"-Tonks!"
Dora shot up, blinking awake, "What time is it?" She looked around, becoming confused as she found herself in a classroom, with her old friend Charlie right beside her, hand on her shoulder. "Am I still dreaming or something?"
"No, Miss Tonks, and you would do good not to sleep in my class!" Came a chirpy voice. Dora turned her head, blinking again at the sight of her old Arithmancy teacher – Professor Vector, who gave her a soft smile. "I know that your mother has taught you all this already, Miss Tonks, but if you want to keep up with assignments and internal classwork, you need to pay attention."
…okay? Dora blinked once more for good measure, before nodding and looking down at the paper in front of her. Arithmancy – easy peasy stuff her mum had taught her as a kid. That was NEWT-level. And in actual fact, something she'd been using a lot more regularly due to being cooped up in her mum's house, pregnant with Teddy. Arithmancy was the basis to all wards, after all, and she and her mum had been in charge of setting up safe house after safe house in the last year of the war, when she'd ran off from the Ministry and the Auror Core.
"You seem really distracted, Tonks," Charlie whispered beside her, making Dora glance at him, which was weird, because she controlled her dreams, and she hadn't imagined him saying that. "I told you we shouldn't have stayed up last night with Ogden – you're still hungover from all those shots." Dora tried to understand what was going on, but Vector asked her a question, which she answered with only a few seconds of thinking, gaining ten points for Hufflepuff.
Still hungover from all those shots…suddenly she remembered the night. Edward Ogden, a fellow Hufflepuff, had dragged her, Charlie, and about a dozen others out to the boathouse for a Halloween celebration of their own making, where they'd hung out around a hidden campfire of bluebell flames, drinking and playing games. Dora had taken part in most of the drinking games, such as Never Have I Ever, Firewhiskey vs Fish Oil, and Shot Poker. She'd taken part in the Strip Poker, too, but unfortunately, she'd been too good at poker to loose many items of clothing, instead gaining a small hoard of sickles and galleons – knuts were disallowed from being used after two rounds and a drunken mix-up and subsequent drunken fist-fight over the loose bronzes.
"Just give me a minute," she muttered back, after a few more seconds of thinking, before looking around more thoroughly. Something wasn't right, everything was too detailed. It was like she was immersed in a pensieve, but at the same time, not…the last thing she could remember was Bellatrix, and-
Her blood ran cold.
"Avada kedavra!"
Suddenly she couldn't breathe, hands shaking, ink-pot getting pushed off the desk – smashing on the floor as she swerved, falling off her seat just in time to throw up. Her ears were buzzing, her stomach roiling in protest. I died, I died. Bellatrix killed me-
"Tonks, are you alright? Fuck, Merlin – I knew something was wrong with you!" Charlie's familiar hands pulled back her hair, holding back what Dora saw to be bright, Hufflepuff yellow strands. She didn't hesitate to turn them pink, calming at the sensation of bubblegum pink magic flowing through her to coat the dull yellow. Charlie's grip loosened sharply, before she sagged to the side, steering clear of the puddle that a fellow student silently vanished.
"Oh dear," Professor Vector murmured, before coming to help her up. "Mr Weasley, take Miss Tonks to the hospital wing. Unfortunately I'll have to ask you to come back quickly, as your studies would be forfeit otherwise – but do, please, Miss Tonks," she directed her attention to the sickly metamorphmagus, "get better. I'm sure it's nothing."
Dora nodded weakly, before trudging towards the door, only Charlie's helpful arm stopping her from tumbling down again due to the weight of her boots – clunky, black leather lace-ups, yet to be replaced by more comfortable red Doc Martins, courtesy of her father, a present for getting into Auror Academy. As they exited the classroom, Charlie pestered her, trying to understand what was wrong, but she ignored him, silent all the way, a myriad of thoughts running through her head. What had happened to Remus? Was Teddy okay? Why was she here? Was she dreaming? How could her last memory be of Bellatrix killing her? A thousand more went unanswered.
By the time they got the hospital wing, after trudging up two flights of stairs, then descending three, only one question remained.
Why the hell am I not dead?
"Well, other than the magical imbalance, there's nothing wrong with you – except the large amounts of alcohol still within your system from what I suspect is a rather self-indulgent night," Madam Pomfrey looked at her with reprimand, seemingly ten years younger. Or rather, seven and a half years younger. And eight days. Dora had always been brilliant at maths, especially subtraction and addition. "You probably ate something during your drunken stupor that caused a part of your magic to revolt. I'll be keeping you in for observation – when do you suppose you started your alcohol-imbibing adventure?"
Dora scratched the back of her neck at that, trying to pull some memories together. "Uhh…well, we all snuck out at ten, got back to our dorms at three in the morning…" she winced at the matron's disappointed look, "Sorry Poppy." Said matron then hit her on the head with her wand. "Ow!"
"That'll be Madam Pomfrey to misbehaving teenagers." Pomfrey went over to a cabinet near her bed, taking out a familiar brew from a small drawer. "Here," she uncorked the glass vial, holding it out. Dora took the hangover draught without fuss, grimacing after it had gone down – then shut her eyes with a sigh as she felt a mind-numbing headache she hadn't even noticed to be there, disappear. Thinking much clearer, Dora took off her boots, bringing her feet up onto the bed as Madam Pomfrey tapped her forehead again, lighter this time, a tingling of magic running through her before the healer directed it to a piece of parchment, reading it silently.
