Your Love Is All The Magic I Need
A/N: Don't own a thing, especially not HP. I hope you enjoy Chapter Twenty-Five. Italics denote thoughts. Bold is for spells.
Chapter Twenty-Five: Symptoms of the universe
The weekend had arrived and Harry was glad for it. The Yule Ball was just around the corner and he had been practicing nearly every night with Fleur. If they weren't dancing, they were working on strategies for the Second Task. It wasn't all bad, of course, it was time spent with an incredibly beautiful witch who knew the best way to motivate him was to kiss him when he did well. Well, it was her, Harry rather doubted that it would work quite as well in his classes.
Fleur and Evangeline were spending the weekend with Apolline. Tonks was using the break to spirit Harry away from the castle. Currently, they were in her flat, Harry sat on her couch while Tonks was preparing the final stages of a very familiar smelling potion. "Why are you brewing polyjuice?" He asked, turning to face her.
"Not brewing, I'd already bought some ready-made from my friend Penny. I figured you needed a break without anyone bothering you. So I grabbed a couple of hairs from a bloke I thought was handsome and here we are." Tonks said as the potion sputtered and then handed it to him, "Down the hatch!"
Harry took the offered potion and swallowed it, wincing as he did so. He was glad that he was sitting as he felt his bones shifting. A few moments passed and where Harry sat there was now a brown-haired man roughly Tonks' age. "I will never get used to this." Harry said as he looked at his hands, "Isn't polyjuice super illegal?"
"You wouldn't tell on me would you?" She asked, batting her eyelashes playfully. "Technically it's illegal for civilians to own. Aurors can use it if they are on an investigation. So I bought some for our date." She grinned and sat down beside him, "If anyone asks, just say it's confidential." Tonks teased him and then kissed his cheek.
"We need to hurry, polyjuice only works for an hour," Harry said standing up. Tonks shook her head and rose behind him. "What is the plan for today anyway?"
"First, Mum wants to meet you. You never got your inoculations." Tonks said. She grinned at the look on his face, "Yes, your Auror girlfriend grabbed your file and checked it over. You need those shots, otherwise, you'd end up catching dragon pox and cacking it like your grandparents."
"I should go back to the Manor and catch up with them." Harry said, "It's still weird that my father is fifteen." He laughed then, "When Narcissa took me back last month he was very impressed that I'm dating you and Fleur."
Tonks laughed at that, "I'll bet he is. Cousin Sirius will probably build you a shrine." Tonks nudged him and then pulled him into a hug that signaled she was ready to apparate them, and so with a crack, they vanished.
Scene Break
Harry hated all forms of magical travel. As he rested against the brick wall in the backyard of the Leaky Cauldron he did his best to will all of his breakfast to stay in his stomach. Tonks watched him as she leaned against the same wall. "Maybe you need to keep some ginger candies in your pockets. Dad does that." She suggested to him.
"Does that help?" Harry asked weakly as he felt his mornings meal of bacon and potatoes working their way inexorably northwards. He swallowed hard, pushing his nausea back down. "I'll try anything if it might help."
Tonks nodded, "Alright. Once we go see Mum, I'll top you off on your potion and then we'll grab you some ginger from Penny's shop." She grabbed his hand and led him through to the other side of the alley once the portal opened.
Harry had never been to St. Mungo's before. As they walked through the alley, he wondered just how much magic was dedicated to keeping all of this hidden from the muggle world. He knew, thanks in part of Hermione's gushing, that if a muggle was above the alley and looked down all they would see is an empty and rundown series of buildings. The land was technically owned by the Crown, a fact that kept anyone from trying to develop this area. Given how close it was to Kings Cross Station, Harry was amused that there wasn't a low-quality but high-price souvenir shop near the Leaky Cauldron.
Tonks pulled him down an alleyway and into a nondescript building. "There isn't really a public entrance for St. Mungo's." She explained, "So, I'm taking you in the entrance that mum uses when she's coming back from her post-lunch walk." With that, she led him up a flight of stairs towards an empty hallway, "Just like at the Leaky, tap your wand on the sconce on the wall and walk through."
Harry walked up to the dusty sconce and tapped it as directed. The faded off-white wallpaper shimmered and rippled away as a dark wooden door appeared in front of them. Opening it, he stepped in to find himself in what looked like a break room. An old medi-witch looked up from her newspaper, "'ere now, what are you doing? You can't be 'ere!"
"Don't trouble yourself, Auror business," Tonks said as she flashed her bade and then pushed Harry through the door. Once they were in the hallway she groaned softly, "That's Matilda Dunkirk. She works on Mum's floor. The woman is a total bitch, so there's no way we didn't just get Mum yelled at for me using that entrance."
She shook her head, "No matter. Come on, we need to get you into her office before the potion wears off. After that we'll be in muggle London, so we can forgo using more potion. Unless you like the taste." She teased him as she opened the door marked 'A. Tonks- Floor Chief' and pushed him inside. "Wait here, I'll find Mum and be right back."
The door closed, practically in his face, as Tonks raced down the hallway.
