The last one and this one were chosen by Kris... and I'm at 50!

To the Nines (or at least the Eights): #31 Dress Robes

“Absolutely not,” Andromeda bustled down the street, leaving Tonks with a petulant look on her face in front of Malkin’s. She examined swan quills in a window with no intention of buying them.

“But MUM. It’s SO important. You have NO idea how important,” Tonks pleaded with her mother, trying to lead her back up the street.

“You’ll just ruin them, Dora, and the price is far too dear for something you’ll ruin,” she petted Tonks’ teal curls.

“Mum, it’s my first real ball, and I’m going with a real boy and everything,” Tonks voice dropped.

“We’ll just look then.”

For Lissy. Title is a Monty Python reference. Funniest bit ever.

Ducks Are Made of Wood: #2 Muggle Studies

It was likely that Muggle Studies was one of Tonks favorite classes, and not just because she already knew a fair bit about Muggles from her father. It was because Charlie was in that class.

“And after they put the eggs in the bowl…” The professor dropped shelled eggs into the bowl.

“Wrong,” Charlie whispered.

“They’ll beat it with a thingy.” She attacked the ingredients with a screwdriver.

“Wrong,” Tonks giggled against her fist.

“And after four hours in the oven, Muggles have a nice roast duck.”

“Wrong,” they both whispered with a grin at each other. Best class ever.

Kris again

Career Advice: #3 Transfiguration

McGonagall leaned forward, her glasses sliding down her nose. “If you are sincere in your desire to be an Auror, child, we’ll have to bring up some of your marks. Specifically your Transfiguration grade.”

Tonks tugged hard on a stray bit of pink hair and nodded grimly at the professor. “I am sincere, and I will bring up my grade. Thank you.”

With a sigh, McGonagall shifted back in her seat, regarding the Hufflepuff girl. “You really should be a natural at Transfiguration.”

Tonks just gave her a confused look.

“You transfigure yourself every day.”

Ah… the class made sense.

I let Kris choose the word for me- bridge. I'm pretty sure this isn't what she meant.

Bridges: #80 Author's Choice

She’d hoped the news would bridge the gap between them. For days now, Remus had been acting more and more distant. More like the skittish man he’d been during their prolonged and backwards courtship than the loving husband she’d come to enjoy having around.

She’d been so excited to sit him down and curl up in his lap. She’d put his hand on her stomach and told him with bright eyes and smiles that they were going to have a baby. And every word of the bridge she’d built was a heavy stone that fell across the distance between them.

I really wanted to do this drabble for 'chocolate' and realized I've already done that one! And then... I realized I haven't done KISS yet. Hehe.

The Healing Power of Chocolate: #61 Kiss

What a completely miserable night. Everything had gone wrong, and Mad Eye was missing, and Tonks wanted to sink into their bed and live there for a week.

“Have some chocolate,” Remus broke the large Honeydukes bar into pieces and put one bit into his mouth to suck on. He offered another bit to Tonks, the edges of his eyes crinkling as he smiled.

“Chocolate doesn’t fix everything, Remus,” Tonks sighed, wiping her eyes.

“Sure it does,” he tilted her chin and gave her a kiss. Remus tasted dark and sweet, and she smiled.

Chocolate was really an amazing thing.

Lingo: #76 Zap

“And then?” Mad Eye Moody paced across the floor, occasionally pausing so that his great eye could swivel around and pierce Tonks right to the soul. “Then what?”

“Well, you know. Then you like… zap them. Right?” Tonks leaned forward eagerly. She was intimidated by Moody, but he was great.

“Zap? Child… zap?” Moody wasn’t facing at her but was still piercing her. Tonks made a series of sound effects to support her use of the word zap before falling silent.

“Hex?”

“Hex,” Moody agreed. “Aurors probably do not ZAP.”

“But we hex?”

“Ah, yes. We’re quite good at hexing.”

Lost in Translation: #4 Ancient Runes

Tonks looked especially glum after her first day of class, and she had her hands resting over her rather tame ash-colored hair.

“S’wrong?” Charlie fell into his chair and poked her. “You look like someone stole your birthday and replaced it with a moldy sock. Cheer up. First day of classes are well over.”

She sulked a bit, sticking her lip out at him. “My Ancient Ruins class is so disappointing. We’re learning all these squiggles and things, and not a thing about the pyramids or Pompeii.”

“Tonks,” Charlie snorted. “Not RUINS. Runes. Dolt.”

“Disappointing,” she put her head down.

Accidents Happen:#100 Homework

“And where is your homework, Miss Tonks?” Snape managed to sound completely contemptuous without lifting an eyebrow in her direction.

“My homework?” She snuck a hand into her satchel and patted around the hodge podge of contents.

“Twelve inches of parchments on the merits of dandelion roots versus geraniums,” he prompted, as if she didn’t know. His eyes drifted to her hand.

Tonks produced charred bits of parchment and dropped them into his hand. “I had an accident, sir.”

“An accident? Why were you by an open flame with your parchment?” His eyebrows knit together dangerously.