"So, what's wrong with me then? What's a magical imbalance?"
"It is exactly how it describes itself. Your magic is reacting to a foreign substance, similar to fluctuations in a young witch's hormones, but the effects are varied. If you do not show signs of any more negative physical effects after two more days, then you may leave – though I will be having Mr Weasley keep an eye out for you. For all I know, you consumed magic mushrooms. Mental effects are much more easily discerned by close friends," Madam Pomfrey rolled her eyes, before levitating a pair of hospital pyjamas over to the end of her bed, "A house-elf shall bring you dinner." Then she turned on her heel and left, leaving Dora all alone in the infirmary.
In the silence, her mind began to travel in directions she didn't want to go, and soon she was in the pyjamas, curled up in the blankets, feeling mentally exhausted and not a little physically tired. She didn't know how she'd gotten here, or why, but if she wasn't dreaming, then…
Then Dora was somehow back in time, as ludicrous as it might sound. If it were true though, Dora would have to redo so much – would she even be able to? The metamorphmagus didn't hold back tears at the thought of Teddy, and Remus. My baby...she'd left him with her mother, to join his father. What did it matter that Remus could have died? She shouldn't have left him – what if, right now, somewhere in the future, in another timeline, Remus was holding Teddy at her funeral? What if…
What if the future had gone, and Teddy didn't even exist?
She couldn't contain the half-sob, half-laugh at that. Merlin! He's probably better off! For all she knew, Voldemort had won – he could have killed Harry and taken over the world, and her son- her son, he would have grown up in a world where muggles were eradicated, and everyone lived in fear. In hindsight, Dora figured that Teddy would probably live – he was a metamorphmagus, after all, just like her. Special. He'd probably have been taken from her mum and given to- given to Bellatrix, most likely, raised by a lunatic to bow at the Dark Lord's feet like a dog – they'd call him a dog, too, probably turn him into a werewolf to be just like his goody, Order of the Phoenix, Light father.
Dora hiccupped. Remus. She squeezed her eyes shut. Remus was still alive. She could meet him again, fall in love with him all over again. But no, that wouldn't be fair – he'd had enough trouble being with her in the future. No way would he be with her in this timeline, if she even managed to make it that far. Dora scoffed. Probably going to get myself killed on a stupid Auror raid or something just as silly. Maybe she'd get run over by a muggle car, or get pissed just enough to stumble in an alley and forget to apparate home before someone killed her. Maybe she would even get killed. Maybe she just wouldn't meet him. That would be terrible – no, more than terrible. It would break her heart.
I'll write him a letter, she promised herself, and damn the timeline, even if I can never love him the same, at least he'll know me as a friend. Determined to write to him, Dora sat up, going over to her folded clothes, taking a black felt tip from her pocket – her dad had given them to her the last time she'd gone to a Weird Sister's concert, so any signature she managed to get on her t-shirt wouldn't cause her mother to rant and rave about the literal ink stains and sometimes even rips that came alongside quills and fabric. Pushing her sleeve up, she bullet-pointed her arm.
First, write out a letter, she wrote small, and carefully, determined to make it legible. Second, find an owl clever and young enough to make the journey to wherever the hell he's hiding out, with only a name. Third. At that, she paused, because what then? Wait forever? He might not even write back. Dora breathed in tightly at that, before going back to her arm. Third, send another letter if he doesn't reply, then do it on a weekly basis, all explaining why the hell he should write back to me.
Happy with her short list, Dora put the pen in her jacket pocket again, then fiddled around with everything – only to come across her wand. She stared at it, surprised she'd forgotten. Taking it, she went to place it in her usual holster, which had sat comfortably sideways in the small of her back, before realising it wasn't there yet. Sighing, she held it limply in her two hands, eyes roving the straight, lightly striped wand with its spade-shaped ending, seemingly made to fit the curve of her thumb – "Cypress and unicorn tail-hair, twelve and a half inches, soft and bendy. A good wand for such an amazingly talented child." Oh, how long it had been since Ollivander had first handed it to her in that dusty old shop of his. She wondered what the significance of it all meant – she knew that unicorn tail-hair's bonded strongly to their first owner, and didn't make that powerful wands, but cypress, well, she didn't have a clue.
Dora then waved it lazily, not expecting the burst of fire that escaped the end. Crying out and dropping it, she tumbled back, shuffling sharply, until her head hit the metal frame with a bump – but Dora ignored her pain, instead staring at her wand, which was puffing out the occasional spark of flame, the covers luckily not catching. "What the…"
"Miss Tonks?" Madam Pomfrey popped her head out of her office, alarmed, "What-"
"It's my wand, ma'am," she interrupted, reaching her bare foot over only to pull back as it let out a sharp burst of flame, "It's not letting me touch it."
Madam Pomfrey fully came out of the office, looking at her wand with a deep-set frown, "I will notify Professor Sprout – do not touch it," she ordered, looking Dora in the eyes. The metamorphmagus nodded, belatedly becoming aware of her hair having gone an ashen white in her fear. Turning it back as Madam Pomfrey left again, going back into her office, Dora got out of the bed slowly, going to sit on the next one, eyes flickering sideways as she noticed a paper aeroplane flying off. Probably going to Sprout. It felt odd to be in this situation – in this kind of…box, where her actions, and the actions of her wand were watched by teachers and officials, who told other teachers and officials…Dora started to realise what being back at Hogwarts really meant.
I'm going to be treated like a Circe-damn kid again, aren't I?
