Chapter 3: Tonks

Life on privet drive continued in this manner for the first 2 weeks of Harry's enforced stay. On the second Saturday after his return Harry managed to complete his assigned tasks by early afternoon and decided to spend the remainder of the day in the park nearby as it was a sunny day out, so he walked into the park and across to a tree to sit in the shade for a while.

This is when Harry heard the sound of someone in the nearby bushes tripping over. Now considering he could plainly see there was no one there, this left only one possibility, the person was currently invisible.

"Show yourself" he said while pointing his wand into the general area of his stalker.

It was at this point that a rather sheepish looking Nymphadora Tonks, complete with florescent pink spiky hair, walked out of the bushes carrying an invisibility cloak.

"Wotcher Harry, mind pointing that elsewhere, unless ya plan on using it for something?" called the young auror while grinning at him.

Seeing who it was, Harry relaxed somewhat and shoved his wand back in his pocket.

"Hi Tonks, don't sneak up on people like that. What are you doing here anyway?" he asked curiously while sitting back down.

"Why guarding you of course" she replied, bouncing over to sit near him "orders from the Dumble man."

"So I've still got a 24 hour guard?" he asked, getting slightly irritated.

"Yup, I do days, Dung Fletcher does nights….well, Dung's meant to do nights anyway…what he actually does is anyone's guess." She replied cheekily, either missing or totally ignoring the look on the young man's face.

Realising that there was no point in arguing with her about it and that she was only doing as instructed, Harry relaxed and said "Ok, well, I don't particularly like it but if you have to be here will you at least lose the cloak while I'm out here…gives me someone to talk to besides the bloody Dursleys"

"sure, that sounds alright…we have actually been told not to, because Albus thinks you need time to yourself to heal after the DoM stuff but then, rules are made to have exceptions, right?"

"Right." He said now smiling at her, and actually thankful for the presence of the fun young woman next to him as it made a welcome change to talk to someone who treated him as an equal…even as a human being was a massive improvement. "So, can you tell me anything about whats been happening while I've been out of contact with the world?"

"Not really" she replied, then seeing the darkening look on his face continued "what I meant to say is that as far as I know nothing worth mentioning has been happening…there's some pressure on Fudge to either change his attitude or get out of office but I think you already knew that…the order has had a few meetings discussing what you guys did at the ministry…" she trailed off hearing him snort with suppressed laughter, "what's so funny mister?"

"Tonks, don't take this the wrong way, but what does the order actually do, besides have meetings in which you all agree that everything is going wrong and decide to have another meeting?"

Momentarily stunned that someone would actually ask that question, much less ask her that question, Tonks just stared at him thinking about what he'd just said and realised that every word of it was true, all they did was have meetings and occasionally react to a crisis if they heard about it, by which time it was usually too late to do anything but clean up…in all honesty the only thing they really seemed to do on a regular basis was guard duty at various locations which were important for totally unknown reasons. Then remembering that Harry had actually asked her a question and was probably waiting and expecting some form of answer, she decided to tell him the truth.

"To be honest Harry, I've never thought of it that way before, but now that you mention it, that is about all we seem to do. The main reason I joined the order was that it was pretty much the only organisation that seemed to be doing anything in this war, but now that I've actually been in it a while, I guess I'm beginning to realise that it's not all it was cracked up to be." She said sounding some what distant and looking thoughtful.

Though Harry had personally known this to be pretty much the truth for some time now, he had not expected someone like Tonks, someone who was actually a part of it, to see it the same way, much less admitting it to him.

Though she had no way of knowing it, in that moment of absolute honesty, she had forced Harry to revaluate his opinion of the young auror beside him. He had assumed that she was just another one of Dumbledore's puppets, a willing pawn in his manipulations. But now he realised that she was in fact a person who truly wanted to do something to make the world a better place and was merely lured in by promises that she could do that as part of the order…promises that apparently were not fulfilled. Yes, all in all Harry now had a much higher opinion of her indeed.

