him.
Hermione Granger's feelings were written in neon letters ten feet tall, visible to every person in Hogwarts with a functioning pair of eyes, and Harry couldn't read a single one of them. He saw loyalty where Tonks saw devotion. He saw friendship where Tonks saw longing. He saw Hermione's hand on his arm and felt comfort where Hermione felt everything.
It was reassuring. And it was terrifying. Because right now, Harry was hers. But the day he finally looked at Hermione Granger, really looked, the way he looked at Tonks.
Don't think about that now. He's here. He's yours. Be here.
"Thank you," Tonks said softly.
Harry looked confused. "For what?"
"For being honest with me. For..." She gestured vaguely. "All of it. Everything you said."
"I meant every word."
"I know you did." Tonks stepped forward, closing the distance between them. "That's why I'm thanking you."
She kissed him.
It started gentle. Grateful. Her hands finding his jaw, tilting his face up to hers, pressing her mouth against his in a kiss that said thank you and I'm sorry I doubted and you have no idea what you just gave me. His lips were warm and slightly chapped from the cold water still dripping between them, and he tasted like chocolate and tea and Harry.
Harry's hands found her waist. Warm through the wet wool of her jumper. He kissed her back with passion.
And then something changed.
Tonks couldn't have said what triggered it. Maybe it was his hands tightening on her waist, fingers pressing into the dip above her hips. Maybe it was the small sound she made against his mouth, a quiet "Mmnh" that vibrated between their lips. Maybe it was the accumulated weight of everything, the confrontation with Fleur, the pride and the heat and the defiance, all of it converging on this single point of contact.
Whatever it was, the kiss changed.
Tonks's fingers slid from his jaw into his hair, tangling in the messy black strands, gripping. Her tongue traced the seam of his lips, and when he opened for her, she tasted him properly, deeply, her tongue sliding against his in a way that made his whole body shudder.
"Nnh—" Harry's hands spasmed on her waist. His hips jerked forward involuntarily, and Tonks felt him, hard, straining against the front of his trousers, pressing into her thigh. The contact sent a bolt of heat through her belly so intense she moaned into his mouth.
More.
The word pulsed echoed in her head over and over. She'd been thinking about this in the corridor, been getting wet thinking about this, and now his body was pressed against hers and his mouth was open and hot and eager and her brain was shutting down in stages like rooms going dark in an empty house.
Tonks pushed forward. Harry stumbled back a step, then another, until his shoulders hit the wall behind him. She followed, pressing her body flush against his, chest to chest, hip to hip, her thigh slotting between his legs. The wet fabric of her jumper soaked into his robes where they touched, and she could feel her own nipples pressed against the warmth of his chest through layers that suddenly felt like far too many.
"Tonks—" Harry breathed against her mouth. His voice had gone rough. Wrecked. His hands were shaking on her waist, fingers gripping the wet wool like he was afraid she'd pull away.
She didn't pull away. She rolled her hips.
The sound Harry made was something she'd remember for the rest of her life. A broken, desperate noise, half gasp and half groan, that came from somewhere deep in his chest and vibrated against her lips. His head fell back against the stone wall with a dull thud and his eyes went half-lidded.
Oh, Tonks thought, dazed and burning. Oh, he sounds like that.
She did it again. Ground her hips forward, pressing her thigh against where he was hard and hot and straining. Harry's fingers dug into her waist hard, and the sound he made was louder — "Ah, fuck"
"I want to hear you say that again," Tonks murmured against his jaw, and she felt his chest vibrate with something that might have been a laugh.
Her mouth found his neck. She kissed the place where his pulse hammered beneath his skin, tasting salt and warmth, and Harry's hands slid from her waist to her hips, pulling her closer.
She was soaked. Her knickers were ruined, had been ruined since the corridor, and every roll of her hips ground the wet fabric against her clit in a way that made her breath hitch and stutter.
"Nngh — Tonks—" Harry's hands moved on her body, sliding up her ribcage, feeling the shape of her through the wet wool. His palms skimmed along her sides, over her ribs, hesitating just beneath the curve of her breasts.
He stopped there. Hovering. His breath coming in ragged gasps against her hair, his whole body trembling with the effort of holding still.
"Is this—" His voice cracked. He swallowed and tried again. "Is this okay? Are you...do you want me to—"
Tonks pulled back enough to see his face. His eyes were wide, pupils blown so dark they'd nearly swallowed the green, but beneath the desire was something careful. Checking. Making sure. Even now, with his body screaming for more and his hands shaking with restraint, Harry Potter was asking permission.
This boy, Tonks thought, and the tenderness that crashed through her was so violent it almost hurt. This stupid, brave, impossibly good boy.
She didn't answer with words.
She took his hands and lifted them. Placed them directly over her breasts, pressing his palms flat against the wet wool, against the hard peaks of her nipples, against the soft, heavy weight of her through clinging fabric.
Harry's breath stopped. His fingers curled instinctively.
"Touch me," Tonks said. Her voice came out low and rough, barely recognizable as her own. She pressed his hands harder against her, arching into his palms, letting him feel the full shape and weight of her. "Harry. Touch me."
Harry touched her and pinched her nipple, earning the first loud moan of pleasure from Tonks.
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