Lumos!

I saw in her beautiful eyes a fiery passion that rivaled my own upon first joining the Order some three years ago. To this day I feel that the Order was the best thing that ever happened to me. I had just finished my Auror examinations and was quite at a loss with what to do with myself, not necessarily being confident enough to assume that I would excel at a job at the Ministry. Deciding to give it a try anyway, it was shortly after my employment began that I was approached by Albus Dumbledore with a request that I join the Order. Not knowing whether I could bring much to it, I was a bit indecisive about the matter. That is, until Dumbledore brought to light my exceptional abilities as a Metamorphmagus. Not being bad at dueling either, and relieved that I could at least fend for myself, I decided to join up.

It was during my first summer of membership with the Order at Number Twelve Grimmauld Place that Ginny and I met. Her hair was pulled back into a loose bun, fiery-red curls falling loose at the sides of her face. She smiled brightly as she was introduced to the members of the Order in turn. I began to edge closer to her nervously, and made to reach out and shake her hand, but tripped for what seemed like the hundredth time over the umbrella stand in the entrance hall. As I straightened myself and looked, into her face, completely embarrassed, I was shocked to see that I was not greeted with the usual exasperation or mocking expression. Instead, she continued to smile warmly with her hand extended.

"You must be Tonks," she said. "I've been warned not to call you by your first name, which should be easy enough for me to remember considering how much I loathe Ginevra."

We laughed, shaking hands, and that was the start of a long friendship. We passed the summer teaching me how to play wizards chess, listening to Harry's poetry, learning new hexes from Hermione, and playing out some of Ron's favorite Quidditch strategies in semi-organized matches involving bewitched house items.

"I am so glad that the children finally have someone that they can talk to about everything. I was concerned when we all first arrived that all of this would be too much for them," I overheard Mrs. Weasley say, while watching us play one such game of house-wares Quidditch in the drawing room early one afternoon.

"Yeah, Tonks needs this as well. It helps her blow off steam. She's better focused when she's not under a lot of stress," Moody replied, tipping his flask to his lips. We continued playing for the rest of the afternoon, until the evening when Lupin stuck his head in, calling me to the basement kitchen for briefing.

Sometimes Ginny, Hermione, Ron, Harry, myself, and even the twins would simply sit until the early morning hours in the drawing room, talking and laughing. I would share stories with them about my days at Hogwarts, competing with their stories about the twins for worse prank in the history of the school. After hearing the one about time they used the Marauder's Map to smuggle into what they thought was a secret passage leading them to the Room of Requirement only to end up popping out of a bookshelf in Professor McGonagall's office, I decided to pull out all of the stops and tell them my absolute favorite Hogwarts prank story.

"No, really guys, I know I've got you topped with this one," I said, giggling as I continued the story. "There was this time when my friends and I got the grand idea to enjoy an impromptu game of midnight Quidditch. They convinced me to disguise myself as an instructor so that if we got caught there would be a cover. Well, being the ingenious git that I am, I disguised myself as none other than Severus Snape. We were roaming the halls, assuming that we were in the clear, when who do we bump into but Filch. Confident that he would never catch onto what we were doing, I attempted to act what I thought was normal for Snape and engage him in conversation. Not even two sentences escaped my mouth before he reached out and grabbed me by the ear, he was nothing short of grinning in triumph as he broke it to us that he had just seen Snape heading in the opposite direction towards his office not even three seconds before we arrived!"

"Oh man, what happened to you guys?" Hermione exclaimed, in between fits of laughter.

"We were sentenced to a week's detention, cleaning one of the Herbology greenhouses after a particularly awful accident involving multiple stink sap explosions from the prior week's project. It was the grossest thing I have ever experienced in my life!" I said, falling into the loudest fit of giggles yet.

Those nights are priceless memories. Even though I often had to share Ginny's attention with her brothers and Hermione, I didn't mind since it was just another opportunity to spend time getting to know her. However, when the end of the summer approached, and Ginny's return to Hogwarts was staring me in the face, I began to spend more time at the Ministry, avoiding the coming separation. Other members of the Order took note of my behavior, but assumed that it was just anxiety due to my ever-increasing duty shifts and work responsibilities. Only I knew that it was never being sure when, or even if, I would be able to see Ginny again. I was saddened, and struggled not to show it on the day that we set out to depart. It was rather easy to do disguised as an old woman, but it became more difficult in coming days as I sat at my desk looking lost and forlorn.

"Try not to look so down, Tonks," Kinglsey said one day, stopping by my desk to drop off what looked like a newspaper article. "The children will be fine, and there is always next summer to see them."

We all exchanged owls every once in a while, and so as to not give away the location of the Order, they would always simply send them to the Ministry. I longed to hear from Ginny more than any of the others, secretly nursing my infatuation over her, reading and re-reading her letters when they came. I held on to each and every one of the children's owls, however, counting down the days until we would see each other in the coming summer.