The Boy Who Fell In Love

Summary: When Nymphadora Tonks gets sent on an important task, she is a woman on a mission: go back to Hogwarts, and find Harry Potter. Once there, new feelings surface and she makes friends with people she never expected to.

A/N: All reviews are welcome! Keep reviewing and tell what you think! Enjoy. Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter.

Harry slouched in his chair, nervously running a hand through his untidy hair, making it even untidier. He didn't know why he was nervous, but he was, for some odd reason. Groaning, he leaned forward and put his face in his hands. He couldn't believe that had just gone through his mind. He had enough experience with Tonks, they were friends, well, at least Harry thought they were. The common room door burst open just then, startling Harry from his thoughts. He sat up straighter and prepared to greet Tonks that he was sure to come walking through the doors.

Tonks stood there for a second, she had no clue what to say to Harry she supposed it was sort of her fault for avoiding him and they couldn't really work on a project together if they weren't talking.

"Sorry about everything," Harry said plucking up the courage talk to her.

Tonks nodded absently, striding over to the table Harry was sitting at.

"You shouldn't have done that," she said, taking out her quill and notebooks from her bag.

"I know,' Harry said carefully. 'I'm sorry, I didn't mean to-."

"Harry," she said smiling, "I know, I forgive you, but seriously you can't tell anybody about me, and you better stick to my fake name, if the ministry find out they will sack me, Mad-Eye will probably even kill me, you know what he's like," she said, winking at the young wizard.

"Alright, at least we can be friends, Nym Delauror." Harry said, happy that they were talking again. "by the way, I see what you did there."

"I was pretty proud of myself, if I do say so." She replied smiling.

He seemed ready to work now. He had his books and quill spread out on the table in front of him. She smiled to herself and flipped open her notebook, Tonks folded her hands and looked at Harry expectantly. "I think we should decide—and agree—what to do our project on," she said.

Where else would we start? he wondered to himself. He looked at her a little uncertainly. "Well…should we list some ideas first, then?" he asked.

Tonks nodded, grabbed her quill and positioned it above her notebook. She looked at him expectantly again. This was turning out better than she'd hoped. "Let's see what you've got, Potter"

"Er…" He took a deep breath and started, "Right…well, I suppose there's always human transfiguration—"

"Boring, anyway I heard a couple of others discussing that," Tonks interrupted quickly. "Half the class is probably researching it, so one we'll be just like everybody else, and two all the books will be out of the library. Also it's the most obvious topic; everyone already knows about it." She gave him a look.

Despite this, she wrote down human transfiguration in her tidy script in her notebook and looked back down at Harry, a small satisfactory smile tugging at her lips.

"We could always do Animagus Training."

Tonks stared at him in disbelief. "Animagus? Blimey Harry! Are you sure, that's meant to be really, really hard."

Harry frowned at her bad temperedly. "McGonagall demonstrated it to us the first day in our third year, but we didn't really learn about it." He paused for a moment. "If there have only been nine registered so far in this century, then it must be pretty difficult, right?" He sought her eyes. "If it's so easy why aren't there more? I imagine it takes quite a long time to go through all the steps and learn all the rules—plus the fact that the Ministry is involved and you have to register and everything. It's probably a hassle that a lot of people don't want to put up with." Harry paused again. "You like difficult stuff—Animagi should be difficult. Since it's so hard to do it's probably nearly impossible to find good books on it. You like challenges and if you asked Hermione she could probably sniff out the book you wanted from ten miles away."

Harry was warming up to the topic now, but wasn't sure what Nym thought of it. Since he knew so much about Animagi it would be a breeze of an assignment to do, though perhaps a bit difficult not to accidentally give away that he was in fact an unregistered Animagus—especially while working with Nym, who was probably the cleverest witch in his year seeing as she had already completed her O.W.L and N.E.W.T years and at least four years of auror training.

"Fine," he said thinking about what else they could do, "what about vanishing spells, or turning owls into opera glasses, or, erm, switching spells?"

