This was so not supposed to happen. She had not been supposed to walk right into anything like this, all convenient-like, looking like some idiot out of a joke who just happened to stroll into the flames of disaster. But there she was, standing in the Minister's office, clutching that damn mirror. And some woman, already in there, who knew just as much of what was going on here. Awkward, to say the least.
Run, shouted one part of her brain. Run out of here and save yourself before anything worse happened. That was feasible, the door was right behind her. Just race backwards to it without getting yourself killed, make up some excuse for whatever confusion Percy expressed for her being there.
Except there was no way she could do that, not with the way she was feeling. The horrible way she had felt as she attempted to repair the mirror, then coming here, and finding...
Sirius. She still couldn't quite believe it. Mrs. Fudge lying in a heap on the floor, some crazed Ministry woman holding that wand, Harry, unconscious. She would never forgive herself if anything happened to Harry. And then... that dog! That big black dog, staring at her... She wasn't a complete expert on telling the differences between animals, but she recognized this dog if she recognized nothing else. The jokes that had come up in the dimmer times of the war of Sirius Black's little puppy form. She had seen him change plenty of times.
So why had she brought the stupid mirror? This was proof enough. Yet it remained in her hands, glinting light off the walls. Practically a beam for any Death Eater with a drop of common sense in his head.
Tonks' hand shot to her own pocket. Wand, wand. She had to have a wand. She wouldn't be so stupid as to leave without it, would she? Thankfully her fingers closed around wood.
The other woman raised a delicate eyebrow. Whatever glee she had on announcing Sirius' identity was lost in bewilderment. She looked sort of familiar, Tonks supposed. One of the many random people that wandered the wizarding world. The woman took a deep breath, lowering her wand. The dog Sirius' eyes danced between the two of them. "Aspen DeChant," the woman said coolly in the utter semblance of a sophisticated Ministry official, a lady. Yeah, right. Tonks didn't consider herself a lady and had no patience for half of them, anyway. "A pleasure to make your acquaintance."
She was pretty much declaring Tonks' death right there. Tonks tore her wand from her pocket. "Tonks," she replied. Was there something else she should say with that? She hadn't exactly intended to throw herself into this situation.
"I understand you to be very aware of the identity of..." Aspen's eyes settled momentarily on Sirius, once again filling with amazement.
"Sirius Black," Tonks said breathlessly. Dang. Probably not the smartest thing to say.
"And, exactly, how long have you known this?" Toying with her, now. Lovely.
There was no safe response to that.
Aspen smiled, the calmest thing she could muster anymore in her stage of excitement. "Then I imagine you'll be a lot easier to kill than him." She flung back her wand hand almost lazily.
Tonks swore and jumped to the floor. Throw a spell, she thought. Do something.
"Avada–"
Tonks hoped no one would mind a horrible sickness on the Minister's office carpet.
But the spell was not finished. Instead, Aspen screamed. Horribly. And the woman did not know how to properly scream.
The dog, or Sirius, whomever it was, had his teeth tight around Aspen's ankle. The wand had fallen to the ground and rolled into the hearth, where it was happily being consumed. The other woman, Mrs. Fudge, groggily lifted her ashen face at the scream. So she really was involved in this whole freaking mess. Tonks took a deep breath and pushed herself back up. She had to do something here. Get Mrs. Fudge. Aspen seemed pretty occupied with Sirius, so...
It was difficult to get past the thrashing victim of a dog without being attacked. The next thing Tonks knew was that she was on the ground, on top of Aspen. Awkward.
Aspen snarled up at her, face pale and twisted with pain. For crying out loud, the lady had to be in her sixties or something, not in this mess.
"Hi," Tonks said. "Sorry about my cousin there."
"Cousin?"
Tonks, for the countless time, thanked fate and her father for her last name. "Yes. The Black family. Certainly you've heard of us. Lord Voldemort is quite found of us, for the most part."
Aspen wasn't. Sirius had refused to let go of her ankle.
"You–" Aspen blinked back the tears in her eyes, then made a grab for Tonks' wand, which, amazingly enough, she had managed to hold onto.
"Mine!" Tonks rolled away from the mess, Aspen's hand desperately grasping in the air.
