Notes: This one-shot was written for Round 2 (Jurassic Fever) of the 2018 Quidditch League Fanfiction Competition, Season 6. I'm writing as a Chaser (3rd Position) for the Wimbourne Wasps.
Position Prompt: Write about a character whose attempt to help ends negatively for the recipient/s.
Optional Chaser Prompt #1: (colour) forest green
Optional Chaser Prompt #2: (dialogue) "Is he wearing a wig?" / "I believe the correct term is 'toupée.'"
Optional Chaser Prompt #3: (character) Charlie Weasley
Operation: Bushhead
Phase 1 - Initiate Operation: Bushhead
"Wotcher, mate! You're going to slaughter Slytherin with a catch like that."
Bright tones preceded the bright locks colouring Tonks's head: apple peel red, pulled to a short ponytail at the back and feathered with a frayed fringe at the front. Charlie wasn't even off the pitch yet, and he itched to trade his quidditch robes for the nearest available shower; but when he saw Tonks, he slung a grin across his face and slotted his broom behind his neck, gripping each side of it like a bar. "That's always the plan."
"How long have you been practicing? I think you got a new freckle or ten," she said flippantly, as if his broad, windblown face was not completely covered with them already. If his hands had been free instead of settled in their hold on his broom, Charlie might have flicked her between the eyes.
"Long enough to smell like death."
"Can't argue with that," Tonks agreed. "I have something hilarious to share with you, so I need you to get ready for it."
Charlie closed his eyes for a centering breath, exhaled, then opened them again. "I'm ready."
For a fraction of a moment, Charlie thought she might actually pull a suspenseful pause this time, but he barely had the chance to blink before she was spilling it out.
"Tremlett asked me to brew him a potion!"
"Are you sure he was talking to you and not mumbling to himself?" Charlie asked with a snort. "He's a great bloke, but no one would actually ask you to do that."
"I know! I guess he thinks because I change my appearance all the time, I must be aces at glamour potions," Tonks said with an air of bemusement. "We've been in school together for five years now, Charlie, and I don't think he realises I'm a metamorphmagus."
Trying to smother his spreading grin, Charlie asked, "What does he want?"
"He wants to be a bushhead."
Charlie snorted more loudly. "I seriously doubt that's what he asked for."
"Not word for word, but you know, like the rockstars, how it all gets large and stuck out at the top," Tonks described a bit clumsily as she combed out some wild radius from her head. "Like - Bon Jovi. Remember him?"
"Of course I do," Charlie countered. "It's worth pointing out that you shared his music, not his massive hair."
"The point is," Tonks continued, jabbing a finger, "there is no way I can brew this alone, so you're being recruited."
"I'm not exactly some potions prodigy either," Charlie said with a grim smile. "Are you sure that's a good idea? Have you asked Bill?"
"He's swamped with NEWTs, right?" she said, folding her hands behind her head with the hint of a pout.
"I guess that's true," Charlie granted. Although his brother's cavalier manner made it seem like he had no care in the world about his upcoming exams, Charlie knew Bill had his nose to the literary grindstone when no one was looking. Cursebreaking was heavy on the practical application, and his brother was a brilliant wizard, but some silly potions venture probably wasn't worth the bother right now. "I accept."
For a moment, it looked like her face was going to split in half, and Tonks propped her fists triumphantly on her hips. "Let's get brewing!" A pause followed, achieving an uncommonly comical length before she added: "After you shower."
Phase 2 - Pilfer the Bits
"How much do you think he needs to drink for it to work?" Charlie asked, arms folded on the table as he looked at the book open in front of them. The Manegro Potion seemed like the best option: A bit uncontrollable, but it was easier to chop off hair fast than to grow it back. "I wonder if I could use some of it. My mum always cuts my hair so short…"
"You could have a proper lion's mane," Tonks commented as she scribbled down the contents of the page, "all red and flowing."
Charlie leaned back in his chair, stretching like some broad-set wildcat before slouching in his chair. Suspiciously, he eyed what looked to be shorthand of the extensive instructions. "Should we bring the book?"
"Do you really want to lug it around? This should be fine," she said.
Although it had seemed to take forever to write everything down when they were in the library, Charlie could not argue with the benefits of being one textbook lighter when it came time to sneak into the Potions store room later that evening. The dungeons were always a dreary downer. Even with the rise of summer's heat, Charlie always felt a little bit chillier when they roamed down for Potions class (or for potion-pilfering, as it was). Beside him, Tonks had removed all Hufflepuff tells from her person and rearranged her features to look like one unbearable Merula Snyde. Charlie had his reservations about sending Tonks in alone, but there was no way to possibly justify him skulking about with Snyde in the dungeons.
Finding a nook to duck into, Charlie waved Tonks on towards Snape's office. The worst teacher at Hogwarts had been overseeing supper when they had ducked out, meaning his ingredients were vulnerable for a time.