While Harry was thinking this, Tonks was also analyzing several things that she had taken for granted mere minutes ago. Until now everything was clear, Dumbledore was everything that was good in the world, the order was the only thing doing anything about You-Know-Who, Harry Potter was nothing more than a little boy who was famous and needed protecting because he had an uncanny ability to get into trouble of all kinds at a moments notice and she had also believed that she was doing everything she could to help the world and the side of the Light emerge victorious from this new war. These were all grand notions that she desperately wanted to cling to, but a single comment from young Harry changed that and shook her to her core. The order was just as useless as the ministry all things considered, Dumbledore was all talk and no action and Harry…..Tonks was intrigued by the young man, he seemed to understand things that other people simply missed, and if she was honest, him and his friends had taken down more death eaters and seen more action than most of the order and a fair few of the aurors put together. Beyond that, on a more personal level, she realised she wanted to get to know him better. She'd always thought him kinda cute and now she was beginning to see that he was a nice person as well, even looking beyond the fame…..yes she thought very interesting indeed…if he was a couple of years older I might just be interested in something a bit more than a chat….then again, he's not that much younger…I'll get to know him a bit better first and then just see how it goes…defiantly wouldn't mind having a go with him, even if it was just a summer fling if I'm honest with myself. At this point, Tonks realised that she had been sitting there with a goofy grin on her face and staring off into the distance for several minutes and rapidly decided to change the subject. "Anyway Harry, what've you been up to since school finished?"

"Oh, nothing much really, just been doing chores and homework and stuff like that…pretty boring really. Don't even have anyone to talk to back there really." He casually replied.

"Ok, if you either don't want to or if I'm way off in my ideas just tell me to back off and it's the last you'll hear of it. But, the way I see it, this war, it's probably gonna be you that gets left to deal with old snakeface, right?"

"Errm….yeah"

"And no one has actually bothered showing you anything outside of normal school stuff have they?" she continued.

"Not a thing." He said slowly, not quite seeing what she was getting at.

"Well, I know it's not much, and you'll probably need to know waaaay more before you're ready for that sorta thing but, if you want I can teach you some of the more advanced defence stuff…I mean what I learned at the Auror Academy. If you want that is?"

Hearing this, Harry was momentarily speechless; here was someone, a trained fighter, willing to actually spend time showing him some of the things he needed to know. From his perspective this would be the answer to the problem he'd been working on for days about what to do for training. "If you're willing to do that then yeah I defiantly want to. I really appreciate the offer."

"ok, well we'll start tomorrow, then. We're gonna have to do this at you relative's place and I'll have to keep it quiet from the Old Man 'cos he's forbidden us from doing this, but the way I see it you need it really…and like I said earlier-all rules have exceptions." She finished with a grin.

"Sounds fine with me. The Dursleys will probably not be too happy about this, so be prepared to stun them if you need to. And I have no problem keeping things from Dumbledore, as it seems that he's been keeping things from me and I think its about time I did the same."

They chatted for a while longer, agreeing to meet the following morning to begin training as well as discussing more mundane topics. Before long it was early evening and time for Harry to return to Privet Drive (the Dursleys needed their private chef – who wouldn't with the amount Dudley eats after all?). When they reached the front lawn of #4 Tonks promised to be there bright and early to see what good they could do with improving his skills in the time available and threw her invisibility cloak back on leaving Harry to return inside.

When Harry entered the house, he was feeling better than he had in a long while, he'd finally felt like he'd started making progress towards his goals and had had some pleasant company too. He was feeling better that is until he came face to face with an angry Uncle Vernon bellowing something about "boy" "cook" "food" and someone or other being "ungreatful"…he really had learned to tune most of Vernon Dursley's rants out years ago, but from the sounds of it, Harry had been correct in his assumption that it was feeding time at the zoo and the giraffe, hippopotamus and the whale were very much hungry…oh well he thought it was a nice day while it lasted.

Later that night, once the Dursleys were asleep, Harry considered what he was going to be doing the following day. He was very much excited at the opportunity. As he himself began to succumb to sleep a voice in the back of his mind quietly questioned if that excitement was more for what he would be learning, or who it was that would be teaching him. But before he could consider this he had drifted off into sleep, dreaming of pink haired witches and other, much more normal things for someone his age than was normal for Harry Potter.

