WARNING: IF YOU ARE READING THIS AND CURRENTLY UNDER THE IMPRESSION THAT I AM J.K ROWLING, AND THIS IS THE CURSED CHILD REWRITTEN, LET ME ASSURE YOU THAT I AM NOT IN FACT J.K, AND I DO NOT OWN HARRY POTTER.
1K followers on this story. That's pretty cool, I guess. I guess I'm famus now, only fans coming soon :).
Anyway, you aren't here to read bring authors notes, you're here to see Harry causing chaos. ENJOY!
Chapter 5: Dionysus
17th August 1995, 07:30pm
Number 12 Grimmauld Place, London, England.
Nymphadora Tonks arrived with a small crack on the grimy front doorstep of Number 12, Grimmauld place. As soon as she regained her coordination she snapped off a quick homenum revilio, just to make sure nobody saw her arrive or followed her.
Seeing no sign of life, she re-holstered her wand and walked up the last few steps and knocked smartly on the peeling black paint of the front door, making sure to knock three times slowly, and twice fast. After a moment she heard hurried footsteps and the door opened to reveal the matronly form of Molly Weasley, who smiled brightly when she saw her and opened the door wider to allow her entry.
"Oh, Nymphadora it is so good to see you, do please come in, the meeting is just about to start," Molly said warmly.
Tonks rolled her eyes, "don't call me that Mrs Weasley, and you're supposed to ask me a security question, remember?" She had said exactly this at least four times already.
"Oh right, of course dear," Molly said sheepishly, shutting the door again as if that would have helped at this point if Tonks wasn't who she said she was, "well, what did I serve you for dinner at the last Order meeting then dearest," she asked, her voice muffled through the small gap she had left.
'And then she mentions the Order in the security question,' Tonks thought in exasperation. Molly Weasley was a good mother, a good cook and a fairly fearsome duelist but when it came down to things like this she was about as subtle as Hagrid in a glass store.
"Steak and ale pie," Tonks said, letting herself in when Molly nodded and opened the door for her again. The door opened into a dingy hallway lined with old paintings, dark oak flooring and peeling wallpaper that was probably elegant once. The walls in the old manor seemed to eat into the shadows, and Tonks swore she could feel the house frowning at her. She repressed the urge to shiver. She suspected that it was because she had been cast out of the family, she always got the distinct feeling that the house didn't like her.
"Hey girls," Tonks called brightly and waved to Ginny and Hermione, two girls who she had got to know reasonably well over their time at the old house. Ginny reminded her of her school friend Sabina Lewis from Hogwarts, another redhead with a fiery temper. Hermione was the bookish type, not one that she would have associated with in her school days, but she was still liked the bushy haired girl.
"Hey Tonks," they chorused back with small smiles as Tonks made her way to the stairs, where they were leaning over the banister.
"Up to your rooms girls, and you mustn't try and listen in on the Order meeting, these are not things for young ears to hear," Molly scolded, jabbing a finger at them.
Hermione nodded and turned to leave without a fuss. After a few minutes of futile protest Ginny did the same, scowling as she did. Tonks was mirroring her behind Molly. She wasn't sure about Ginny, but Hermione was a friend of Harry Potter, and she thought that she and the Boy-Who-Lived should be included, especially after what the Boy-Who-Lived had gone through last school year. Nevertheless, she waved goodbye to them again and continued onwards.
As was custom, she tripped on the Troll leg at the top of the stairs on the way to the kitchen, where everyone was gathered for today's meeting. She had even watched it this time, determined not to trip on it, but at the last moment somehow her foot had connected with the ugly ornament, she was certain that it had actually moved to hit her. The sound of the umbrella stand hitting the floor and Tonks' loud cursing of course set off the portrait of Walburga Black, setting her off into a frenzy of cursing and name-calling that reverberated around the house. It took the combined effort of her and Molly to shut the loathsome bitch up. Molly gave her a reproachful look over her shoulder as they went down the stairs to the kitchen.
"Really dear, you must watch your step, one day you'll fall and hurt yourself."
Tonks inwardly groaned. She hated being spoken to like a child, and that seemed to be Mrs Weasley's only tone when she was speaking to anyone younger than she was. She supposed it was a quirk of raising seven children of her own. It didn't mean she had to like it.
She was saved from giving a snappy answer, that would inevitably devolve into an argument about the pros and cons of blasting the fucking leg to pieces by the door opening into the basement and kitchen of the ancient Black House.
The kitchen was the largest room in the house, taking up almost the entire basement floor. It was also one of few rooms without objects that could kill someone in a variety of absurdly creative ways. Most importantly it had a large, scarred wooden table in the centre, making it the best place for the Order to meet. Arrayed around the room were most of the current members of the Order of the Phoenix barring herself and Mundungus Fletcher, who rarely showed up for meetings. Tonks couldn't really say that she minded that.
Tonks slipped in next to Emmeline Vance, a middle aged, good looking witch with long light brown hair and soft features. She had been one of the few in Dumbledore's group to get through the first war against Voldemort without getting killed or sent to prison and one of the fewer to rejoin the recently reborn Order. Tonks hadn't spoken to her very much, all she knew is that she was a good fighter and she worked somewhere in magical transportation at the Ministry. Next to her was her mentor, Alastor Moody, looking impatient as always. She didn't think she had as much respect for anyone than she did for the one eyed man who had taught her everything she knew. He nodded at her in greeting and she nodded back.
"Ah Nymphadora, welcome, we can finally begin," a grandfatherly voiced called from the other side of the room. At the far end of the kitchen, presiding over everyone else was the tall form of Albus Dumbledore, dressed in some truly horrific honey yellow robes with lime green spirals.
Tonks' eye twitched at the use of her first name, but she couldn't be bothered to correct him, knowing he would just ignore her. She knew for a fact that he had a strange sense of humour, and probably found it funny. "Evening Headmaster, sorry I'm late, got held up at work for a bit, some idiot managed to blow up the front of his house trying to cut the grass," she said with a tired sigh.
She heard a bark of laughter from the right of the headmaster and her focus shifted to Sirius Black, probably her favourite person in this house and one of the few relatives she would admit to sharing blood with. He grinned at her and gave her a jaunty wave, looking happy to see her from where he was sprawled in a rickety old wooden seat, but Tonks could see the tightness in his eyes. The poor man had been locked up in this hellhole, a place where had been abused, for far too long, and he was starting to go insane, and he hadn't been that mentally stable to begin with. Tonks' conversations with him had probably been some of the only reprieve for the dog animagus over the last year, everyone else was either too physically young or too mentally old for him. The only other people he seemed to have long conversations with was Remus and Harry, but the werewolf was rarely in the house, normally away on some mission for Dumbledore and Harry was never around him for very long. He looked worn and weary, but the spark in his eyes that was so much like a certain other man's was still there, even after so long in Azkaban. She waved back and reciprocated the smile.
The headmaster's eyes twinkled merrily, "an easy mistake to make I'm sure," he said evenly, "now, onto what we have gathered here for. As you all know, a new year at Hogwarts starts at the end of this month, and we really must discuss who will be escorting the children to the station..."