That time inched along at an unbearable pace. One minute in, Charlie had leaned back against the cool stone and began tapping his fingers with a steady, barely perceptible beat. He was starting the third chorus of the third internal song when a sudden crash startled him into banging his head against the wall with a stifled yelp. The influx of panic was less about his throbbing skull and more about how loudly the crash had echoed down the dungeon corridor.
Peeking his head out of the nook, Charlie saw no sign of movement in either direction, and without further delay, barreled down toward Snape's extensive collection.
Inside, he saw the pallid (and predictably unamused) form of Professor Snape standing before the buried (and predictably skewed) form of Tonks beneath an avalanche of ingredients. From where Charlie stood, it was difficult to tell if the Snyde facade had faded with Tonks's shock, but there was no sign of grace in Snape's face, regardless of who he thought it was.
Dully, Snape met his eyes, and Charlie cleared his throat. "Ah, Professor."
"Mr. Weasley. A bit early for prefect rounds, is it not?" Snape drawled with the sort of snide tone that made it obvious he was not actually asking a question. "And Miss Tonks, thick though your skull might be, even you must realise these ingredients are not for public use."
"I'm not Miss Tonks!" Tonks objected, pulling a bucket of slugs off her head and looking like she might vomit. "I'm Miss Sn- I mean, Merula!"
"Miss Snyde is in the Great Hall, where you both ought to be too," Snape responded dryly, looking between them. "Twenty points from Hufflepuff for breaking into my stores and impersonating a fellow student." At that, Tonks groaned dramatically and allowed her transformation to shed away to her natural state (topped though it was with chilli red hair). With further flourish, she let herself collapse back onto the pile of vials and jars. "And twenty points from Gryffindor for helping her."
"What?!" Charlie exclaimed with indignation, "This isn't a twenty-point offense!"
"Would you like for it to be more, for impertinence?" Snape asked, his mouth curling a little. Fuming, Charlie clamped his mouth and crossed his arms. "And it will be detention for the both of you."
"I hope it's not the Forbidden Forest again," Charlie said a little too loudly with a heavy sigh, thinking that if it was, at least they would have Hagrid for company. Last time, they'd spent half the night talking about dragons, which was, without a doubt, the best detention Charlie could possibly imagine.
"That was drrrrreadful!" Tonks concurred, pressing at her temple as if to feign a headache - though in truth, she probably did hit her head when half of the potions stocks fell on top of her.
"If you think I'm naive enough not to realise you enjoy spending time around that oafish groundskeeper, you are mistaken," Snape deadpanned. Again, Charlie sighed, echoed in turn by Tonks from the floor. "You will be cleaning cauldrons until your hands blister."
"That's child abuse!" Tonks moaned as she tried to wipe slime from her face.
"Effective now," Snape said sharply, and with a flick of his wand, the ingredients flew back into place, as if Tonks had never darkened the door of his store room.
With pinched expressions, Charlie and Tonks slouched to the classroom.
Phase 3 - Persevere (Which is to Say, Actually Pilfer the Bits)
Detention was, in the end, actually and legitimately dreadful. For Charlie, some part of that came with the knowledge that he would have to amp up his Prefect Responsibility to balance another black mark, but the task wasn't great either.
On the other hand, Tonks's irreverent facial modifications were a ray of light in a dingy dungeon. Charlie found it difficult to resist a chortle when she put on bat features, snake features, or for a moment even dared to don Snape's face in full; but for the most part, Charlie felt confident that he was playing it off as a cough from the grime and dust. Each time, Snape eventually looked back down at his papers despite his keen and suspicious looks, so the strategy must have been effective.
Charlie guessed that it was probably midnight by the time they stopped, though neither he nor Tonks had a watch on them. Even Snape seemed to be crawling back towards whatever hole he occupied during the night hours. The dungeon corridor was eerily still, urging them back to their beds with each step, but at the foot of the stairs, Charlie and Tonks stopped in sync, locked their eyes, and grinned waggishly. In silent agreement, they pattered back towards the store room, and this time, Charlie skillfully retrieved their loot himself.
Whatever exhaustion might have threatened to settle over them was blown away by their second wind. Once all the ingredients were gathered and a cauldron had been fetched for brewing, the two stretched their luck further still with a scamper across the grounds, out to the edges of the Forbidden Forest. It was an imposing wall, a shadowy sort of green, but the shuffling sounds beyond didn't make Charlie nervous; arguably, there was more reason to be nervous about the howler he'd get from his mum if he managed two detentions in a night. This was a night of bold chances, and their luck was not too shabby.
"Not to put my sense of adventure into question, but I don't see why we can't brew it in a bathroom or something," Charlie said, leveling a look towards the school and hoping that even Filch and Mrs. Norris had to sleep at some point.
"We still need a moonleaf," Tonks said as she dumped the cauldron and several ingredients into their small, grassy clearing. "Go ahead and start the fire."
"Tremlett owes us one. A big one," Charlie said as he plopped down on the grass, looking up just as Tonks scrunched her face in concentration and turned her hair a deep forest green, not unlike the forested foliage bundled around them. "Green? Really? After all that?"
"It's camouflage," she said with a conspiratorial wink.
