The Irreplaceable Charlie Weasley

Chapter 9 - Tonks' Breakdown

Nova

I don't want to brag but I think I did great on my exams so far. I just came out from Defense Against the Dark Arts practical exam and was done for the day. I winked at Charlie, who was still waiting on his turn and was shaking his legs, nervous as he still thinks that professor Rakepick should have at least showed us all the spells she was going to so coldly demand from us he said this morning as he ate what I think was about his third bowl of cereal. Penny was right – he was a nervous eater.

I hoped that I indicated that the exam isn't that bad after all as I was prohibited to speak with him after I finished.

I decided to wait for him in the Great Hall, going through my Transfiguration notes one more time on my own as I knew the lot would occupy me right after dinner to help them with their final revision.

One by one they came into the Hall to join me.

"That wasn't hard at all, was it?" Charlie sat down next to me and gently slapped me on the back.

"I told you, Char, I don't know what you've expected. We got this." I raised my hand so that our hands clapped in a high-five and he started to put food on his plate.

—

"Say, where is Tonks? She stormed out of that classroom as she was done that I almost missed her pink head." Charlie said, now with his mouth full.

"Hmm, I thought she wasn't done yet but T is before W." Tulip scratched her chin.

"We did say we'll meet here after the exam to study Transfiguration right?" I asked.

Before we could question Tonks' disappearance any further, Penny came rushing in the Hall, panting.

"You...you have...to...help me!" Her hands on her knees as she was trying to catch her breath.

"Penny, what's going on?" Tulip stood up at once.

"It's...Tonks! She completely lost it...because of the exams. She said that...her brain will explode if she has to study...for one more exam and that she's dropping out of school." Penny finally finished.

"Well, maybe she should drop out then," Charlie said with a straight face. We all frowned at him.

"We do have one more exam and she did say that her brain will explode if she has to study for one..." Charlie stopped talking as he saw none of us were amused by the joke he tried to tell. "Not the time to make jokes. Got it." He scratched the back of his head, his freckled cheeks turning pink.

"Where is she now?" I turned back to Penny.

"In our dormitory. She's packing her bags!" Panicked Penny.

"Wow, she really did take her words seriously." Tulip indicated that we should all go towards the Hufflepuff Common Room.

We ran all the way there and stopped a little before the entrance. Penny told us to stay put as she went inside to get Tonks. We didn't know what to do when Penny brings her outside. We did have only one more exam, even though I had to admit, Tonks did the worst in Transfiguration despite being a Metamorphmagus.

Charlie started doing fairly well by the end of the year as he tried his best to copy everything from me. Tulip and Penny were starting to get a hang of it once we formed our little study group. Tonks, however, couldn't transform her matchstick into a needle if it was the last thing she had to do.

I told her that she just has to focus more on the image of the thing she wants to transfigure her original object to but for some reason she couldn't get a clear picture in her head as her needle kept having a matchstick tip or was wooden instead of metal. I knew she was nervous about it but I had no idea it was this bad.