Unlikely Mentor
Chapter 10

Disclaimer: This work of fan-fiction is not intended for personal profit. All characters utilized herein which are not creations of myself belong to J. K. Rowling.

As though Harry's mild set-to with Dumbledore had been the starting pistol for a deluge, several things happened in rapid succession for Harry in the days ahead.

First, that night after supper, a knock at the door had Aunt Petunia getting into a hissed sharp exchange with the person visiting. Harry, stacking dishes in the sink for Dobby to secretly wash the next day, was just finishing up washing his hands when he heard Aunt Petunia say to him in a strained and oddly polite tone, "Get over here!"

As Harry walked over, Aunt Petunia sniffed loudly and stalked off, loudly urging Uncle Vernon and Dudley out onto the rear patio. A black-haired woman stood at the doorstep of Number Four Privet Drive. She was maybe an inch taller than him, and had a heart-shaped face. Upon seeing Harry, she grinned (which looked a bit out of place considering her conservative clothing) and tugged at her sleeve. Upon seeing the wand poking out, he grinned and realised why Aunt Petunia had had her sudden bout of politeness.

"Hi. I don't know your name, but I guess you're one of the patrollers around the area?" asked Harry.

The young woman grinned. "Sure am! Name's Tonks." She stuck her hand out.

Harry shook hands with her and grinned widely. "Not… Nymphadora?"

Her sudden cloudy expression nearly made Harry burst out laughing. As he grinned widely, he said, "Sorry, Tonks. Sirius and Remus already told me your name. So what brings you here?"

Tonks grimaced. "You try going through school with a name like mine." She screwed up her face for a moment, then her hair turned pink.

"Cool!" blurted Harry. He remembered Sirius mentioning Tonks being able to change her appearance; so this was how she did it!

"And with abilities like mine, you get a lot of, shall we say, requests from boys that require an immediate hexing," Tonks replied as she let her hair slowly go black again. "So. Just call me Tonks, don't ask me if I can make my boobs bigger, and we'll get on all right."

Harry coughed. "Um, right. Well, this way." He hurried upstairs, not wanting to show his reaction to the sudden onslaught of images that had briefly run through his mind. Damn nearly fifteen-year-old hormones, he thought to himself. Hermione had mentioned that word once and he'd later looked it up in a dictionary, which had thereupon taken him searching to and fro as the related terms "puberty" and "sexual development" appeared. He'd gotten quite an education, all without needing "The Talk" – and thank God for that; Harry had once had a nightmare about Uncle Vernon having to tell him about the "birds and the bees", as they called it when he was younger.

In his bedroom, Harry sprawled out on his bed and idly tossed his Daily Prophet off to one side. Tonks looked around and waved her wand briefly, conjuring up a chair to sit on. It was considerably less ornate than Dumbledore's the other day, and Harry said, "Did Dumbledore sort everything out about spells here?"

Tonks took off her suit jacket, draped it over the back of her chair and sat down. "Yep. As far as the Ministry is concerned, you have official tutors in magic authorised by him, so spells here are from him or anyone he says is okay. He could still squeeze that out for now, but…"

"Yeah, I saw the Prophet. The Ministry want him removed from his seats on the Wizengamot and ICW," groused Harry. He snapped his fingers. "Say, why did you come in?"

"Right! I was gonna say something about that. Dumbledore figures, since you already know all about us there's no harm saying hello 'cos after all, being near you is guarding you, right?" She grinned cheekily. "Plus I've got some accumulated vacation time. What better time than now? After all, the Ministry claim You-Know-Who isn't back, so there's no war footing, and if there's no war footing, can't exactly deny me my three weeks, now can they?

"And I figure you'd probably rather be chatting with me than Sturgis or heaven forbid, Dung Fletcher." Tonks made a face at that last.

"I've heard. And smelled, too. Caught a whiff of tobacco around the neighbourhood sometimes." Harry wrinkled his nose at the memory.

"My sometimes partner Shack – sorry, Kingsley Shacklebolt – wants to arrest him for something, anything, but so far Dumbledore's more interested in what that sod's ears can pick up down in Knockturn." Tonks shrugged. "We'll see. It's a waiting game right now, Harry. The other shoe's going to drop eventually, but both we in the Order and You-Know-Who and his Death Eaters are working in the shadows for now."

Harry sat up. "So you're… an Auror, I think Sirius said?"

Tonks brightened up. "Sure am! I'm a Metamorphmagus as well, which means what you saw with my hair? I can make myself look like anyone, which is dead useful if I'm tailing a suspect. I got top marks in Concealment and Disguise during Auror training without any study at all, it was great. Then again, I seem to be dead clumsy, tripping over a lot of things – nearly failed on Stealth and Tracking 'cos of that."