“I… wasn’t. Spontaneous combustion.”

Playing the Name Game: #30 Feast

“Charlie Weasley,” the freckle nosed boy thumped his chest and grinned gap-toothed at her. “I’m going to be a Gryffindor.” He looked totally confident as he said it, and she believed him. “What are you called?”

He grin was infectious, but she turned pink at his question. Her answer was mumbled, and he couldn’t understand her at all over the sounds of the feast going on around them. “What?”

She repeated her name at a mumble again, this time ending with something that sounded like “tongs”. “Your name is tongs?”

“Tonks,” she blurted. “Call me Tonks.” And so she was.

Healthy Competition: #49 Yule Ball

Tonks gazed across the Great Hall with a dreamy expression. “What’s wrong with you?” Charlie had come all the way over from the Gryffindor table to be completely ignored. “Quit that or your face will get stuck.”

She looked up at him with a smile. “Your brother is really cute.”

His expression fell, but he gathered himself admirably. “Percy? The kid is still a baby. You don’t want a baby.”

“Not Percy,” she laughed, pulling Charlie down to sit by her. “Bill. Dreamy Bill.”

“Dreamy Bill already has a date to the Yule Ball. Guess you’d better go with me.”

Weekend Plans: #20 Hogsmeade

“Where is it?” Tonks threw everything out of her trunk for the third time before giving a scream of distress. She flipped through her textbooks haphazardly.

“I told you to give it to me,” Janet stared at her fingernails, not bothering to give Tonks a hand. “Now you can’t go.”

“I’ll just… sneak out,” Tonks sat back on her heels, her brow furrowed. “I’ve been planning on this forever.”

“Filch will catch you. I’ll see you later, Tonks.” Janet hopped up from the bed.

“Found it!” Tonks pulled her Hogsmeade slip from inside a sock and ran out the door.

"First" Fight: #94 Allergic

“This isn’t going to work,” Remus sighed heavily and stared into the closet.
“Dora!”

Tonks padded out of the bathroom and peered into the closet too. “I think you’re picking a fight with me.”

“Nothing?” He disappeared and emerged holding a pile of wrinkled t-shirts. “You can’t store clothes on the floor of the closet!”

She took the t-shirts from him. “I like them there, Remus. Carefully wrinkled and aged to perfection.”

“Dora,” he started to fold a t-shirt, only to have her snatch it back from him.

She threw them all back into the closet. “I’m allergic to cleaning.”

A Numbers Game: #10 Arithmancy

It was always about numbers. When the warrant was up. How long until the sentence expired. Numbers and dates all flying around her cubicle like a flock of gnats, too tiny and numerous to do anything with.

Tonks sighed and banged her head against the wall. There was a specific reason she hadn’t taken Arithmancy at school. She hated numbers, and it was unfair for that to come back to haunt her.

The calendar lay spread across her desk, and she counted pencil marks again.

Four days, three hours, 10 minutes since she’d written Remus. It was always about numbers.

Crystal Balls: #91 Future

“She’ll be a great witch some day,” Ted Tonks ran his hand lightly over the tiny bald baby that Andromeda held clutched to her chest.

“Happy, I hope,” Andromeda held Nymphadora just a bit too close and the baby squawked. Andromeda Black Lupin was adamant that above all else her daughter was happy. She’d lived under unrealistic expectations her whole life.

“And great,” Ted laughed in spite of the look Andromeda gave him. He pulled his hand back to reveal that the baby’s head was covered in a shock of pink hair. “And we’ll make sure she’s happy too.”

Dark Chocolate Moment: #88 Sweet tooth

Tonks clutched at her knees and tried just breathing in and out. It was painful, but it worked. She was calm and collected and ready to fight again. Too bad it was over before she straightened up.

“Blast,” she kicked at the floor and nearly fell over.

“Steady on there,” Remus Lupin, another member of the Order, caught up her arm. “Have a bit of chocolate.”

“Don’t have much of a sweet tooth. Sorry,” she pushed his hand away.

“That’s not really the point, is it?” Remus’s eyes crinkled when he smiled and Tonks found him suddenly very charming.

“Okay.”

Girls Just Wanna: #71 Untie

“This is unacceptable,” the little man scrambled around on the floor, rolling first one way and then the other. “Tonks!”

“Well. There’s a lesson here,” she answered calmly before licking the quill and continuing with the warrant that lay on the desk. “What have you learned?”

“Woman!” He tried to kick her and rolled the other way.

“Did you learn not to ask me to pick up your dirty clothes just because I’m the girl Auror here? You’ll stop volunteering me for dinner duty?”

“Tonks!” Savage tried again. “Untie me!”

She didn’t look up. “But I might break a nail.”

Charming Behavior: #12 Charms

“Why do you suppose they call it charms?” Tonks tapped her wand impatiently against the desk, doing everything possible to avoid having spellwork. “It makes them sound… so silly and frivolous. And charms are useful.”