When Harry awoke, the following morning, it was to the usual sound of a shouting relative. The only unusual thing was this time it was his uncle, not his aunt that was doing the shouting so Harry scrambled out of bed and into some clothes before running downstairs to see what his uncle wanted…only to stop dead on the bottom step.

"Wotcher Harry! He always this charming?" called Tonks cheerfully from the doorway, jabbing a finger in Vernon's direction.

"Hiya Tonks." he replied "yeah, I would say this seems about normal. Good morning Uncle Vernon, I trust you remember Tonks from the train station the other week, yes? Well don't worry, she's not here to hex you…this time, she's here to help me with something. She's likely to be visiting fairly frequently, but don't worry, we'll keep out of your way, you won't even see us….right Tonks?"

"Right!" she said cheekily as she pushed past the immense bulk of the man before her, walking into the house and throwing her invisibility cloak on. "You won't see us at all."

While his uncle spluttered some nonsense, Harry inwardly cringed, knowing that magic jokes really would not go down well with the Dursleys. "Ok Tonks, this way" he said, leading her back up to his room, all the while hoping that Vernon would remember she was an adult witch and therefore not someone he should be starting a fight with. He let out a breath he didn't realise he had been holding when they were safely in his room and the door was shut behind him.

"Sorry about the scene down there Harry, guess I could have at least made an effort to look more 'respectable' for the muggles" she said while screwing up her face as if the mere thought of doing so left a disgusting taste in her mouth.

"Don't worry about it Tonks. Anyway, can I get you anything before we start?"

"Nah, I'm good ta. Had summert before I came over this morning."

"Ok, well what exactly are we going to be doing?"

"Hmm…you've got a girl alone in your room and you wanna know what you should be doing? Interesting…" She teased.

Harry, blushing madly, stammered for a few seconds before getting control of himself again and saying "What I meant was, how exactly are we going to be learning magic, considering the fact that I'm underage and can't actually do magic right now?"

"aww…way to ruin a girl's hopes there Harry" she joked, "but seriously, yeah, I thought about that problem and you see that's one of the great things about being an Auror, pretty quick people in the ministry start owing you favours for turning a blind eye every so often so it means when you need something they pretty much bend over backwards to help. For example, if a normal person were to apply for a temporary exemption permit to the underage magic rule then it would take about 2 months for the application to be processed…when I went and asked last night, it took 5 minutes. Here ya go." She said while handing him a piece of parchment.

Harry looked at it and saw that it was a signed form stating that Harry James Potter was permitted to use magic at his own discretion for the duration of the summer, and was signed by Mafalda Hopkirk of the Improper Use of Magic Office at the ministry. "wow, thanks Tonks. Well I guess that explains that part at least" he said grinning widely, thinking that for once he was getting something signed by Madam Hopkirk that was actually welcome.

"Yeah, now then, since you've obviously just got up why don't you go grab a quick shower before we start? I'll cast a few quick spells to give us a bit more room to work with and maybe transfigure some of this crap into decent furniture for you after…that is unless you want me to come scrub your back…or any other bits you have in mind?" she said with a teasing smile, only half joking.

"Umm…No thanks Tonks, I'll pass this time, but the furniture would be most welcome if you don't mind." He replied while grabbing a change of clothes and heading for the shower, while thinking how fun it could actually be to share a shower with the attractive young witch before him.

Once he had left the room, Tonks looked around, pulled out her wand and began making changes to Harry's room. First, she vanished the piles of old broken toys and other junk before casting a permanent expansion charm on the room, making what was formerly the smallest bedroom in the house into by far the largest, infact it was close to the size that the entire upper floor of the Dursley property should normally be. Once that was completed she began with the furniture. The old cot bed that was practically falling apart, became a four poster similar to the ones from the Hogwarts dorms, only in this case, king size instead of single. The bookcase that only actually had one self as the others had broken was repaired and enlarged, after which she expanded the collection of books she had brought with her and placed them there along with his school texts from previous years. And on she continued.

Fifteen minutes later when Harry returned from the bathroom, it was to a room that he did not recognise.

"wha'd'ya think?" Tonks asked.

"Wow." Was his articulate response.

"Glad you like it. I've also bought us some peace and quiet with some muggle repelling charms on the door. Honestly I don't know how you put up with them gits."