Harry sat in the chair opposite the desk and waited. He winced as the potion began to wear back off. Must have been a weak batch if I changed back so soon, it's barely been half an hour...He thought. The office looked similar to the one the nurse at his primary school had occupied. The shelf had a number of books and on the wall above the shelves, there were small glass-fronted boxes, each containing a positively medieval looking medical tool.
He was fascinated by the items on the wall and didn't notice the door open and a curly-haired woman steps inside with Tonks. She cleared her throat and Harry turned, "Hello Mr. Potter, my name is Andromeda Tonks, Nymphadora has asked me to look over your records. You are missing all of your childhood inoculations for our world and most of the ones you need for the muggle world." She waved her wand and her face set into a deeper frown, "It seems I will need more potions than these." She said indicating the small bag she carried under her arm. Setting it down she opened the bag and spoke into it, "Class nine potion selection." Harry heard a clinking as more bottles appeared inside the bag.
"That's my mother, straight to the point." Tonks said with a small grin, "Dunkirk tried to beat me to her, but thankfully some poor bugger came in with a bad reaction to doxy poison and passed out on her."
"Matilda is not a joy to be around, but that does not give you an allowance to take pleasure in someone else's suffering." Andromeda chided her daughter before turning her full attention to Harry, "Let's begin."
Harry thought signing all of those papers at Gringotts had been painful. That had been like a scalpel slicing into his hand. It stung and burned but the pain itself had been over quickly enough. These potions felt like his insides were twisting and churning inside him. The first bottle had felt like hot tar pouring into his throat. Why does every type of medicine taste so horrible? He wondered as he swallowed to clear his throat.
The next one was no better. It had a strange gritty texture that felt like water with sand in it. Thankfully the taste was slightly better, a vague chalky fruit flavor that reminded Harry of the stick in a sherbet dib-dab. Setting down the bottle he continued with the next.
When they were finished Andromeda waved her wand and the bottles vanished. "Good, with those in your system you are up to date. However, I am going to send an owl to Poppy. She should have done this your first year." Andromeda looked sternly at her clipboard, "More worrying is the fact that I found multiple incidences of broken bones in your limbs. Except for your right arm."
"I had the bones vanished thanks to an idiot. Madam Pomfrey gave me skelegro." Harry explained uncomfortably.
That answer did not mollify Andromeda. "That explains one arm. Might I ask about the other three limbs? Or the hairline fracture on your skull?" She raised a thin eyebrow, "Your body shows signs of abuse and a lot of it."
Harry looked away, "My relatives-" Harry began.
He was cut off by Tonks, "What? What did they do to you?" She demanded, "I swear on Merlin's saggy left bollock they won't get a chance to do it again!"
Andromeda turned to her daughter, "That's enough. If you are going to deal with this, then do it as an Auror and not because a friend was abused." She looked back at Harry, "They beat you, didn't they?" She asked, her voice much kinder than it had been when she'd first entered the room.
"It wasn't that bad. Uncle Vernon just hit me with a belt a few times. Dudley and his gang used to beat me up after school but I got good at hiding." Harry said looking away, "They haven't done it since my first year at Hogwarts."
"They will end up in prison before the end of the week," Tonks promised. She grabbed his hand and pulled him close before apparating out of the office.
Andromeda stood there for a moment and then went to her desk. She made a few notes on a piece of paper and then tapped it with her wand. It folded into an airplane and flew off. That will reach Narcissa. She is his Seneschal, she will handle this before my bullheaded daughter gets herself discharged. Andromeda mused as she went to complete her rounds.
Scene Break
Tonks had dropped Harry off at the Manor. Their date is damned, she was going to the Ministry and rounding up whomever she could to arrest the Dursleys. Kissing him and promising to return to take him out for dinner, she vanished, leaving Harry to the tender mercies of Narcissa.
Narcissa would admit that she was feeling rather restless. Bellatrix had taken to spending entire days, and nights, with her muggle man. Sirius was at Hogwarts, a fact that made the house more peaceful, if duller. All she'd had to talk to were the Potter portraits.
Currently, she had Harry at her desk. He was watching as Narcissa stepped back from behind a silk screen, "My robes for the Wizengamot arrived from Master Sartor. Do you like them?" She asked as she held out her arms, spinning so he could get the full effect. "He did a masterful job if I do say so myself."
"It looks great." Harry managed. It did, the robes were obviously very different from the sort he'd gotten from Madam Malkin's shop. Narcissa smiled at him from over her shoulder and turned to face him.
"I still need to thank you for what you did for Draco. He's still furious of course, but I consider him being out of Azkaban worth his being angry with me." She walked over and kissed his cheek. "Please, anything I can do-"
"You've done this much for me," Harry said, placing a hand on hers. "You don't need to offer me anything."
She sighed, "You are far too noble for your own good. If you keep this up, you will end up with an unscrupulous woman deciding that your nobility is just gullibility in a different name." She stepped back from him. A strange guilty feeling speared into Narcissa, "You have the making of a great leader of our family." She told him, almost absently as she looked away. Her thoughts of seduction seemed a million miles away from her now.
Harry smiled at the compliment, "With you helping I'm sure I'll get there."
A sentiment Narcissa didn't know if she believed anymore. But she knew at that moment, that she would do everything in her power to make that a reality.