When Tonks came to, she was lying under the craggy lip of a gully about a mile from the village high street. Uncurling her bruised legs, she dragged herself out into the fiendish morning sunlight where balmy breezes teased her cheeks.

Well, that’s a surprise, she thought. I’m alive.

So this is what he meant by flying, Tonks thought as Sergeant Brodie set the tiny seaplane down in a basin of iron-colored water.

Her heart dropped straight into her stomach as waves struck the doors, whitecaps rising up against the nose of the plane as the engine sputtered.
 

Tonks awoke the next morning at a quarter past eight. The sun had already ruptured the horizon and from the window in her room she could see it painting the dewy green with pleasant, tawny rays. A man wearing a tweed cap led his pony and cart down the High Street, whistling as he went.
 
 
 

Tonks had the space of a second to make up her mind. Should she cast a Memory Charm on Brodie or leave him be? If Kingsley had been here, she would have gone with the former, no doubt about it. But as it was, Kingsley was in London…and not answering her messages.

Tonks was alone on Willoway. Completely alone. Save for Brodie, of course.

Up ahead, a small dog-like figure crossed the lane…and promptly took the form of a human shadow.

Brodie stumbled to a halt.

My God…my God!

At once, Tonks felt her resolve shatter and as it did, she pointed her wand at Murron’s jar of daisies.

“Expulso!”

Shards of earthenware shot across the store. Murron gasped and, to Tonks’s great satisfaction, ducked, throwing her arms over her head. Daisy petals rained down like large snowflakes.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

The crowd parted, slightly, just enough to reveal the prone figure of Sergeant Brodie lying sprawled on the grass of the green beneath the May Pole. Someone had stunned him….

Kentigern Rook.