Tonks, Mrs Weasley, Sturgis Podmore (a balding man with of average height with mousy brown hair), Moody and Remus Lupin all volunteered to shepherd all of the kids to platform 9 ¾. Tonks glanced sideways at the aforementioned werewolf, who was standing in the far left back corner of the room as if he was trying to become part of it. As always he looked tired and bedraggled, the scars that lined his face dipping and diving into deep lines around his brow and eyes.
She had been considering pursuing a relationship with him. He was, as far as she knew, a respectable man, even if he was a werewolf. She didn't find him too hard on the eyes, and had never seemed to mind when she used her abilities. But now she couldn't help but compare the grey, defeated looking man before her with Harrison Slate, a man who just seemed so alive. It had… opened her eyes, so to speak.
It wasn't that she was suddenly in love with the hurricane that was Harrison Slate, she had only had one conversation with him. But that one conversation had been enjoyable and entertaining and had left a good impression on her. He had made her laugh, and then moments later revealed that he was also not an idiot when he presented logic. Something that mages sorely lack all too often. Of course it did help that he was also far from being hard on the eyes, and a metamorph to boot.
When she put her image of the man alongside Remus… well, it didn't exactly endear her to the older man… the much older man. It was like holding a lit candle to an extinguished one. He looked like he was around a dementor constantly with the way he slumped and never smiled properly.
Nevertheless, she had been attracted to older men before, mages aged better than muggles after all, he seemed like a nice enough bloke and had showcased a sense of humour on occasion. She would reserve her judgement for the time being.
Tonks was brought out of her musings by Dumbledore starting the next segment of the meeting, the reports.
"Firstly, let me begin by saying that as you may have noticed, Hagrid is still away negotiating with the Giants for their guarantee not to join Voldemort in the war. As of yet there has been now word back from him and we should all pray that he is still well," there was a shiver at the Dark Lords name, and several people bowed their heads in acknowledgement at Hagrid's contribution. If the Giants fought against them, it would be a huge blow.
"Now let us begin with the reports. Remus, would you like to begin with what you gathered of the status of the werewolf clans?"
Remus stepped forward, she soft yellow light from the candles throwing the harsh white of the scars on his face into sharp relief, "the Alpha of the clan I have been in contact with in East Anglia told me that he has no intention of getting involved in the war, however as always Grayback is unsettling the lower ranks of the packs, the offer is just too lucrative for those who have given more into the wolf," he finished morosely, looking to the floor as if ashamed for some reason that Tonks couldn't understand.
Dumbledore nodded, "good good, continue the brilliant work Remus, the more of them that we dissuade the easier it will be to repeal those awful laws restricting the rights of the race that that vile woman put in place recently," his voice was still calm, but there was a definite chill behind his words. Tonks and several others nodded and snickered, Umbridge was one of the few that could raise the ire of the ancient mage, the toad seemed to have a real talent for it, "now onto our newest recruit, Kingsley do you have anything to report?"
Tonks smiled as she beheld the tall, always composed bald black man. He was one of her fellow aurors, and one of the few that she could actually stand. He had an air of calm and surety around him that never failed to both unnerve suspects and calm down fellow aurors.
"I tracked down Travers to where he has been hiding, he is currently in a safe house on the Isle of Man while he coordinates with a werewolf clan in north east Ireland. It is not feasible to attack the position, the wards were most likely lain by the Dark Lord himself, they are strong and I don't think it possible to bypass them," his deep baritone seemed to fill the kitchen as he delivered this, and he showed no discernable emotion at the news.
Dumbledore nodded slowly, "perhaps we could attempt to capture him outside of the safe house when he travels to the clan?" He theorised.
Kingsley's lips thinned slightly, "It would be difficult headmaster, he apparates from just outside of his wards to the edge of the camp, the window to capture him is very tight, it would most likely take a team of mages to complete such a task," he replied.
"Very well, maybe abandon Travers for the moment then and perhaps try and locate another of the death eaters, perhaps Remus could try and negotiate with the Donard Clan at a later date," Dumbledore offered. Kingsley nodded and stepped back against the wall where he was standing next to Sturgis Podmore.
"Emmeline, anything to report from your department?"
Emmeline stepped forward gracefully, "not much to report Albus, however I believe Jerome Brookes in the floo office is being paid to report usage of select fireplaces," she reported gravely.
Dumbledore looked sad at that, the lines in his face seeming to deepen slightly, "ah, I remember Jerome, a promising student… such a shame…please attempt to make a list of what fireplaces are being monitored and present them to me, perhaps we could use it to our advantage," Emmeline nodded and stepped back.
Dumbledore turned to address the next person, "Severus, what is the news from within the Dark Lords ranks?" he asked.
Severus Snape stepped forward from the shadows of the back left corner, about as far as he could get from both Sirius and Remus simultaneously. His pale face held the typical sneer that it always did. Her mood fell as soon as he saw the hooked-nosed man. He had detested her since she had been caught imitating him in her third year, and had made it his personal mission to make her time in Hogwarts miserable until she left. He still carried a petty grudge to this day, in her opinion the man was a child. And that really was something coming from her.
"The Dark Lord is still gathering strength and consolidating his forces, it is indeed true that he has acquired a contact in the department of transportation as Vance said, as well as others. Recently however, he has been… preoccupied. The capture and imprisonment of Elias Burke seemed to anger him greatly, especially as the one who he was tasked to kill, who subsequently… captured him, was a wizard who survived a recent raid that Rudolphus Lestrange coordinated." His lips curled into a cold smirk, "I do believe poor Rudolphus is still twitching occasionally after the cruciatus he was subjected to for his failure." Tonks may have imagined it, but she thought she heard a trace of humour in Snape's silky tone at that.
Dumbledore smiled, "Ah, I do believe that was the work of young Harrison Slate, yes?"
"Indeed," Snape's voice definitely held a hint of humour now, and he was still smirking, "I have been hearing his name being cursed around the manor by the Dark Lord multiple times over the last week, it would seem that he has a new… passion project. I must say that I approve of this one far more, he appears to be far more competent than Potter could ever be," he finished, ah, there was the reason for the humour. She should have guessed that it would have its roots in pettiness.
"Watch your mouth Snivellus, or I'll tell everyone here what happened in that fifth floor classroom in our fourth year," Sirius growled, sounding remarkably like his animagus with its hackles raised.
Snape's smirk vanished from his face and was replaced with a sneer, "you seem to think that I care, Black, you insufferable-"
"Enough gentlemen," Dumbledore interrupted, a hint of exasperation in his voice. There were some disappointed mutterings around the room. The verbal sparring between the two black-haired wizards was always entertaining to watch, "now, about Mr Slate… I must say that I am intrigued by the man, you all heard what happened between him and Elias Burke, yes?" He questioned.
There was a chorus of yeses and nods around the room. An Heir to a noble house getting sent to Azkaban was big news, and the Prophet had wasted no time in printing it. There had been some not so subtle jabs at Slate strewn throughout the paper, and it had hinted that he was some kind of blood traitor, but it had more or less reported what happened.
Dumbledore raised his hand and the room quieted immediately, "I found that young Elias did not in fact have the dark mark, however the memory shown at the trial depicted him in death eater attire, I therefore believe that he was sent to kill Mr Slate as initiation, his father is after all already a death eater, it is logical that his son would follow his path."