"Neither do I." he joked.

"Right well this is sweet and all but we're really not getting anywhere so park your backside and we'll go through the basics. I thought the best start would probably be for me to find out what you already know and go from there."

For the next thirty minutes they talked about the various things Harry had learned in defence against the dark arts at school over the previous five years, and to say that Tonks was appalled by the level of tuition was some what an understatement.

"who've you had for defence professors? They sound like useless bastards to me."

Harry chuckled slightly, "you've no idea. Lets see, First year I had Professor Quirell, who was a stuttering idiot, but knew a fair bit of the subject, unfortunate drawback was that he had Voldemort sticking out the back of his head hidden under his turban so I ended up killing him. Second year we had Gilderoy Lockheart, who was a complete fraud and talked more about hair care than defence, he tried wiping mine and Ron's memories blank but unfortunately for him he was using a damaged wand so the obliviate backfired, he's currently in St. Mungos for the rest of his life I believe. Third year, we had Remus Lupin, who was an excellent teacher, but he focused more on the defence against dark creature aspect which while being fine isn't what I need in this case…well unless you count Voldie as a dark creature, which I guess would be right. Fourth year we were supposed to have Mad-Eye Moody but instead we got Barty Crouch Jr. polyjuiced to look like him, but he did actually teach us some pretty good stuff considering he was a Death Eater. Last year we had Umbridge, who was an evil toad and who's idea of teaching was to assign pages from a book and we weren't allowed to do any practical work. So, all in all it's pretty amazing that any of us know which way to point the wand, nevermind how to actually curse someone."

Tonks was absolutely speechless after that. It was common knowledge that the defence teaching had been a bit fragmented lately but she hadn't realised it was that bad. "What the hell was Albus thinking hiring half that lot?" She wondered aloud.

"In all fairness Umbitch wasn't his call, he couldn't find anyone for the job so Fudge muscled in and appointed someone. Her main purpose was to spy on everyone, not to teach."

"Harry, love with all due respect you don't know what you're talking about, when Albus mentioned that he was looking for candidates he had offers to fill the post from about 15 people in the Order, including me, and half of us were either current or retired Aurors."

"Well that just goes to show that what I've been thinking lately is true. Dumbles does what's best for him and doesn't really give a damn if others get trampled under the guise of his master plan."

"I hate to admit it Harry, but I think you might have the long and short of it there. Anyway, back to more immediate concerns, I'm gonna conjure a training dummy for you and I want you to hit it with all the offensive spells you know, so I can see what you can do and get an idea of your power levels and accuracy and all that."

She pulled out her wand and did just that, and for the next 15 minutes Harry hit the target with everything he had. While he was doing this, Tonks was suitably impressed by his aim which would put most trained Hit-Wizards to shame, however she noticed something a bit unusual, Harry was beginning to glow. After a few minutes she realised it wasn't just a glow, Harry had a visible aura, now she was truly impressed, hardly anyone could do that, much less hold it while casting repeatedly! But then she thought about it, if he was focussing hard enough to do that then his power levels should be through the roof, yet he was only actually displaying average strength…this struck her as odd, in fact, to her knowledge, it was impossible…unless…

"Harry stop for a minute will you?" she called to him and he came back over to sit down again. "do you have any blocks on you magic?"

"What do you mean?" he asked, as far as he knew magic couldn't be blocked.

"Sometimes for various reasons, some of a child's power can be like shut off, there's a whole group of spells for limiting the amount of magic a person has available. From the way you were casting it seems likely that you might have one…since you parents weren't around when you started school, chances are no one would know that it had been applied since they're usually done within the first 2 years of your life. Would you let me run the test to check if you do or not? It could significantly improve your casting if one is removed."

"I had no idea you could do that. But I guess like you said, with my parents being dead, any that they might have done to stop me hurting myself with accidental magic and stuff might still be there since no one thought to look. Yeah, if it's not too much trouble can you test me for it?"

"'Course I can. Grab me your cauldron and potion supplies, it only takes a few minutes to prepare it."

Ten minutes later Tonks had successfully brewed the revealing potion for him. "Ok, that's about it, now we just need a drop of your blood and a piece of parchment." Harry made a slight cut on the end of his finger and allowed a drop of his blood to fall into the potion, then Tonks dropped the parchment in "the colours that the parchment goes show what if any blocks are there."

