The next morning they were just finishing up the breakfast dishes when they heard a loud crash in the drawing room.
"Sounds like Tonks has arrived," Lupin quipped.
Moments later, the kitchen door banged open, and the young auror appeared, her robefront stained with dirt. "I'm afraid there's a bit of a mess in the fireplace. The bag of guano caught on one of the irons and ripped." She sneezed, raising a cloud of fine dust from her robes. "That stuff's pretty fragrant, Neville. Couldn't settle for an ordinary bit of dirt, could you?"
"I'm afraid not. Professor Sprout says Madagascar fruit bat guano is the best fertilizer in the world."
"Well, you're the expert." She sneezed again. "And I got everything else on your list, too. Seeds and all. You'll have a right proper garden soon enough."
"Thanks," said Neville. "But it looks like I won't have much time to work on it. We need to get that laboratory cleaned up."
"Oh no," said Lupin. "We'll need your garden, Neville. We can buy what herbs we need, but they're much more potent when they're fresh. So by all means, work on your garden. We won't be ready for the final stages on the laboratory until August's full moon."
"Full moon?" Harry asked, his expression anxious.
"Yes. After we clean and purify the room, it will need to be consecrated. We'll be drawing on new magic and binding it to the room to create a convergence that will be conducive to the preparation of new spells. Magical currents are at the height of their power during the full moon, so that's when the final rituals will take place."
"But the full moon - you'll be..."
"I won't be taking part in the final ritual," Lupin explained.
Harry was crestfallen. "But --."
"That's the way it has to be, Harry."
He didn't seem to be satisfied, but Lupin was right: there was nothing to be done about it.
Turning to Neville, Lupin cheerfully suggested, "Why don't we all go work on the greenhouse while it's still morning? Then after lunch when the day has grown hotter, we'll come inside and work on the laboratory. What do you say, Tonks? Care to help us?"
"I'd love to! Just so long as I don't have to mess with that guano." And she gave a lusty sneeze.
So they hauled the supplies up to the roof. The others all looked to Neville to tell them what to do. It was a strange experience to be considered the expert at something, but even he couldn't deny that he knew more about gardening than the others. So he put Lupin and Tonks to work at rigging the tarpaulin over the greenhouse while he and Harry began mixing guano and soil enrichers into the beds. It was a pleasant morning, and Lupin, Harry, and Neville relished the opportunity to work outdoors.
As she tied the edge of the tarpaulin to the greenhouse frame, Tonks said, "You boys will have taken your OWLs, right? I expect you're all worked up about your marks."
"I'm trying not to think about it," Neville muttered, and Harry nodded.
"What profession are you interested in?" Tonks asked.
Harry answered, "I want to be an auror, like my parents."
"Excellent choice, if I do say so myself," said Tonks, beaming her approval. "We'll be colleagues! And you've certainly got it in your blood. Your parents were the best, they say. Yours too, Neville. Do you want to be an auror as well?"
"I might," said Neville, with more than a bit of pride. In truth, he'd never dared hope he could be an auror. Certainly he had enough people telling him he could never hope to aim that high. But Lupin seemed to think he was competent, and Harry kept talking about how crucial his help had been at the Ministry. Neville would have never admitted to anyone before that he might aspire to being an auror. Then again, he didn't have to be one just because his parents had. "I don't really know exactly. I haven't made up my mind yet."
"That's smart. Keep your options open. Maybe you'll be a potions brewer, what with all this herbology expertise. Or you'll research spells to fight You-Know-Who. Between you and Harry, the old boy had better watch out!"
If anyone else had said that, Neville would have though he was being teased. But Tonks appeared genuine in her praise. He'd never before been surrounded by so many people who thought he could be good at something. It was a nice feeling.
Tonks finally finished tying off the section of tarpaulin and started on another. "So do either of you have any particular lady friends?"
Neville hastily busied himself mixing soil, leaving Harry to stammer, "N-no."
"No! What about you, Neville?"
Cornered, Neville blushed and said, "Um, no."
Tonks gaped. "Two good-looking blokes like yourselves, and you haven't a girlfriend between you? I'm shocked. In my day, Gryffindors were always scoring, and I'm not talking about Quidditch."
"Tonks!" Lupin reprimanded.
"What? Wasn't that true when you were at school?" She flashed him a coquettish grin, and it seemed to Neville as if her features changed slightly, her lips a bit fuller and more red, her eyelashes longer. "I bet you had a different girlfriend every week."
To Neville's surprise, Lupin blushed. "I-I just don't think that's an appropriate topic of conversation."
"Oooh, that wild, were you? You devil." Did Tonks actually growl? "But these two are good, red-blooded British lads. I'm sure they're thinking about it all the time, even if they aren't seeing much action. When I was that age, everyone knew Gryffindors were always good for a shag."
"Tonks!"
"I mean snog."
"Be that as it may, you're not that age anymore. You are considerably older." He gave her a warning look.
"Oh. Right. Set a good example and all that." She imperiously cleared her throat. "Just remember, boys: keep your trousers zipped, and you can't go wrong."
Harry and Neville exchanged embarrassed smiles.
"And my other piece of advice to you is this," she added. "Never shag a Slytherin, because she'll only turn around and tell the other girls how big your --."
"Tonks!" Lupin barked.
"-wand is." She turned to Lupin and gave him the most artfully innocent look Neville had ever seen, and given that Fred and George Weasley were in his house, he'd seen quite a few. "Why, Remus," she drawled. "What did you think I was going to say?"
Throughout the rest of the day as they worked on the greenhouse and then the laboratory, they chatted and joked together. Tonks was the most talkative, of course, and whenever the conversation lulled, she could always be counted on to bring up a fresh topic: Hogwarts food, teachers, and classes; auror training; Quidditch teams; the Weird Sisters' latest album. She even managed to sneak in the occasional tidbit about Order of the Phoenix business, though Lupin put a stop to it whenever it got interesting. He may have been a fellow member of the Orphans Welfare League, but he never forgot his role as responsible adult in the house.
It was the kind of chitchat that Neville had always just listened in on before. At home he eavesdropped on his grandmother talking with adult friends and family members. At school he would make himself as unobtrusive as possible and listen to his classmates gossip around him. He learned a lot by keeping quiet and paying attention.
But here the others did not allow him to stay out of the conversation. They kept drawing him in, asking his opinion, laughing at his jokes. And when he said something, they sincerely listened to him. It was a novel experience, and he found he liked it.
By the end of the day, he was starting to believe he really could accomplish anything he set his mind to, even the task that Lupin had appointed to him. So after supper he retired to the library to read up on magic purification. Harry went with him to help, and they spent an hour or two pulling books off the shelves and browsing quietly through the pages, jotting down notes as they read.
Neville was engrossed in a treatise on banishment charms when Harry sighed loudly and removed his glasses. Rubbing at his eyes, he said, "I haven't found anything at all on driftwood."
Surprised, Neville looked across the mound of books lying open on the table. "I thought you were reading up on exorcism."
"I was, but I got sidetracked."
Neville lowered the book he'd been reading and chewed on his lip. "I wonder if their medical records might give us a clue."
"Can you get hold of them?" Harry asked.
Frowning, Neville turned his quill over and over in his hands. "I'll make sure I do."