Tonks scowled, she knew that all to well. There had been a total of at least four raids on the Lord Burke's store and each time she was convinced that he had been pre-warned, as they would never find anything worth an arrest.
Sirius looked puzzled, "I'm not surprised Burke was trying to join, but why kill Slate? I heard he's a pureblood, doesn't that kind of go against their modus operandi or whatever?" He asked in confusion.
"I assure you, Black, that the Dark Lord is perfectly willing to kill any pureblood who is sufficiently irritating, you yourself are a perfect example of this," Snape drawled.
"Swallow a blasting hex grease ball," Sirius shot back.
Dumbledore nodded, completely ignoring their bickering, "normally yes, it does, however I found that Slate had been the sole survivor with his memories intact of a death eater raid on his home town of Digby a few weeks back, I believe that Mr Burke was sent to… clean up, so to speak."
Tonks grimaced at the bloody memory, "saw the aftermath of that raid, it was pretty brutal, some idiot lost control of fiendfyre and razed half of the town to the ground before it was subdued, was a bloody mess."
"Slate dealt with the intruder well though, I approve," Moody said with a grin, "although I would have preferred if he chose a piercer instead of a stunner."
"You only like him because he said 'constant vigilance' at his trial Alastor," McGonagall said in exasperation, choosing to ignore the homicidal tendencies of the man. The two were old friends, and had fought in the last two wars together, so she was probably used to it by this point.
"It's a good phrase," Moody grumbled under his breath, thumping his staff slightly petulantly.
"So he probably hates death eaters, do you think he would be a good fit for the Order?" Sirius asked bluntly.
"I know not," Dumbledore said with a shrug, "I would need to meet the man so I could… get a good feel for him."
Tonks winced, she wasn't sure how Harrison would react if he found someone trying to legilimise him, which is what she was sure the headmaster was thinking of doing. She was fairly certain that he knew at least rudimentary occlumency, she couldn't think of any other way he could have gone through Azkaban and come out the same as when he had entered.
"He believes what you and Harry are saying about You-Know-Who being back," she piped up, hoping to distract him from the idea so Harrison wouldn't end up attacking the Chief Warlock, "I mean it would be kind of hard for him not to, having been almost killed by death eaters twice in a short amount of time."
"You're sure he believes that the Dark Lord is back? It could be that he just thinks the death eaters are gathering again," Molly asked, sounding doubtful. Lots of others around the room looked just as doubtful as she sounded. Tonks couldn't blame them. It was very rare for them to find anyone who believed what Dumbledore and Harry said was true. Despite its general incompetency, one thing Fudge's administration was very good at was smear campaigns and shifting blame. Something they did often.
She shrugged, "he told me himself, we had a chat after his trial. Said he wouldn't be surprised if he was back because they never found a body, and he was probably dark enough to accomplish it."
"Ahh, logic. Such a rare and refreshing thing to hear these days," Dumbledore said wistfully.
"I like him," Moody contributed. Everyone else rolled their eyes.
"I saw him, on the day of his trial," Sturgis said, surprising everyone slightly. Sturgis sometimes didn't even show up for meetings, being almost as unfaithful as Mundungus, and when he did he rarely talked, "I was getting a wand cleaning kit at Ollivander's and saw him walking down the middle of Diagon Alley covered in blood," Sturgis shook his head and shuddered, "he didn't even seem to notice that everyone was staring at him."
Kingsley chuckled, "I was called to respond to that with Savage, we had to wait outside of Gringotts for an hour for him to come back out, and then we identified the blood as not being human," he paused for a moment, "actually, we couldn't identify the blood at all, it wasn't in the ministry records, so we couldn't take him in for anything."
"Indeed, he sounds like an interesting young man, Nymphadora, perhaps you could approach him again and attempt to ascertain whether he is fit for the Order. If he is I have a feeling he could be a considerable asset," Dumbledore said, stroking his beard.
'You have no idea,' Tonks thought, thinking about his metamorph abilities. She was probably one of the Order's more valuable members, being a metamorph and an auror opened a lot of doors that previously wouldn't have been possible to open. The only ones more valuable were probably Snape and Lupin, a second metamorph would be invaluable. But she had already decided beforehand that she wasn't going to tell them about Harrison's ability. It was odd to her. She barely knew him, yet to tell anyone else about his secret felt like a betrayal. He had only told her because she was a metamorph herself. She knew how precious the gift was to her and so knew that he had placed a massive amount of trust in her to keep it secret. No, they would have to find out themselves.
Tonks smiled, "sure, I can do that. I'll see if I can track him down," she replied, sounding maybe a tad more enthusiastic then strictly necessary. She snuck a glance at Remus out of the corner of her eye. He hadn't appeared to have any outward reaction at her eagerness to talk to another man, he still just looked tired. Disturbingly, Sturgis had looked more disappointed than he did. She didn't even want to think about that.
Dumbledore smiled at her "very good. Now, onto other matters..."
-oOo-
Harry took another sip of tea from an ever-warm flask that he had bought in Diagon Alley, checked the time, then shrunk and pocketed the flask in an inside pocket of his fancy new cloak. It was made from the skin he had saved from the second basilisk he had killed, as the scales were smaller and more mane gable. It had a very nice effect, most of the time it looked black, but from certain angles an emerald green shone through. He was under a slew of concealment wards near the edge of the wards of his target, who hopefully was about to emerge sometime soon.
He had got bored about a day after his encounter with the basilisks, and so had resorted to a favourite pastime of his, finding and killing dark mages.
It had taken three days for him to hunt the man down. He was one of Voldemort's inner circle, an ambitious first target, but the hat had wanted to put him in Slytherin. The trail had taken him to an island off an island, a place called the Calf of Man on the southern tip of the Isle of Man. The air around the small island was frigid, the grass was white and crunchy due to the frost covering it. The sea around the small island was so flat it looked like a plane of glass, a rare sight for the normally tempestuous Irish Sea.
Harry vanished the seat he had conjured and crouched over his temporary rune stone. Normally he would erect the wards with a wand, but for this the timing and placement was paramount, he couldn't be wasting time it took to cast it. He placed his wand on the top of a cube of solid stone with runes etched on all faces in preparation of activation. He would need to be fast.
Ten minutes later he was still hunched over the stone and was beginning to feel the chill of the British morning. Evidently his warming charms had started to waver and fail. Just as he lifted his wand from the ward stone to reapply it, the door to the small slate roofed shack he had been monitoring opened to reveal his target. Harry cursed and placed his wand back on the stone block, not fearing his target hearing it from outside of his silencing wards.
Cohan Travers was a man of average height and build. He was good looking for his age with high, aristocratic cheekbones and a sharp jawline. His black hair was slicked back in the traditional pureblood style, and his goatee was neatly trimmed. Harry had no eyes for any of these details however, instead focusing on the ward line surrounding the man with his mage-sight, watching with rapt attention as the man strolled ever closer down the path to the edge of his protections. Harry had watched him leave the night of the previous day and had gambled that the man would be careless and apparate in the same place again, at the end of the path down to the ward. It seemed his gamble had paid off.
'Moron,' Bill mocked in his head.
As soon as both of his feet passed the ward line Harry poured his magic into the ward-stone and activated his own anti apparition and portkey wards. The runes lit up with a purple and red light and Harry immediately felt the protections come into existence, the magic of the wards that he had used so frequently both as a hit-wizard and as a hunter for the ICW greeting his old magic like an old, reliable friend.