"ok, that's a lot of colours, what the hell do they all mean?"

"Wow, you really must be powerful, most people wouldn't even be able to shoot sparks with all these ones!" she exclaimed "lets see, you've got red, that's a major block on your magical core, I'd say its probably shutting off about 3 quarters of your raw power. You've got green, that's a block on all natural mind arts, so that'd be occlumency, legilimency and telepathy, judging from the size of it you've probably got all 3. There's purple, that's a natural healing talent for self and others. Blue is blocking animagus transformations. Wow, I've never seen that before, this is supposed to be impossible….you have a gold block, that means you're a natural elemental, the last one of them died over 600 years ago. And one more" at this point she squealed so loudly Harry thought he might go deaf.

"What?"

"I never thought I'd meet another!" she exclaimed, bouncing around the room.

By this point Harry was getting a bit fed up so he hit her with a stinging hex to the rear end, which quickly made her slow down a bit.

"Ok, now do you want to tell me what's got you so excited?"

"Harry, it's amazing, you're a metamorph, like me!"

"Wow, that could be pretty useful. Ok so, now that you've rejoined me in the land of the sane, how do we go about getting rid of all these blocks?"

"I'll have you know I've never been sane mister!" she said, poking her tongue out at him "I can remove them for you but you'll need a couple of hours sleep afterwards."

"ok, would it be alright for us to do that now? I'd kinda like to know how much difference it will really make."

"yeah, sure, while your asleep I'll start thinking about what we can do…I have to say, when I offered to train you I didn't quite have this level of training in mind, but if you've got all these newly released abilities then the first thing we're gonna have to work on is helping you control them properly. If we have time afterwards then we can carry on and do as I was thinking of before with the new spells and stuff but this is way more important."

"Ok Tonks, calm down, what do I need to do?"

"Get into bed, I'll do the rest."

While doing as he was told, Harry couldn't resist the chance to tease her a little. "That sounds like an offer worth thinking about, but can we take care of these block things first?"

Caught off guard at first Tonks took a moment to regain her composure before replying. "oh well, I suppose if that's what you wanna do then that's ok too." She winked at him. "No, seriously, this will probably drain you for a couple of hours, its best to lay down first so that you don't fall over."

"Why? Is that your job?" he asked grinning at her.

She poked him in the side. "Oi! Less cheek from you me thinks unless you want me to jinx you while you're asleep" she said indignantly.

He settled down and she pointed her wand at him making a series of highly complex wand movements and muttering strings of what Harry assumed was latin, but he couldn't hear clearly enough to tell for sure. Harry was bathed in a bright multi-coloured light and then all he knew was darkness.

Tonks completed the series of spells necessary for her task and as soon as she was done was literally knocked off her feet by the wave of raw magical power being released by the young man on the bed. Wow she thought I've never felt power like that before, not even from Dumbledore.

Once she had recovered she went and sat at the desk and began scribbling a rough outline of what she wanted to do each day with Harry. The areas to work on included:

Physical conditioning

Occlumency

Legilimency

Metamorphmagus training

Controlling the level of power behind a spell

Wandless magic

Basic combat training

And any other things that they decided to add on at a later date, if there was time. She considered the options and decided that really the only way to help Harry learn to control his elemental abilities would be to get him a book on the subject as she really had no clue how to use them.

Approximately two and a half hours later Harry Potter began to wake up on the bed. At first he was confused as this really didn't feel like his bed, then his memories of that morning came flooding back. When he sat up he received a shock, he could see perfectly, better than he usually could and he hadn't even put his glasses on!

He looked around the room and spotted Tonks on one of the chairs.

"Hi Tonks."

"Hey Harry, how you feeling?" she called over.

"Confused" he replied, "any idea how I can see perfectly when I haven't even got my glasses on?"

Tonks thought for a moment. "That's probably one of the results of that natural healing ability thing you had blocked, you'll likely be getting little enhancements like that for a couple of days…old injuries and scars fading, muscle tone improving, likely a growth spurt…that sorta thing."

