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The early morning sun smiled through the dusty panes of the Burrow’s kitchen, catching in the glass and refracting to glimmer on the top of the newly washed dishes. They were stacked one in front of the other on the draining board and drips of water fell from them and splashed happily into the puddle on the metal sink.

Dishwashing was a Muggle chore, and she was absolutely hopeless at it, but the repetitive monotony of submerging one’s hands in water and scrubbing at it with a brush was character building indeed. It helped her think.

Bubbles flew up from the soapy water and stuck in her hair. She wiped them away and internally grimaced at the greasy, grimy texture of her hair and vowed to have a shower that day. Showering didn’t seem to prioritize on her daily list anymore. She preferred to loll about unproductively. It was only through Molly’s pushing did she risk handling the crockery, and desist from lazing around drinking tea and becoming a human purifying agent. She was running to the bathroom so much that it seemed if she didn’t stop drinking tea to fill the day, Molly was sure she was going to drown herself in the pretty, pleasant smelling liquid.

She scrubbed at the dish idly again, and when she lifted to place it with the others in the draining board, it slipped from her lubricated fingers and smashed on the floor with a horrible yet satisfying crunching sound. Compared to the chink of a glass as it hit the floor, why, a plate seemed almost crude as it hit the ground and splayed across the floor. It was an ugly sight, and Tonks didn’t bother to pick it up.

Feeling rather apathetic, she sighed and went back to the dishes. To ignore a problem sufficiently would mean that it no longer belonged in the ‘importance’ category in her mind, and she would no longer have to worry about it.

Feeling a little brighter as she came to this conclusion, she stared out the grimy window and dropped another plate back into the water, spraying herself and all of the surrounding sink, with hot, soapy, sudsy water. A red-haired, freckly Weasley boy was staring at her through the grimy window.

He disappeared, and Tonks grabbed for the scourer and threw it at the window. The face disappeared and then a booming voice and a sturdy hand pushed open the top of the Burrow’s stall like kitchen door. The top popped open easily, but the bottom half stuck on its lock and Charlie Weasley nearly fell ass over tit into the Burrow’s soapy kitchen.

Steadying himself on the worn wooden top of the door, he lifted one leg, then the other. His dragon hide boots crunched the remainders of the soapy plate and he frowned.

‘Who are you, and why are you breaking my plates?’

‘Your plates?’ she snarled. ‘Who the hell do you think you are, playing peeping Tom at the window, half scaring me to death! I dropped that plate because of you!’ Ha, she though. How dare he.

He snorted. ‘I didn’t make you do anything except throw a scourer at me. And even that was a pathetic attempt. You dropped the plate before I came in. I heard it from the backyard.’ He sneered. ‘Who are you, anyway?’

Molly bustled into the kitchen with a stack of folded towels obscuring her vision. Her red hair was a little lined with gray, Charlie observed, but still, it was his mother. A little plumper, a little cheerier than his last visit, he noted.

‘Hello Mum,’ he said, stepping forward to take the top stack of towels off the top of the pile. He saw his mother’s brief look of perplexity before she near threw the towels down on the kitchen table and enveloped him in a hug, a beaming smile on her teary face.

‘Charlie! Oh, Charlie! Why on earth are you here? You didn’t tell me you were coming. But,’ she said, flustered and hugging her son around the waist tightly, ‘that doesn’t mean I’m any less pleased to see you. What brings you home?’

Charlie looked over at Tonks, who was standing rather aggressively, squeezing the scourer in her hand. Molly followed his eyes and gasped. ‘Oh, why, how could I forget you, dear? Charlie, this is Nymphadora Tonks, a distant cousin of ours.’

Tonks bristled at the introduction of herself as ‘Nymphadora’. Charlie smirked, an amused smile playing over his lips at the reaction on her face. ‘Aren’t you a cousin of those Blacks?’ he asked lightly, provoking her.

‘You are too, Charlie.’ She threw the scourer back in the water and turned back to washing the dishes.

Molly frowned and rearranged the pile of towels. ‘Well, Tonks is just staying with us while she’s on regular duty at Hogwarts. Dreadful prices at the inns now. I don’t have anything against that Rosmerta, but the fees she charges. My, my. Now Charlie, what’s brought you here?’

Charlie dug around in his pockets and pulled out a wrapped gift. ‘Tell Ron happy birthday from me. I know it looks small, but it’s a new pair of fire retardant dragon hide gloves. I figured that even if he’s not doing Care of Magical creatures with Hagrid anymore, he’ll still come into contact with something dangerous one day. Honestly, the way he keeps gallivanting off with Harry and Hermione.’

Tonks saw out of the corner of her eye Molly’s expression. It was one of deep care and worry for her sons. ‘Do say you’ll be staying here,’ she whispered to her son. ‘I hate how you boys always go off, and I never see you from one year to the next.’ She buried her face in his chest and hugged him tightly.

Charlie looked faintly embarrassed to have such a reaction from his mother in front of a stranger, and patted her head awkwardly, while shooting daggers at the back of Tonks’ head as she tried not to laugh.

Molly extracted herself from Charlie and wiped her eyes. ‘Tonks, dear, stop washing those dishes. I can get them to do themselves after we’ve eaten. Save yourself the trouble of doing them twice… oh. You broke one, did you? No matter. Reparo.’

Molly repaired the dish Tonks had broken so easily, and Tonks sighed, taking her hands out of the now lukewarm water and wiping them on a dishtowel.