Tonks screwed up her face, and shook her head, "everybody will be doing them, we need something original."

Sighing, Harry shook his head and waited for a response from Tonks. When none came, he said flatly, "I've given you at least four topics, and if you hate them, I'd be delighted to hear what you've got up your sleeve."

Tonks bit her lip, thinking furiously. She hadn't thought that he'd be able to come up with such good ideas—true, one or two of them weren't the best, but the others weren't that bad. It was true that a few of them would be popular topics with the rest of the class, but all in all Tonks was a bit pleased that Harry could think up so many topics so quickly. She remembered in her last year they'd had a smaller, similar project about mammal transfiguration and the 'charming', Charlie Weasley had been her partner. It had been a disaster…he was as thick as a tree trunk and she'd had to do more than half the project by herself. At least it seemed Harry was willing to cooperate and it had always been rumoured that Harry was excellent at Transfiguration. If he was this fast at thinking up topics, perhaps he'd be some help in the research part of the assignment.

As to Animagi, Tonks wasn't sure whether it was a good idea or not. True, she had learned about them in her third year at Hogwarts, but as Harry had said, it was brief, and more of an introduction to the year than anything else. She knew it was important to Harry as well, seeing as his father was an animagus and he wanted to know as much about him as he could. Besides, not many people would choose a topic so distant, so they had a good chance of having an original topic, anyway McGonagall was an Animagus so at least they could get some inside awareness.

Tonks had never had a real curiosity about Animagi before, mostly because she was already a metamorphmagus. It was an interesting topic, but she didn't know much about it and she was curious because only nine people had registered so far in the century as Animagi, and there had to be a reason, perhaps it was very difficult.

Tonks turned to Harry in acceptance. "Do you know anything about Animagi?"

It was settled, Tonks and Harry would be studying animagi for their Transfiguration assignment; Tonks wanted to achieve the highest grade possible; one that would make even Hermione jealous. If it was true what she had heard at the ministry about Harry being a Transfiguration god this wouldn't be to hard. She decided to head to library to do some research on animagi and to get the grade she wanted to achieve, she was going to be in there a lot for the next two weeks. Harry, however, didn't find a trip to the library everyday quite so appealing; he had other things on his mind, such as his beloved Quidditch training and the up coming match against Slytherin that he just had to win. Tonks didn't mind too much about this as she did get an outstanding in her Transfiguration O.W.L and N.E.W.T years; she was certain it was only due down to the fact that she was a metamorphmagus, if she was honest. They had decided on a trip to the library before Harry's afternoon Quidditch training this evening.

Letting out a sound of disgust, Tonks slammed her book shut, not caring about the glares she received from a group of second year Ravenclaws studying a few tables away. Throwing her phoenix feather quill on the table, she slumped back in her seat.

"There's nothing here!" she groaned, rubbing her tired eyes with her hands. "I haven't found anything useful at all."

This was basically true. It was Wednesday evening and they only had twelve days left before the project was due. It seemed like a lot of time from afar, but in reality time was closing in quickly and Tonks could definitely feel it. With all their different after school activities there were few times when their schedules corresponded and they could meet up to work on their Transfiguration assignment. Tonks had hoped to be nearly half done by now and they'd hardly gotten anywhere.

Even when Harry had made her go to bed early and worked on the project by himself, and he had found more in that one night than she had found in three days.

Harry marked the page of his book with a piece of scrap parchment, looking thoughtful. "Maybe we just—"

"—aren't looking hard enough?" Tonks finished. She dropped her hands from her face and glared at him. "I swear I've searched this library—from top to bottom—twice, even Hermione has helped me. If I'm not looking hard enough, then I don't know where else to look."

"Have you tried the Restricted Section?" Harry asked softly, one eyebrow raised.

Tonks sighed, cursing herself. "No," she admitted reluctantly, slouching in her chair. "If I'd known researching Animagi would be so difficult, I wouldn't have let you choose this topic."