Travers, as he had hoped, didn't notice that the feeling of the wards hadn't changed when he exited them and tried to apparate away as he had done every other time, only to ram head-first into the newly erected wards. His body blurred as it was blocked against his expectations, it was one thing to try and intentionally apparate out of an anti-apparition ward and entirely another to try and do it believing that it will work. His body blurred for a moment before he snapped back into reality with a loud crack and stumbled backwards at the magical backlash of the blocked apparition. Travers, however, recovered quickly and soon had his wand out and began looking around frantically.
Harry sent off the first spell when Travers was distracted silently before he was seen, a piercer aimed straight to the temple, a shot to kill. It was approaching from the side, but the death eater still sensed it and leaned backwards to dodge it, almost losing his nose in the process. Regaining his balance, he spun to face Harry, his wand already making movements to cast a spell. He wasn't in the inner circle for nothing; he was definitely quicker than the average mage.
No matter how quick he was though, he was no match for Harry. He had been killing mages far more powerful and skilled than this pathetic excuse for a wizard his whole life.
Thirty seconds into the dual, Harry was still untouched and had hands from the earth clasped around his opponent's lower legs, keeping him from backing away into the safety of his own wards. Travers was bleeding from multiple cuts and had a shattered thigh bone, Harry's earthen shackles were the only thing keeping him upright and the black haired man was now cursing colourfully while desperately trying to defend himself whilst locked in place, not a position any mage wants to be in. In his desperation was dipping into gradually darker magic and using shields more and more frequently. He couldn't avert eyesight from Harry's wand movements to break the hold on his forelegs for fear of missing a spell and getting killed.
Harry dodged an organ liquefying curse and began walking towards his target steadily, casting blasting curses in-between bone-breakers at a blistering pace as he did. His wand was a blur as it went though the motions. As the purple and grey lights left his wand his lips were unmoving beneath the cowl of his basilisk-hide cloak, face hidden by a concealment charm that kept it wreathed in shadow.
Travers growled from behind his shield, he was being forced to permanently hold it up now, Harry had got into a rhythm and if he dropped it he would be felled instantly. Harry kept up the rhythm, the blasting curses to erode the shield and the bone-breakers to catch him as soon as it dropped.
Eventually, his shield broke, and he was immediately hit in his right shoulder by a bone-breaker with a large amount of power behind it. His arm was almost ripped from it socket as the join was shattered entirely and blood and tiny bits of shattered bone sprayed from the back of his shoulder. The skin around it sagged as it alone bore the weight of the rest of his arm, which had now released the wand it had been holding as the owner screamed in agony.
His feet were still being held by the earth up to the knees, so the death eater fell backwards awkwardly, holding his shoulder with closed eyes and a clenched jaw as the pain flowed through him in waves.
Harry approached the downed man and stood over him, looking at the rictus of pain spread across the man's face dispassionately from under his cloak.
"W-who are you… w-wizard," Travers growled out in-between gasps, "do y-y-you know who I am… the Dark Lord..." he broke into a fit of coughing, blood falling from his lips in clumps.
Harry ignored him picked up the fallen man's dropped wand, twirling it around his hand a few times before pocketing it. He could start his collection again now, he had never liked breaking wands. This one was Ebony and he thought he could sense a Nundu heartstring inside it, a fairly uncommon pairing and one suited for the darker side of battle magic. From the look of the weird black goo and various other wounds in the earth around him he thought he was well suited for the wand he had.
He turned back to Travers, "yeah, unfortunately I know exactly who you are mate, and you really aren't in any condition to be making threats," he said with no discernible emotion in his voice as he walked over and rose his wand, jabbing the tip into the downed unfortunate's unnaturally smooth forehead, which as now beaded with sweat.
"Then you know that I have money," he said desperately, handsome face not so handsome now as it twisted in desperation and pain, "I could give you enough money that you wouldn't have to work another day in your life, I could get you favours with high up people, I can get you girls, young ones if you like them like that… anything, anything you want," he gabbled in-between pain induced gasps.
Harry's dispassionate face dropped into a scowl in the shadows of his cloak. He knew all too well about Travers' business.
"Legilimens," he hissed, doing his best to inflict bodily harm through a single word. It was one of the few spells that had to be said out loud. As soon as the spell connected images of various safe houses and faces of people who had been under the man's imperius flashed through Harry's mind, and much more. Some of the information would probably be made worthless after it was found that Travers was dead, but lots of it was useful. He tried his best to ignore the flashes of memories of some of the more depraved things the man had done, of which there were many.
After what felt like hours but in reality was just a few seconds Harry emerged from the twisted mage's mind and shook his head free of images of burning bodies and crying children, using heavy occlumency to banish the unwanted, foreign memories that probably would have driven him to either insanity or a killing spree. Or both. Cohan Travers' chiselled features had slackened and his eyes had gone from pleading and fearful to utterly blank. Harry hadn't bothered being gentle with the man's mind, and had torn through his admittedly rather impressive mental shields without any subtlety, instead opting to invade his mind in a method akin to driving a bus through a paper wall. He withdrew his wand, absently noting it had left a small triangle in-between his eyes like a bindi while he collected his thoughts.
He stood rooted to the spot for a long time, the entire world seemed to have paused and all that could be heard was a steady drip, drip, drip of blood falling in droplets from Travers' various wounds. His thumb rubbed the leather grip of his wand in an attempt to calm his thoughts. A futile endeavour, he found as memories of the past wrapped around his mind and cut into him like barbed wire. Soon enough, he lost his battle with being merciful.
"This is for Katie Bell you sick fuck," he growled. He jabbed his wand violently at a face that had taunted him in nightmares too many times and a bright white light flashed from the end of his wand. The piercer that emerged entered between Travers' eyes and came out of the back of his head, leaving a clean hole about an inch wide through his skull and about a foot into the ground behind it before it lost its energy and dissipated. The hole quickly filled with blood.
He could still remember Katie's dead eyes and awkward, shivering gait after they had liberated her from Travers Manor after Tom Riddle had died. When they found her, she had been in the dungeons with several other girls, all bereft of any clothing, all with dead ayes and all showing signs of sexual and physical abuse. The image of Katie specifically had always stayed in his head however. When she had been at Hogwarts she had always been excitable and bubbly, and they had been good friends, but he had lost contact with her in his sixth year when he had fucked off and went off on a merry jaunt around England and she had gone on to try and join a quidditch team. When she had next seen him after he had found them in the dungeons of the manor there had been no recognition in her eyes, only fear when he started to approach her as she cringed away from his touch. She had gone through intense therapy and emerged with scars, but still damaged. Last he heard Neville had been treating her well.
Distant memories, ones he had already processed and got over decades ago, but they still held the ability to cut him when he went over them.
Harry growled and clutched the sides of his head, trying to dispel the images. Again he lost and he kicked the fucker as hard as he could in the balls, the steel toe caps in his boots ensuring that even if the man had still been alive he would no longer have had the ability to bear children. The memories that his face had brought up had made him angry all over again. He hadn't had the pleasure to kill the rapist last time, the honour had gone to an unnamed auror on the attack on the manor. Not that he was taking any pleasure from this, just grim satisfaction.