This is what someone needed to walk into. The Minister's wife oblivious on the floor, and she rolling around on the floor with a woman three times her age who had a criminal dog attached to her. The mess it would be, especially with Cornelius–she couldn't think of him that way, not if it had been Sirius the entire time. The Minister's wife. Mrs. Fudge. The bimbo woman lying–
Tonks blinked. Mrs. Fudge was gone. She could see Harry, still unconscious. But Fudge's wife...
The wand was torn right from her hand, and shot across the room to where a very disheveled Mrs. Fudge stood. Her tacky red curls bushed out everywhere like a fire hazard, and her already revealing robes were torn even further. But her pretty face did not match the rest of it. The gold digger woman, the one who was supposed to be an idiot, was the one clutching Tonks' wand. The only one in the room who was actually laughing.
"Convenient," she practically sang. "Wow, I forgot I could still do that much without a wand. But old talents prove useful. And to think all my Hogwarts professors said I would never get anywhere!" She even giggled.
Sirius let go of Aspen's ankle, who made a quick and rather pained scramble to her knees. "Give it here, idiot!"
"Why? You weren't being very nice to me, you know. Considering my place in society is much higher than yours, Mrs. DeChant. Now I know I'm not as involved in the Death Eater circles as you are, but... I believe the Dark Lord would be rather interested in knowing how close you came to bungling this." The wand twirling in her perfectly manicured fingers, Mrs. Fudge laughed and surveyed the crowd. "Now that I've had more time to take all of this in... to think I have spent the past few days married to who I assume to be Sirius Black himself. Unless there was a very random switch that I didn't know about." For a moment she looked worried. "But oh, well. I can turn him in, find whatever poly-juice potion he was using, and also turn in Harry Potter. Oh, and you, Mrs. DeChant. I never really liked you."
Poly-juice potion? That's what she thought it was? That Sirius had survived everything and had been posing as the Minister using poly-juice potion? Giving Aspen one last kick, Tonks jumped to her feet. She hadn't the slightest idea how she was supposed to go about communicating with someone like this. Nothing to do but take a deep breath and hope for the best. Behind her, she could hear Sirius growling. And another scream from Aspen declaring Sirius resuming his responsibility. "Okay, lady, I know you're in a super good position here."
"Oh, I know I am," Mrs. Fudge said with a smile. "Great, huh? I haven't the slightest idea who you are, but I can probably make something useful out of you. Though I do love your hair."
"It's natural," Tonks hissed, springing at the woman.
Mrs. Fudge was prepared, stepping back just enough that Tonks only caught her dress. But it was enough to drag her down and let Tonks dive into another wrestle for the wand.
"My dress!" Mrs. Fudge screamed, raking her claw-like nails against Tonks' cheek.
It hurt, sadly enough. But Tonks shoved the hand down with one arm, stretching the other out desperately toward the wand. A stupid wand. A cat fight should not occur over a stupid wand. But Mrs. Fudge was good. Apparently she did something besides sit around whatever manor they held and eat bonbons. With a shrieking, cat-like hiss she brought up her knee into Tonks' stomach.
That wasn't fair. Red and black swam before Tonks' eyes as she instinctively rolled away. The wand, she could get the wand on the way out...
No. Mrs. Fudge was already on her feet, gasping for air, but taking it in better than Tonks was.
This wasn't going to happen. Through the corner of her dizzy vision Tonks could still see Harry, sort of coming to. Sort of. Stupid kid. Oh, he was going to pay for this. And so was Sirius. They were both in deep trouble. With a scream as a substitute for proper death Tonks rolled into Mrs. Fudge's knees. Horrible. Trashy. Now this is what Rita Skeeter needed to waltz into. Tonks had never been in any newspaper before. Why not this one? Just as long as she could get the damn wand.
Mrs. Fudge teetered briefly, but shoved most of her weight back into Tonks.
There had to be something. Something glinting in the firelight... The mirror had fallen from her pocket, and the Spell-o-tape had done little to keep it together.
Snape hadn't had much luck with that thing. Well, a little more blood in the room couldn't hurt. Tonks snatched it into her hand and swung it toward Mrs. Fudge.
The glass didn't reach the flesh but...
"My dress!" Mrs. Fudge screamed as an entire good foot of fabric collapsed.
It was enough. One more knock at the knees and... Yes, it was enough. The wand went flying, striking Fudge's desk and ricocheting back to the floor.
"Get the wand, bimbo!" Aspen's voice wasn't far behind.
Aspen, back there, clutching her ankle as the blood pooled around her. No Sirius...