"Yes, if Mrs. Norris wanders out here, she will absolutely mistake you for a tree. The hair is forest green. We're in a forest. I can't argue with that," he said with a snort.
"Be quiet and incendio," she quipped, disappearing for only a moment before she came back with a dusty-looking herb that he didn't have the energy to question.
If potions were a struggle under the best of circumstances, it was doubly so in the dead of night, perched on the edge of a forest with sore fingers, poor lighting, and poorer handwriting ("Does that say two toad eyes or seven?" "I don't know, you wrote it!"). As fumbly as the execution had been, when at last the two brewers had completed their task, they had to admit it did look the right colour... as best they could tell in the dark.
A sense of triumph had settled over them as they crept back into the castle, potion bottled and cauldron returned to its place in a clean-scrubbed state.
Mission accomplished.
Phase 4 - Fallout
Tonks's hair was still a deep forest green, come the next morning, and shortened to a frayed pixie cut up around her ears. "Like a bush, to celebrate Operation: Bushhead's success," she had said without prompting.
Their furtive glances at the potion (to make sure it was still… generally the right colour) felt a little bit like smuggling or some other illicit activity, but the buzz of excitement was apparent in their manner. Before breakfast, they found Donaghan Tremlett strumming away at his guitar on a corridor bench, staring soulfully out at the sunrise. With a smile, Charlie handed the potion over to Tonks for delivery, hanging back a little as she stepped forth to shine.
All seemed well, at first, when Tremlett was exclaiming his delight and downing (unfortunately all) of the bottle she'd handed him. Even as thick black hair began sprouting with rapid abandon, Tremlett appeared satisfied enough. It was only when that hair was flowing over his face and towards the floor that Charlie noticed it was not just flowing towards the floor, but in fact to the floor in long, majestic clumps. Charlie's face strained a little, and when he caught Tonks's eye, he saw a markedly uncomfortable breed of alarm.
"Oh," she mumbled as Tremlett started to notice what was happening, grabbing at his hair with a strangled sound.
"WHAT DID YOU DO TO MY HAIR?" Tremlett shrieked with a volume Charlie had not known him to be capable of, though he couldn't decide if that or the shedding hair was more jarring.
"It's not that-" Charlie began in what he hoped was a reassuring tone, but Tremlett just thrust out an open-palmed hand, face ducked.
"Don't want to hear it!"
Exchanging another look with Tonks, the two of them slipped away in a manner that they hoped was surreptitious, though the dramatics of Tremlett's reaction had drawn the attention of most passers-by on the way to the Great Hall. Waiting until later to drink it probably would have been a better idea, but it couldn't be helped now…
Some thirty minutes later, Charlie and Tonks had settled into the Great Hall and were now playing at casual ignorance as much as they could manage, though her forest green mop had dulled to a mousy brown. Charlie had dragged her along with him to the Gryffindor table: A common enough occurrence but more beneficial than usual as they found comfort in solidarity, picking at breakfast with less gusto than usual.
When Tremlett sulked into the room, Charlie couldn't help but notice he had a cut up approximation of hair situated on his head like a messy hat, framed by a few stringy tufts that hadn't quite fallen out. Maybe it wasn't a very nice thought, but for all of Tremlett's musical genius, perhaps general 'artistic genius' was not an appropriate descriptor. The hall sniggered in a way that made Charlie feel a little guilty, and he saw it on Tonks's face too. To smooth out the depressing vibe, he started to tell her a story he'd heard on the wireless about an abandoned dragon egg that had been rescued from the bank of a stream in Romania - but before he progressed far, Charlie heard his older brother's voice from behind them.
"Is he wearing a wig?"
"I believe the correct term is 'toupée,'" Charlie said with an uncomfortable cough.
Bill snorted and shook his head. "Up to trouble, then?" When Charlie and Tonks just tipped their heads noncommittally and exchanged a look, Bill's mouth quirked up a bit more. "Manegro Potion was the intention?"
"You don't have to say it like we obviously bungled it," Tonks said miserably.
"You obviously bungled it," Bill said fondly, ruffling both of their heads from behind. "We'll fix it," he added with a clap on Charlie's back. As Bill settled down beside his brother, he leaned forward casually and folded his arms on top of the table. "Do you have any ingredients left?"
"Yeah," Charlie admitted, thinking back to the remainder of their stash from the night before. "We... maybe took a bit more than we strictly needed."
"For revenge," Tonks added with a solemn nod, though her mood seemed to be lightening ever-so-slightly.
Bill chuckled, shaking his head. "Next time, you can just ask if you're going to try something above your grade level."
"It wasn't that much higher," Charlie said with a shrug, though it was more to avoid admitting that he didn't want to bother Bill than a true objection to the point.
"Hook me up with those ingredients, and we'll get another potion brewed in no time," Bill said confidently.
"Operation: Replant the Forest!" Tonks exclaimed, cheer returning to her voice.
Bill sniggered, which Charlie echoed before saying, "Maybe we should brainstorm some alternative names…"