"Auror! Identify yourself!"a deep voice called behind him. Harry withdrew his boot from the dead man's crotch and turned to see the tall form of Kingsley Shacklebolt emerge from the treeline, wand pointed at him. Harry grinned, his anger disappearing like it was never there. He knew he had been there, it had been quite entertaining to him. Judging from the magical residue where Shacklebolt had been hidden he had been surveying this place for quite some time, but never had sprung any kind of trap. He had known that the Orders methods were ineffective, but it was something else seeing it confirmed first hand. He knew for a fact that Dumbledore could have done the same thing he just had, although probably more elegantly and minus the brutal murder. The old man just didn't have the balls.
He had counted on Shacklebolt not coming out until Travers was dead. The unshakable auror may not have showed it, but the man had a ruthless streak when it came to death eaters. Harry had had a few long conversations with the future Minister and had found out that Shack's cousin had been killed by in a raid on a wizarding commune in Kent in the first war and the man had a very healthy dislike for the group. From what he could remember, it was the reason for his recent induction into the Order of the Phoenix alongside Bill, and he wasn't yet entirely convinced that their methods were effective.
Harry made a negligent wave with his wand behind his back without looking, and Travers' body careened away from them, bounced off the ground once and then landed with a faint splash in the ocean several dozen feet away. It was an accident of course that he had foolishly forgotten to release his legs, which had been left behind.
"Would you believe me if I said it was self defence?" he tried, raising his wand hand in the air to show he wasn't a threat. His voice was distorted as the concealment charm worked to make him completely unrecognisable.
Kingsley kept his wand trained on him and gave him an extremely unimpressed look, "I just watched you trap him, put a hole in his head then dispose of the body, now identify yourself before I stun."
He ignored he last part, "you don't sound too distraught about it, plus not all of the body was disposed," Harry commented, his head cocked to the side.
Kingsley's eyes flicked to the two stumps that Travers had left behind, "I suppose that is true, however I am still going to have to take you in for questioning," he said firmly.
It was at this moment that Harry's wards finally faded, a bit later than he intended but it was almost impossible to make it that exact. Kingsley also felt the wards fail, but Harry was already twisting and, with a cheeky salute, silently apparated away. A stunner from Kingsley's wand travelled through where had been moments after he had already departed.
Kingsley stood frozen, his wand still pointed where the stranger had been moments before. Feeling something warm underneath his feet, he looked down to see that the blood pouring from the stumps had pooled around his feet. He grimaced and disgust and vanished the blood.
After a moment of consideration Kingsley looked around tentatively. There was of course nobody else on the island.
Kingsley flicked his wand and the legs followed the body of the dead man, the transfigured earth having shattered with the departure of the mystery assailant. Two splashed sounded in the distance, following their previous owner.
A broad smile encroached upon the dark skinned man's face, "oh dear, it appears all evidence of Lord Travers' tragic murder has mysteriously vanished," he said cheerfully. Without further ado he turned on the spot and apparated away.
-oOo-
21st August 1995, 06:01pm
It was four days until Tonks managed to track him down, and to her frustration it was completely by accident.
She had been looking for him for 3 days, using every bit of her auror training to find out where he was so she could have another conversation. Like every other time she was presented with a challenge, she tunnel visioned completely on the task and devoted as much time to it as she could without getting fired from her job.
But despite her best efforts, all she had managed to find was a bit of information from a waitress at a patisserie that said that a man matching Slates description routinely tried to chat her up. Tonks had set up at the place but he had never turned up.
And then, completely out of nowhere, she had been walking along David's Way, a smaller version of Diagon Alley based in Wales, and had spotted him through the windows of one of the bars there. She hadn't been sure if it was him at first, having only seen the mop of distinctive black hair, but her suspicions were confirmed when he seemed to feel the eyes on him and turned to fix her with those mirror-grey eyes and a grin. She couldn't help but smile and wave back.
Next to her, her friend Sabina Lewis frowned and peered into the bar, searching for who she was waving to, "who're you wavin' to Tonks?" she asked, her Scottish accent bleeding through.
In lieu of replying Tonks grabbed her friends hand and dragged her towards the door of the pub.
"Hey why're we goin' here? I thought we were goin' to the Cildraeth y Ddraig," Sabina whined. The Cildraeth y Ddraig was a restaurant further up the alley. It was a more upper-class establishment than the one Tonks was pulling her fiery haired friend into, and they had already booked a table there, but Tonks wasn't going to let this opportunity pass. She had been trying to find the bastard for ages. She looked up at the sign to find that it was still completely illegible. There was a lot of rumours around David's Way about what the black smudge on the board actually was. Nobody really knew what it was called either, as the letters had long since faded.
"Just saw a friend I ain't seen in a while Abby, want to say hi," she said, not looking at her as she pushed through the door.
"Paid four galleons for that table," Sabrina grumbled under her breath. Tonks ignored her and walked towards where Slate was sitting.
He was lounged casually on a stool, leaning back with both shoulders on the surface of the bar as he watched them approach. He was still wearing the same dragon-hide jacket, but this time it was with a plain black t-shirt underneath it and a pair of skinny jeans. He also still had the same combat boots on, laced up halfway. His hair was messy as ever and his good looks certainly hadn't diminished from the last time she had seen him.
He grinned when he caught sight of them and waved them over to two seats next to them. Tonks made sure to grab the one next to him and smiled as she sat, "afternoon sir, fancy the company of two gorgeous ladies?"
"Afternoon Tonks, it's good to see you again," he said warmly. He looked her up and down appreciatively, "you're looking good as always."
Tonks had chosen to go out with bushy shoulder-length curly blonde hair and violet eyes, she was wearing a white blouse and light blue skinny jeans, she thought it made her look like a hot secretary. She had to make use of her ability to fight a blush, the way he looked her up and down wasn't in any way creepy or lecherous, more like he was complimenting a fine piece of art.
She gave him a slow look to his feet and back to his eyes in return, "thanks, you don't look too bad yourself." She meant it, he still looked dangerously attractive. Now that he was in the light of the bar and completely relaxed, not at a trial, getting arrested or sitting with her in a dimly lit hallway she could tell that he had all the features of someone that she would probably end up doing something stupid for.
"I try," he replied, straightening his jacket with mock care. He changed where was looking to just over her shoulder, where Sabina was sitting in a pretty green dress and matching heels, her fiery hair pinned up artfully, "did the Weasley's have another kid while I was away?"
Sabina jumped, apparently having been staring at him the whole time and rolled her eyes, "honestly, the Weasley's are only ninety percent of the red-head wizarding population, there are more of us you know," she turned to Tonks, her blue eyes shining with curiosity, "Tonks, who's the jokester?"
"Right, introductions. Harrison, this is my best friend Sabina Lewis, Sabina, the guy who thinks he's funny is Harrison Slate," she responded, gesturing to each in turn.
"The bloke that put Burke in prison?" Sabina asked with an arched eyebrow as she shook his hand across Tonks, "you everywhere in the papers, I didn't realise you knew him Tonks." Tonks heard the slight hint of an accusation in her tone, they had always shared gossip at Hogwarts and afterwards, she wasn't sure why she hadn't told her best friend about him.