“Why don’t you just practice your summoning spell and quit pestering me?” Charlie snapped at her, scratching out a word with his quill.

“Maybe because you’re so much MORE charming with the right charms?” Tonks asked, but Charlie ignored her. “Charlie?”

She prodded him with her wand, and Charlie jolted in his chair as a bolt hit him. He burped loudly.

“Apparently not,” she laughed.

There's a Reason They Call It Sudden Death: #13 Quidditch

“I like Quidditch,” Tonks sat at the kitchen table, kicking her feet against the rungs. Her mother didn’t look up from her magazine, although her father glanced at her from where he was making dinner.

“Yes?” He smiled at her, waving a sauce spoon in her direction. “What do you like about it?”

Tonks considered the question seriously, her curls growing straw-colored. “I like how fast they go.”

Ted smiled and turned back to his sauce. “Me too.”

“I want to play Quidditch,” Tonks decided. “On a fast broom.”

Her mother shook her head behind her magazine and stayed silent.

High Flying: #15 Broom

“I’ve always wanted to play Quidditch,” Tonks announced to the other eager first years around her. She was ready to climb onto this broom and prove that she was made for Quidditch.

Finally, the moment came where they could reach out and call, “Up!” Tonks threw her leg over the broom and let it rise a bit. Instead, she popped up into the sky, and Tonks felt like a balloon her father had bought at a circus.

All too soon, Tonks realized that she was higher than everyone. She glanced all the way down. This was going to be bad.

Here's The Story of a Lovely Lady: #17 Cauldron

“You’re so STUPID, Perce,” George Weasley threw himself backwards on his bed and grinned as his twin did a very passable impression of Percy out of the line of sight of the real Percy. “They make you write reports about… the flavor of pumpkin pasties, for the love of Circe. It’s a rubbish job.”

“It isn’t rubbish,” Percy wiped his glasses furiously, and Fred pretended to do the same. “This report on cauldron bottoms is VITAL.”

“No one has ever EVER cared about cauldron bottoms melting. You’re making it up.”

Percy looked indignant. “Am not! There’s an Auror called Tonks…”

Homesick: #19 Wand

“Well, what happens if I break my wand?” A tearful Nymphadora shadowed her mother and father into Kings’ Cross, rubbing at her eyes and tripping over the paving stones. “Can I come home if I break my wand?”

Eleven-year-old Nymphadora had thought up every reason in the book that she might be allowed to stay home with her parents. She’d faked illness, pretended to run away, and thrown excuse after excuse at them. Nothing worked.

“Honestly, we can buy you a new one,” Andromeda promised and crouched in front of her daughter. “You’ll love Hogwarts, Dora. Everyone likes pink hair.”

No Laughing Matter: #48 Leprechaun

The nurse by the window tapped her foot impatiently. “I don’t know why people think jokes are appropriate here,” she muttered to herself. She’d been at this particular rant for a while, and the two new fathers glanced at her nervously and then back at the endless cots of new babies.

The nurse paced a bit until it became clear no help was coming. She hurried out of the nursery, muttering about people swapping out babies for leprechauns. “Ah so,” the other father began. “Which one is yours?”

Ted Tonks pointed to the fluff of green hair proudly. “The leprechaun.”

Rubber Ducky, You're the One: #93 Chicken


It was sixth year Transfiguration. McGonagall swept up and down the rows, eyeing each student as they attempted to turn a round of cheese into a small roasted chicken. Tonks stomach growled loudly at the sight.

“Well, let’s have it, Miss Tonks,” McGonagall paused next to her desk.

Tonks tapped her wand on the cheese, turning it into a little plastic yellow duck.

“I don’t think that’s right,” Tonks’ neighbor offered helpfully.

McGonagall cleared her throat. “Yes, thank you, Marigold.” She turned her attention back to Tonks to try again and found her studying the duck.

“It’s looking at me.”

One Fine Day: #90 Present

“Aren’t you frightened, little girl?” Remus’s tone was light as he spun her in a circle in the Ministry lift. She saw the tightness in his features, but they were going to pretend he wasn’t scared out of his mind. As for Tonks, she wasn’t worried.

“Of you?” She laughed and put her arms around his waist, reaching past to push the lift button.

“Of big bad wolves,” Remus touched the ring on her finger, and Tonks was afraid he’d say something to ruin this perfect day. Her wedding day.

“I live in the moment, Remus. This moment, I’m happy.”

Out of Bounds: #87 Plaid

“I feel awful bothering you with this,” Tonks followed the professor as she swept down the hallway. “You were probably sleeping.”

“I was,” Minerva responded in clipped tones. “Regardless, if you heard someone out of bed, you did right to find me. Are we close?”

Tonks wracked her brain to remember where she’d been when the scuttle of feet sent her seeking help dealing with a student out-of-bounds. “Yes, right…”

Mrs. Norris appeared with a mouse dangling from her mouth. So… not a student. McGonagall glared at Tonks, her plaid tartan dressing gown fluttering around her feet.

“Sexy pajamas, Minerva.”