"Oh. Ok then." He said simply as he walked over to sit opposite her, behind the desk.

"Listen, Tonks, before we start any more training I've gotta ask you something. How good are you at occlumency?"

"Well, I'm not excellent at it but I can hold my own most of the time, why?"

Harry contemplated what he was about to do, and decided that if she was going to be helping him then she had a right to know what she was getting herself in for. "There's something I think you should know about, and I doubt Dumbledore has told the order any of it so I guess I should, at least with you, if we're gonna be working together. Do you have access to a penseive?"

"Yeah, all Aurors are required to carry one at all times so we can easily provide undisputable evidence of any crimes. Here." She said while pulling a shrunken one from her pocket and expanding it.

Harry closed his eyes and extracted the memory he wanted and placed it in. Before he began the playback he explained. "You know that prophecy, the one the order was guarding and that Voldemort went to the ministry to get?" at her nod, he continued "Well it was about me and him, this is what it says." He said as he tapped the surface of the silvery thought with his wand, causing the ghostly image of his divination professor to rise out of the bowl and begin speaking the words that were forever burned into his soul that night in Dumbledore's office.

Once the playback had completed Harry returned it to his head and said to a speechless Tonks "that prophesy was make to Dumbledore about 2 months before I was born. He chose to lock me in his office that night after I'd just been injured and watched someone I cared about die and tell me then that the fate of the world is currently squarely on my shoulders."

"harry…I don't know what I can do to help you, but anything at all that you need, please just ask and I'll do my best. Over the time available I will train you as best I can in as much as I can. I promise you I will do whatever it takes to see you come out of this whole thing alive."

There was a moment of silence in which Harry truly appreciated the efforts Tonks was making on his behalf, and there was no need to verbally thank her as it showed on his face how much it meant to him.

After a moment Tonks asked "It mentioned a power of some sort. Any ideas what it is?"

"Nope. Dumbles claims that it's love…but unless he's expecting me to snog Voldemort to death, I really don't see how that one's gonna work."

Tonks cringed at the mental imagery there and said "No, personally I've always thought he treated sanity as something to take or leave…and I think he left it a while ago."

"You're not wrong about that. Anyway, onto less depressing topics. What've you come up with for training ideas?"

For the next few hours they discussed Tonks' suggestions for their summer schedule. Before they knew it, it was time for Tonks to be leaving, but before she did, she set him a task for the night.

"Harry, I don't know if you've done anything like this before but I want you to practice some wandless magic tonight, see what you can do, just use your body to focus it instead of your wand. Ok?"

"Ok, Tonks, I'll see you tomorrow then."

At this she picked up her invisibility cloak and left the room and the house.

Harry sat for a while longer considering all the radical changes that had occurred in the past few hours. When he woke up this morning he was just an average wizard with a famous name and an impossible destiny, now, not even twelve hours later he was a seriously powerful wizard with more magic than he knew what to do with and more special abilities than anyone he'd ever met, some of which he's never even thought possible.

After a while, this line of thought began to give him a headache, so he decided to practice as Tonks had recommended.

He decided that simple spells were probably best, so that if he didn't have the right control over them wandlessly he wouldn't do too much damage, so he grabbed his first year charms textbook and began with a light spell.

Harry focussed for an entire minute on this, simplest of spells and all of a sudden he felt a surge of magic through his body and a small globe of light, about the size of a tennis ball but brighter than a car headlight was floating above his right palm.

Wow he thought this isn't as hard as I thought it would be.

He continued on for another couple of hours relearning how to do magic without a wand. And in this time he discovered that rather than focussing on the spell, he should focus on the end result-don't think about levitating an object, focus on it being in the air, don't think about making an object move, imagine it already moving. That sort of thing.

Using this process over the hours, Harry learned a selection of spells from his different classes from various years, focusing solely on ones he thought might be useful. By the end of his two hours, Harry was once more exhausted as it had been hard work at first to get started, but he had defiantly made progress with about 25 spells learned and now only taking a second to focus sufficiently to use them.

Knowing that tomorrow would be a tiring day as well Harry decided that it was about time to go to bed. He scribbled a note saying that he was fine and sent it with Hedwig to Grimauld Place, stripped out of his clothes and crawled into bed.