"The one and only," he replied dryly, "want an autograph?"
She looked at him considerately, "well, it depends where you would sign it," she said flirtatiously.
Harry looked from Sabina to Tonks and grinned, "I like her."
"Sabina, if you could refrain from flirting with one of my friends for three seconds," Tonks huffed, "it's good to see you too Harrison, it's been too long."
He nodded his agreement, "yes, we did say something about meeting again didn't we."
"And if I recall correctly you said something along the lines of 'try and stop me,' so what stopped you?" Tonks asked, punching him in the arm.
He shrugged in a negligent way that infuriated her, "I was out hunting."
"You were out hunting animals… since your trial." Tonks deadpanned, not believing a word.
He hummed in confirmation, "well, just the one animal so far, but to be fair it hadn't left much of a trail to follow." Something about the offhanded way he said it made her auror senses tingle but she didn't know why.
"Anything to do with you walking down Diagon Alley covered in blood?" Tonks asked in a flash of inspiration.
He looked confused for a second before he laughed and responded, "oh no, I wasn't hunting that one, it found me," he peered straight into her eyes suddenly and Tonks immediately felt herself getting lost in the cracked panes of his irises, "what's this interrogation about anyway, am I under arrest again?" he looked like he had suddenly realised something, "whatever Griffiths said happened, it was nothing to do with me," he declared heatedly.
Tonks was thrown for a loop, "what? No, your not under arrest, I was just worried you managed to get yourself killed." She thought that sounded better than admitting that she had been attempting to find him to interrogate him for Dumbledore.
"Oh," he said shortly, "well in that case, I have no idea who that guy I just mentioned even is."
"Riiight," Tonks said doubtfully, eyeing him speculatively, "but 'hunting' doesn't explain why you completely disappeared off the face of the Earth since I last saw you."
"Well, part of the reason was that it was funny watching you camped out at my favourite patisserie trying to look like you weren't looking for me," he responded, seemingly careless of the way he had just destroyed her confidence in her tracking skills.
"Tonks! You went auror mode and tried to track him down?" Sabina gasped in delight. Tonks groaned, this wasn't good, "oh Circe that's gold! You don't normally get that obsessive until at least the fifth time you meet someone!" She got out then burst into loud laughter.
"Why didn't you just walk up and say hi if you knew I was looking for you?" She asked in irritation, peeking through her fingers to look at him and trying to ignore her hysterical friend holding her shoulder for support.
He gave her an apologetic look, "I was kind of busy Tonks, and I like you, but its still a bit disconcerting having an auror trying to find you, if you wanted to meet me you could have just sent me an owl," he pointed out.
"I tried that," she said, throwing her hands up in frustration, "it look the letter and just began flying in circles then landed again."
'The rest of that was reasonable, though.'
"Oh right, shit, I should probably disable that ward," he muttered, then pulled out and enlarged a small case of stones. He pulled one out and it glowed green briefly before he placed it back in the case and pocketed it again. Tonks recognised the case and the stones. Moody had a similar one. Some of the more paranoid wizards carried them around so that they could maintain low level wards around themselves permanently. In a society where everyone was carrying a deadly weapon they made sense, but most didn't bother.
The three of them had a talk about wards for a couple of minutes and ordered drinks. Tonks was impressed with his knowledge of them. Some of the things he was talking about was either way over her head or amazed her. One of her favourites was an intent based ward of his own creation that only projected his voice to those that he was intentionally trying to talk to, a very unique way of preventing eavesdropping. She thought that he and Bill could probably talked about wards for hours if left alone in a room, Bill hadn't followed Charlie down the dragon route, but he was just as obsessed with wards as Charlie was with dragons. They moved to a table near to the fire and from there the conversation moved onto his experience with Burke, and from that onto the topic of Voldemort.
"I reckon If he's actually back like what Potter and the Headmaster say then my parents are gonna make me move to America with them," Sabina said, looking nervous. Tonks knew that her parents were very overprotective of her, as they had lost a son in the first war.
He cocked his head at her, lowering his glass back to the table, "you think he's back from the dead then?"
"Well, I dunno," she said, taking a nervous sip from her sparkling bright blue cocktail and glancing at Tonks, "but Dora says he's back, and she's normally right about that kinda stuff." Tonks was happy enough at the compliment not to hex her for calling her Dora.
"What about you Harrison, you going to stay in England if it's confirmed he's back, or would you leave the country as well?" Tonks asked. He had said that he would be surprised if You-Know-Who was back, but hadn't commented on whether he would do anything about it. Dumbledore had asked her to see if he was a fit for the Order as well, and this was certainly a good question to ask for that purpose.
He scowled and downed the last of his drink, "nah I'm staying here I reckon, that prick tried to get me killed, even worse, he's indirectly responsible for killing my fucking dog," he growled, "Vaelin was a good dog, and I'll find out who killed him if it's the last Merlin-be-damned thing I do." He scowled at the table for a few seconds before his countenance changed entirely, his scowl scurrying away from his brow and his face relaxing suddenly like the outburst had never even happened. He smiled brightly at her, "how 'bout you Tonks, going to stick around for the fight?"
It took her a second to recover from his abrupt mood swing before she nodded in the affirmative, "I'm an auror, wouldn't really look good if I just turned tail and ran would it?" Well, that was true in her case, but she knew that some of the more cowardly aurors would do exactly that if it turned out the dark lord had returned once more.
It didn't surprise her somehow that he intended to fight, he didn't seem the type to back down from anything or anyone. The more she learnt about him the more he seemed to be suited for the Order, even if his reason for fighting was slightly odd. Her only misgivings were that he would probably end up killing Snape minutes into the first meeting, and she also had a feeling that introducing him to Sirius would probably end up with something or someone important exploding, and create probably the most destructive and dangerous duo in the wizarding world.
The three of them continued to talk over drinks that got higher in percentage with every round. Tonks found it harder and harder to discreetly dig for information for the Order and was beginning to just enjoy the conversation, an easy thing to do as he seemed to effortlessly keep up dialogue between the trio the whole time. More and more however Sabina was unintentionally excluded as she and Slate seemed to connect much like they had last time, although they had much more time this time around. The conversation between the two of them was fun and interesting, and as with any conversation that Tonks took part in she made flirtatious jokes the whole while. Except with him, he returned them as good as she gave, which meant that their table was a constant stream of increasingly suggestive jokes that had the effect of turning Sabina the same colour as her hair on occasion.
After they had eaten a hearty meal of toad in the hole and mashed potatoes Sabina excused herself and left. It was admittedly a dick move on Tonks' part to ditch her friend and stay, but she was having far too much fun and thought that Sabina would understand. Among the news of the dark lord rising and the death eaters running amok again, there were very few conversations like this left. She also instinctively believed that she could trust him not to try anything untoward whilst they were alone, even if she didn't know why. She was guiltily pleased that he didn't look too displeased to see Sabina go, instead just giving her an amiable goodbye and a wish that they could meet again.
Around eleven they both noticed the barman scowling at them and got up to leave. Once outside in the cool Welsh evening air Tonks applied some warming charms and turned to him, "I don't think any other place is open, so I guess..." she trailed off when she saw his grin under the lighting rune above the bar door. When she saw him in that light in her inebriated state she wanted to kiss him there and then.