Going to the ice box in the corner, Tonks dug out a hunk of meat left over from the previous night’s dinner, went to cupboard and took out some bread from the bread bin that was tucked away and used the blunt knife sitting on the side of the cheese board to cut and spread some butter on her bread.

Charlie watched her. Everything was so deliberate about her actions. Her small face was screwed in concentration and Charlie could tell she was trying very hard not to drop or spill anything. At last, a sandwich was on the plate in front of her, and she sat at the table. Charlie could hear his mother bustling around, cleaning and fixing things in the next room. He sunk into one of the worn chairs and tapped the heels of his boots on the scraped kitchen floor.

Tonks looked up at his tapping. Frowning, she took another bite, and with her mouth full asked, ‘So what do you do for a living that keeps you so far away?’

Charlie choked, and sat back in his chair. ‘I live in Romania, mostly. I take care of the dragons there. It’s all part of a normal day, getting singed and having to buy new clothes,’ he joked. He was loosening up now he knew who she was, and he was sitting in his place at the kitchen table. ‘What do you do?’

Tonks hesitated and returned her sandwich to the plate. She played with it, squashing the bread between her fingers. ‘I’m an Auror,’ she said, looking up into his blue eyes. Charlie reminded her a lot of Harry’s friend Ron, except stockier. A lot more like his mother, and those two other flame-haired children. The demons, Fred and George.

Charlie’s eyebrows rose into his head. ‘An Auror? Why aren’t you at Hogwarts protecting my brother and sister?’

Tonks picked up the sandwich again and started eating. ‘It’s my time off. Up until a week ago, I was there twenty-four hours a day, looking after the castle for Albus. He caught up with me one day and sent me back here. Supposed I’d done enough, I guess. Molly needed help keeping the Burrow together.’ She chewed thoughtfully. ‘You could help me, you know. I’m supposed to de-gnome the garden later.’

Charlie laughed, and put his hands up. ‘I did that enough as a kid. There’s no way I’ll help you de-gnome the garden.’

‘What was that, dear?’ said Molly cheerfully as she bustled into the kitchen again and grabbed Tonks’ empty plate. ‘You’ll help dear Tonks with the garden? Oh, dear, that’s so wonderful!’ She planted a kiss on Charlie’s cheek lovingly and patted it. Charlie glared at Tonks. If looks could kill, Tonks would have been a pile of green tea smelling ashes.

Tonks sighed, and walked over to the kitchen door, opened the lock on the bottom pointedly and walked out into the large Weasley backyard.

‘Just down the bottom, dears! There’s a large colony of them. Just pick them up like you usually would and over the back fence!’ Mrs Weasley’s voice floated from the kitchen.

‘Look,’ said Bill. ‘Let’s get this over and done with, alright? You’ve probably never done this before-’

‘I can manage just fine, thank you,’ said Tonks brusquely, picking up one unfortunate gnome and chucking it awkwardly over the bushes where it promptly ran back into the Weasley garden.

‘Are you kidding?’ muttered Charlie under his breath impatiently. ‘Look, Tonks, Nymphadora – grab it like this and wind it up over your head-’ he demonstrated, oblivious to the disgruntled look on Tonks face as he showed off, ‘- and then let it fly. It’s like a discus. You wind up, and you release. Wind up, release.’ He repeated it slowly, as if he was speaking to a two year old.

Tonks shot him a filthy look and grabbed a gnome that was barreling towards her by the feet. With a vicious and definite look on her face, she swung it up over her head. ‘You might want to move,’ she said warningly as she struggled against gravity. Charlie laughed, expecting a similar result as last time.

Suddenly the gnome flew free of Tonks’ hands and there was the momentary realization that it wasn’t going in the direction she wanted. She wanted to take a step into the air and catch it before it-

THUNK.

‘That’s it, Nymphadora Tonks! You’re hopeless! They’ll let anyone be an Auror these days! You’re so clumsy, you’d probably alert the whole world to your presence!’ He rubbed the back of his head angrily, his face as worked up and as crimson coloured as his hair.

‘How dare I?’ screamed Tonks, half tripping over a decorative dead tree log. ‘How dare I? How can you say something like that! Look at all those burns on your arms! I don’t think you could handle a dragon and not get singed if your life depended on it. You’re an ass! A complete ass!’

‘Well,’ blustered Charlie, ‘If I’m ass then you’re a nag! Look at you! You look like you can’t be bothered with your own little world, just every one else’s business instead of your own! That’s probably why you’re an Auror, so you’re a licensced snoop!’

‘Charlie Weasley!’ she blustered. ‘I’m never met anyone as infuriating as you! You annoy the hell out of me! You show up unannounced and scare me to death, and then you tear strips off me all day! You ARE an ass! A prime one!’

She thundered up to him with absolute anger in her eyes, which Charlie returned with contemptuous scorn.

‘What are you going to do, Tonks?’ he taunted, towering over her. He pushed her back slightly, and she staggered, her mouth gaping. Charlie was shocked – literally. A spark passed from Tonks into him, and he stared at her.

She screwed up her face and flew at him, her fist raised. ‘You filthy coward,’ she said dangerously, raising her hand to his face.

Charlie waited, deservingly, for the hand to connect with his cheek, but instead felt Tonks’ lips upon his own, and her hands around the back of his head, pulling him down to her level.

It lasted for several seconds, and when she opened her eyes she said, ‘I really don’t like you, Charlie Weasley.’

He grinned. ‘So, how’s the ass?’