"I choose?" Harry grinned. "If I remember correctly, you agreed on choosing this topic too" He grinned broadly at her scowl. "Besides, we can ask McGonagall for a note to get us in the Restricted Section."

Tonks sighed, admitting defeat. "I guess you're right. I don't know why I didn't think of that. The main library has never failed me before." She glared at the book she had slammed closed before. 'But all the books I've looked through either mention Animagi in passing, whine about how difficult it is, or hint how horrible things can happen if attempted early."

"Don't forget that you have to register with the Ministry."

Tonks groaned. "I know. They mention it every other sentence." She leaned forward, hand in chin and elbow on table. "You seem to have gotten farther than me."

Harry tried to scratch his head nonchalantly. He had thought things were going smashingly so far—well, apart from the fact that they'd barely found any information in the library at all.

"Yeah, I guess…" and then in response to the look she gave him, "okay, so I've found more than you."

Tonks raised an eyebrow. "Would you care to explain?" she asked. "I mean, I know you're supposed to be a Transfiguration god, everyone at the Ministry is always talking about it" she rolled her eyes, "but really…"

"It's just…My dad sort of, I dunno, studied Animagi, I guess you'd say." Harry rubbed his neck, remembering. "and then, well, when I met Sirius, I suppose I was a little too curious, you know, I don't remember my parents a lot and he humoured me and explained the basics. I'm sure my dad had some books we could find. It would be a lot faster than if we tried to order something from Flourish and Blotts."

She seemed to be thinking it over. "Well, we're not getting very far on our own. I think that's a good idea, but Harry how are we meant to get your Dads books?"

Harry smiled at her, but before he could answer, the doors to the library burst open with a clang that startled Madam Pince, the cranky old librarian, and in strode Professor McGonagall.

Her nostrils were flared and her lips were pressed into an alarmingly thin line. Her thick black cloak billowed out behind her as she strode across the floor to their table. The second year Ravenclaws nearby shot her terrified looks before scurrying from their table to cower behind some shelves. Madam Pince stood up as if she wanted to stop Professor McGonagall from continuing, but seemed to think better of it when she saw the look on McGonagall's face. Students checking out books or those studying at tables across the room peeked out from between shelves and over books and strained their necks to get a better look at McGonagall's fury.

"Potter," she growled softly. Her eyes were blazing.

Harry looked innocently at the Transfiguration professor, displaying a sense of polite curiosity. Tonks noticed he was gripping his quill rather tightly.

"Do you happen to know what time it is, Mr. Potter?" Professor McGonagall steamed.

Harry shook his head.

"Well, that would explain why you are half an hour late for your quidditch session."

"Yes professor," Harry said

"I expect you to clean up here and head straight to the Quidditch pitch were the rest of the Gryffindor team is waiting for you. And I trust you will remember, in future, not to let this happen again."

"Yes, professor," Harry said again.

Without another word, Professor McGonagall turned on her heal and strode across the room the way she had come, her robes billowing out behind her. Before she reached the doors however, Tonks stopped her.

"Wait, professor!" she called, following McGonagall to the doors of the library. Grasping her quill in one hand and a piece of parchment in the other, Tonks leaned in close to whisper to her teacher, while the other occupants of the room tried to inconspicuously eavesdrop.

Sighing and ignoring the stares from neighbouring students, Harry started gathering his things together. A second later Tonks was back and settling once again into her chair. Harry threw his books in his bag.

"Harry! I almost forgot."

"What?" he asked.

"I just…McGonagall signed a note for us to use the Restricted Section," she said. Digging through her bag, Tonks pulled the parchment out that she had raced over to McGonagall with before. "So, while you're at Quidditch practise, I can get some books out."

"Okay, well," he said, rubbing the back of his neck, "I've got to go. McGonagall probably been timing me." He smiled thinly.

Tonks nodded and watched him turn and continue down the corridor.