"You're only thinking of the wizarding world my dear Tonksie, you must know that there are other places that close far, far later. I can take you there."
"In the muggle world?" Tonks asked in sudden understanding.
He nodded, his eyes shining mischievously through the locks of his hair, "In the muggle world. Are you in or out?" He asked, rising his hand for her to take. Tonks, remembering something her mother told her when she was small about not apparating with strangers, hesitated for a second.
'Oh, fuck it.'
"Sure, why not," she smiled and took his hand, her small one fitting easily in his. He apparated her, and she noticed that even when both of them were dunk the process was much nicer than what she was used to.
"Tonight," he said in the alley behind a brick building that she could hear music thumping from, "tonight we can be whoever we want." And before her eyes, for the first time she saw him morph. His sharp, defined looks dropped away into something simpler and more… human than his previous arrangement. His hair became short and brown and his eyes became the same colour. She couldn't help but miss his previous state.
Nodding in understanding, with excitement shining through her violet eyes Tonks did the same, but with long pink hair and green eyes, and they walked into the building to begin their night again. They waited in line for the club and by the time they entered it was midnight, and things inside were just starting to pick up. It was nothing like anything she had ever seen. The music playing was overwhelmingly loud and chaotic in a way that Tonks adored, and everywhere she looked people were dancing and having fun.
He led her by the hand to a bar where they were serving drinks, as anything he tried to say to her was lost in the music unless shouted directly into her ear and it looked easy to get lost in the crowd. At the bar he bought six shots of something that set her insides on fire so harshly that she thought for a moment that it was fire whiskey, but when she asked him he laughed and said it was just something called Jagerbomb, not magical at all. She was fairly certain they had more than six of those.
From there all she could remember was dancing with him and just having a good time, getting entirely lost in the music and the atmosphere of everyone enjoying themselves. One image stood out of him grinning at her from the middle of the floor as they danced like idiots, completely out of it. Everything about him looking different apart from that familiar spark in his eyes that set him apart from everyone else around him.
-oOo-
Harry was pulled from his sleep in a manner similar to a tooth being pulled from his mouth with no painkiller. Painfully. His head throbbed like his brain was trying to escape its enclosure and his mouth felt like he had been eating sawdust for the last few hours. He prised open his gummy eyes and was immediately blinded by a lurid pink swathe of ceiling. He groaned and shifted his arm to rub his eyes and found it trapped under something warm.
He used his other hand to rub them then opened his eyes once more, blinking a couple of times to adjust them to the light. He turned and got another faceful of pink, but this time it was made of hair. He only knew of one person in the world with pink hair, and apparently she was curled into his side on a throne like office chair right now in…
Uhm.
'Where the fuck am I?' He looked around him and coincidentally came to a similar conclusion. There was only one person who would use pink in such horrible abundance in a single room. He was sat in an oversized chair behind a comically large desk Tonks was wedged between himself and the edge of it snoring into his chest in a very cute way. She seemed to have shrunk herself to mould into him, which he certainly wasn't complaining about. He sat there, bearing his throbbing headache to watch her for a while. He was still a bit doubtful if any of this was even real, if maybe the fucking ritual in that fight had broken his shields somehow and invaded his mind then made a new reality. But Tonks was so real. He had been a bit dazed when he had entered his past, and had gone through the motions. He imagined if he had been a bit more lucid he would have killed Burke and just ran, but in his state he had just gone along with it.
Tonks had been the first familiar face he had seen, and it had grounded him somewhat. She was full of life and had, if not completely made him believe what was happening to him, made him want it to be real.
"Tonks, wake up," he whispered softly, his words brushing some strands of her hair into her face. It didn't seem to affect her state, instead just causing her to burrow further into him. It took a huge amount of will to muster the will to try again, this time poking her in the ribs and repeating his previous words.
This time she woke and, for her part, didn't even look too embarrassed at her current position. She sat up and unwrapped her arms from around him and rubbed her eyes blearily. "Merlins balls, my head," she groaned. She was still pressed into him, apparently not bothered by the position.
"Here," he said, digging a flask from the inside of his jacket and taking a swig from it before handing it to her, "hangover cure," he explained at her questioning look, grimacing at the taste of it.
She took a sniff and nodded, then took a healthy gulp of it herself. Good, she wasn't an idiot. She sighed in relief then looked around them, sitting up slightly more when she saw all of the pink.
"Harrison, why are we in the undersecretary's office?"
Harry looked around them in disgust, "don't know to be honest, there are far nicer places to sleep."
"… Oh Merlin, I'm never drinking again," Tonks groaned.
"Now now Tonks, neither of us really believe that," Harry teased, nudging her.
"Would you be serious for a second?" Tonks growled, punching him back, "this is bad, I could be fired for this."
"There are worse places we could be," he argued.
"Really? Like where," Tonks said doubtfully.
Harry considered that for a moment, "well, we could be in Slough," he offered.
She looked at him blankly "I don't even fucking know where that is Harrison," Tonks said in exasperation, rising from her seat and pacing back and forth whilst clutching her head, "oh Morgana, we are in so much shit."
"You're not going to arrest me are you? I did break into the Ministry after all," Harry said, leaning languidly back in the chair with a raised eyebrow.
"I'm off duty, not my problem," Tonks said dismissively, "plus from the looks of it I, for whatever reason, broke in with you."
Harry vaguely remembered something about a truth or dare game and was about to comment on it but just then there was a knock at the door, causing both of them to stop and stare at it. There was no sound for several seconds and they both were stock still before a second knock sounded alongside a called, "Madam Umbridge?" The voice sounded slightly familiar to Harry, but he couldn't quite place it.
"Oh… shit," Tonks hissed.
Harry came up with an idea that made him grin, "Tonks, get back behind the desk, quick."
She did so quickly, sitting with her back against the drawers next to him. She watched from below him in mild horror and pity as he morphed the top half of his body into an exact copy of Umbridge and transfigured his jacket into the woman's often worn pink monstrosity. He coughed then called out in an exact copy of her voice, "do come in."
Tonks was impressed, not only had he transfigured dragon-hide, which she had no clue how to do, but he had also managed to morph his vocal chords to match a voice exactly, something which she still struggled with.
Harry had to fight a grimace as Griffiths walked though the door and walked up to the desk, looking disgruntled. All his gear was polished smartly and his hair was styled in a mimicry of the pureblood style, which looked out of place with the formal auror robes.
"Ah, auror Graham, what can I do for you today?" Harry asked in the most sickly sweet voice he could muster.
"Griffiths, ma'am," he replied stiffly, his eye twitching.
"Right, so silly of me," he giggled, hating every word coming out of his mouth, "so, auror Griffiths, what did you want?"
His eye twitched again, "I was wondering if perhaps you could assist me with restoring my office to its previous condition with some… outside help."
Harry fought a grin and instead tilted his (her?) head curiously, "could you do me the service of reminding me what occurred to your office, so silly of me, I seem to have forgotten," he paused for a moment then added a giggle as an afterthought.
He looked at her strangely but answered anyway, "the gravity in the room has been reversed, everything is now on the ceiling and nobody can figure out how to dispel it," he scowled, "the department of mysteries has been studying it for two days now, taking notes and calling it an incredible piece of magic, I'm not sure if they are even trying to get rid of it actually." Harry stifled a snort. He had no doubt that the DoM was not trying to undo his magic, he had left a password embedded in the ward just for them that they would have found in moments. He really did like those guys.