Harry, intrigued by the woman in front of him who exuded coolness even with her relatively conservative outfit, sat enthralled as Tonks regaled him with stories of Auror training under the fabled Mad-Eye Moody himself, as well as stories from her Hogwarts years ("I never made Prefect, probably because I never quite behaved myself well enough").

All in all, it was a fun evening and Harry was looking forward to meeting Tonks again; maybe he could get away with some actual spellcasting next time.

/\/\/\/\

The next day, Remus Lupin showed at Harry's doorstep. Unlike with Tonks, Lupin escorted Harry to the nearby park, and they sat at a bench, fortuitously shaded by a tree that warm summer day.

"So, Harry, it'll be any day now we take you to Sirius's house. We've already moved your friend Ron and his family. We'll be moving Hermione Granger later this week; her parents have been set up with a three-month-long vacation. They'll be visiting Canada, then New Zealand and Australia."

Harry let out a slight sigh of relief. He'd already been informed of some of this via Dobby-mail, but it was still good to know for sure. "What's the hold-up?" he inquired.

"The biggest debate is about security. If Mad-Eye gets his way you'll practically be flying all over England and Wales before arriving at Headquarters, but those of us with a little more sense are trying to convince him of other methods." Remus sighed and mused, "The Headmaster's been away for a few days, so without him we can't seem to move forward as fast as we'd like."

Harry frowned. "Are you sure it's smart, putting all your faith in Dumbledore like that? You make it sound like you practically genuflect before him before waiting for his final pronouncements."

Remus leaned forward and seemed on the verge of grasping Harry's arm. "Look, I won't deny he's made some mistakes—"

"Considering where I live is the result of one of them, they're pretty big mistakes when he does," spat Harry.

Remus sighed and ran his hand through his hair. "I know, Harry. He explained to Sirius and me just last night." A small smile flitted across his face. "You should've seen old Padfoot, though. If I hadn't been holding him back he'd have actually hexed Albus Dumbledore.

"But still, Harry, he's lived over a hundred years – excellent control over his magic – and the only one Voldemort fears. That's not a small thing, you know."

The feeling of restlessness was stronger than ever now. It had come and gone since that night he'd encountered a re-embodied Voldemort, and it finally rose to the point where he blurted, "Look, I'm just tired of being on the sidelines here. I've been reading the Prophet. I want to fight!"

"But you shouldn't have to!" barked Remus. "Do you really think you, a teenager, need to be plunged into the world of adult responsibilities and adult fears and adult worries?"

Harry, somewhat abashed, muttered, "All right – look, what other teenager has Voldemort personally using his blood for a resurrection ritual and then has Voldemort try to kill him, again?"

"Again? What's this, Harry?" Remus frowned.

Harry snorted. "What, you didn't know? Besides that time when I was one, there's the end of my first year when Voldemort was after the Philosopher's Stone, and then again when some kind of shade of him tried setting that basilisk on me in the Chamber of Secrets.

"So, yeah, again, Remus," he ended, his voice laden with sarcasm.

"Albus didn't say anything about this," said Remus faintly.

"Probably to keep the rumors down. I mean, it's not exactly something you want to go trumpeting around: 'Dark Lord found twice at Hogwarts in a decade!'" Harry made sure to use the air quotes, too.

Even though the still air around them seemed to weigh Harry down in the seriousness of the discussion, he still smiled as he heard a small snort leave Remus. When Lupin could trust himself to speak normally again, he said, "I should be getting you back home, Harry."

As the twosome got up and made their way back to Number Four, Remus mused, "You know, it's been quite a few years since I saw your Aunt Petunia."

Curiosity rose within Harry. Even if it was Aunt Petunia, he still knew so little about those years when his parents had been alive. "What about her?"

"Oh! Well, the last time I saw her, it was at the wedding reception for her marriage to your Uncle Vernon. It – well, it didn't go well. Your mother and your aunt were already on bad terms, and it hadn't helped that your father was a bit amused by Vernon and made the mistake of showing it. Anyway, the next time they met at the reception it was so uncomfortable Lily made James leave early, and so Sirius, myself, and… Wormtail left with them."

Harry groaned, "Well, at least I know for sure my aunt's always hated magic."

"It'll only be a few more days, trust me," reassured Remus.

Author Notes: Some text has been adapted directly from Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.

And so here is another transitional chapter. Also, anyone who'd like to beta this, please let me know :)