He glanced down and saw that Tonks had cast a silencing charm on herself and was laughing, her hair cycling through various shades of yellow as she did so. "Ah, that does sound like a problem, do you have any idea who the culprit could be?" He asked innocently.
He was perversely pleased to see the pompous arse go red in anger at the question, "I believe it is the work of that brat, Slate," he spat.
Harry rose his eyebrow, "oh? Why would you think that?"
His face transferred from red to purple, Harry found it hilarious that he had managed to make him do that again with the man not even knowing he was there. "when I first arrived there was a large pile of what we later identified as Griffin..." he seemed to fight an internal battle with himself as he actually began to shake with fury, "… excrement, I believe it was a reference to a nickname that he was fond of calling me by." Harry felt a weight against his leg where Tonks had rolled onto her side and was clutching her stomach in mirth.
Harry had to deploy occlumency strong enough to probably make him permanently depressed if he wasn't experienced in the art to prevent himself from smiling as he levered a frown onto his unfamiliar face instead, "disgusting, I would expect nothing less from a mudblood like him," he said with the air of someone who believed themselves absolutely vindicated.
He coughed into his hand, "ahem, ma'am, isn't he a pureblood?" Griffiths said, looking like it was paining him to say it.
Harry completely ignored him, "well, I will see if I can get Lucius to assist you, after all he is a well connected, wealthy, high standing, pureblooded and extremely handsome man," he said, sighing wistfully at the last comment.
"Right… thank you ma'am," Griffith said uncertainly, looking distinctly uncomfortable. Harry continued to look dreamily at one of the cat paintings in the corner of the room before he shook himself, feeling the odd sensation of his jowls quivering as he did so.
"Very well, if that is all auror Graham, you are dismissed," Harry said, waving his hand towards him in a shooing motion and bending over papers that he had absolutely no business looking at.
His eye twitched violently, but he didn't comment on Harry's intentional slip up, instead turning on his heel and marching off with the little dignity he had left.
As soon as the door closed behind him Harry immediately sent the strongest locking charm he could at the door and let his transfiguration and his morph fall back to what they were before.
"Oh Merlin, that was fucking beautiful," Tonks gasped, having finally let her silencing charm fall.
Harry grinned down at her, "you think I got her down accurately? He didn't seem to notice."
"It was perfect," she assured, sounding awed, "I have no idea how you did it, it was like sitting with the room with the woman," she sounded slightly disgusted at the thought.
'Probably because I have spent far too much time with the bitch myself,' Harry thought grimly. The phrase, 'wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy,' came to mind.
"Did you actually do that to Griffiths' office?" Tonks interrupted his thoughts, grinning widely. She was now standing and was leaning against the edge of the desk in front of him. The effect the contact had on her thighs distracted Harry for a second before he pulled himself together.
"I will neither confirm nor deny such an accusation," he said in an official sounding monotone.
Tonks rolled her eyes, "of course not, although I think it might please you to know that everyone in the Ministry is calling him Griffin shit, which I didn't realise the reason for until now."
"That's awful," he said, not meaning or sounding like he meant a word, "I'm sure he did nothing to deserve such harsh name-calling."
She snorted and checked the time with a tempus. "Ahh, bastard," she cursed, "my shift starts in half an hour, it's later than I thought," she dispelled the glowing clock and looked to him, "I have to go home to get changed and wash, you coming with?"
"To wash?" he asked with a raised eyebrow, "I mean if you're offering, sure."
"Maybe another time," Tonks replied without a pause, "right now its just for a walk to the apparition point."
"Oh," he replied, sounding disappointed, "no, I think I'm actually going to stay here for a little longer if you don't mind, I'll make my own way out," he said with a charming, innocent smile.
She shrugged, "sure, just don't leave any evidence or I might have to actually try and find who did it."
Harry wasn't planning to cause any damage, but it was nice to know she would let him commit crimes against people she didn't like. "Thanks for the advice Tonks, that's good to know."
Tonks pulled him up to his feet and grinned up at his much taller form, "thanks for last night Harri, I had a blast," she said happily, then gave him a quick hug, "I really needed it to be honest, stuff has been a bit stressful recently," she murmured into his chest.
Harry unwrapped his arms from around her back and pushed her away gently by she shoulders, "glad I could help, we can do this again if you would like?" He asked, hoping she would say yes.
She hummed in consideration as she walked to the exit of the room, putting far too much sway in her hips than necessary or fair, "I'll think about it," she finally said, her smile saying that she had already decided.
"We could break into the Ministers office next time," Harry offered, only half joking.
She laughed and flashed him one last smile, "I'll see you soon Harrison," with that she applied a disillusionment charm and opened the door after he got rid of his locking charms, cautiously stepped out, then closed the door behind her with a soft click.
Harry stood there staring at the door for a count of ten seconds then snapped into action and made his way over to a large drinks cupboard on the left side of the room. Where he had remembered leaving something he needed to attend to last night.
He crouched down in front of it and opened the dual doors to reveal the gagged and bound form of Madam Delores Jane Umbridge curled into the cramped space. She was glaring at him hatefully and probably screaming obscenities at him behind the gag, but thankfully he had put up a silencing ward long ago.
-Flashback-
Harry led Tonks down the hallway, both of them giggling madly and falling over each other the whole way.
He held Tonks back with a hand as he dispelled the privacy ward clumsily and peered into the room with a one way window charm. He looked over to Tonks, who was attempting to reattach her shoe. He quickly opened the door, stunned Umbridge, bound and gagged her and levitated her into a nearby cupboard after vanishing the insides. He sent a strong silencing charm at the cupboard for good measure.
"Fucking buckles, I'm never getting shoes with buckles again," Tonks grumbled, getting up from the floor.
"Come on Tonks, you said you would give me a galleon if I could break in and I intend to do just that," Harry said, holding the door open for her.
"I didn't think you would actually do it," Tonks replied, giggling as she entered.
-Flashback-
"Hello, Delores," Harry said with false sweetness, the ice in his eyes contradicting his voice entirely, "I think it's high time we had a conversation about your employment status."
-oOo-
As Tonks neared the apparition point after taking a rather long time sneaking through the entire length of the Ministry an alarm suddenly blared to life around the building, the colour denoting it as the one that indicated that the anti apparition wards had just fallen. Tonks stopped and turned back to where she had come from. She stared back along the long corridor for several seconds then grinned and turned around again to hurry to the apparition point. Somehow, she just knew that he had something to do with that.
AN: That stuff about me being able to take bad reviews was a lie and I hereby retract it. I got one bad review and obsessed over it like a bitch for days before I realised that I'm writing this for my own enjoyment, not to make someone elses perfect story.
Yes, there is and will be plotholes and things that don't make sense in this story. It's my first fic, actually my first piece of creative writing alltogether, there will be mistakes. Plus, I can just say "It's AU!" and therefore disregard any argument. Checkmate critics!
I have no clue when I will post the next one, I want to get a bit more ahead in chapters so I can edit previous ones, so might be a while. I dunno. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Hit the favourite and the follow things and i'll see you then good sirs.