And there he was, shooting like a black star across the room. In a second the wand was in his mouth, and he was bounding back towards Tonks. There was no mistaking it. This was Sirius.
It had to be Sirius. For a moment all Sirius could do was stare as the dog stood before her, offering back her wand. She had never known Sirius very long in the first place, but... he was supposed to be dead.
He couldn't have come back. Not as Cornelius Fudge. Not this entire time.
"Thanks," she muttered, grabbing the wand. Now she was back in control. It felt good. It felt very good.
Like a punished infant, Mrs. Fudge collapsed to the carpet. "I–"
"Shut up," Tonks hissed. Now all she had to do was...
"Petrificus totalus!" another voice shouted. Harry. Looking incredibly sick and dizzy, but with enough energy to yank out that wand. She made a mental note not to kill him.
Mrs. Fudge sunk even more into the floor, stiff, the robes barely covering her. The only thing alive was her eyes, which looked ready to throw a hissy fit if the rest of her body would cooperate.
And Aspen... well, she would definitely need medical attention now that she couldn't block the bleeding with her hands. Though the bite hardly looked deep.
"Thanks, Harry," she murmured. Suddenly she felt very dizzy.
Dog Sirius rushed up to Harry, paws striking his chest and a happy bark echoing over the room.
Amazing. This had to be Sirius. Back.
All this time...
Harry, scarcely daring to think by the look of it, stared back at Tonks. "Is it?"
She nodded. "Yeah, I think it is."
Harry sunk to the floor, arms around the dog's neck. "Sirius?"
Another bark. The same obnoxious bark Sirius loved to do in that dog form.
"You posed as Cornelius Fudge?" Harry asked in utter disbelief. He didn't seem to know who to look at, the dog or Tonks. "Tonks, did you know about this?"
She shook her head. "I had no idea." She probably should have. She had thought of it, during that one brief moment after the restaurant. Sick, how she hadn't realized it. The same person, one and the same. She had always liked Sirius. Always. And... she had liked this Fudge.
Now that the initial steam was out, it was too much to think about.
A knock sounded at the door. "Hello?" came the very confused and tired voice of Percy Weasley.
Harry jumped back to his feet, letting go of Sirius. "Hi–"
Percy opened the door, though most of his weight seemed to be depending on it to properly stand. He looked like he had just been hit over the head. "What just happened here?"
It had to look crazy. It had to. Two petrified women, her, Harry, a dog...
A scream burst from Percy's throat.
Well, it didn't look bad.
"The Minister!" Percy exclaimed, pushing past Tonks in a sudden burst of energy. "What happened?"
Tonks turned around.
Sirius was gone. No black dog.
Instead there was the body of Cornelius Fudge. But... if he had been Sirius this entire time...
Except it wasn't that simple.
This body was clearly dead.
Shout Outs!
WWLAOS: Believe it or not, animagus and other such tricks are not uncommon. Sirius was a wanted killer, and among Death Eater circles, everyone KNEW what his form looked like. All Aspen had to do was put two and two together and accept the impossible. Though your reasoning made me quite paranoid...
Willow Evenstar: It was actually really hard to come up with what precisely Tonks would do. So I sort of went for what would be the funniest.
Thoughts and Pondering: Oh, yeah, I know all about school computers. They are so irritating with all their rules...
scared-of-mimes: Actually... the whole "Sirius killed Fudge" thing is sort of going to come up.
RSegovia: Sirius sort of helped, I guess.
Phillipa of the Phoenix: Stupid Harry. Well, Tonks still might have a nervous breakdown. I think she's still caught up in the rush.
obsessivescottishdemocrat: Thanks! Love your name, by the way.
milky way bar: Thanks!
meenyrocks: Well, I figured if it wasn't Sirius' body to begin with, and he could enter it once...
Lady Kazaana: (dramatic sigh) Sometimes I just don't have the energy to churn out long things...
Irish Lady Knight: Eh, not too much of a plot twist, but it's fun! Thanks!
IamSiriusGrl: Killing is fun. )
hydraspit: You know, I've actually had a couple of original endings. I'll tell you the others when this is all said and done.
Hiro No Tsuki: Thanks!
Fuzzy Angel: Wow, thanks for the long review! I'm glad you thought Dumbledore was realistic. I mean, the guy is pretty quirky, but I felt some things would be even beyond him. And, yes, I love "Heart and Souls!" Great movie.
Dante Lewis: I actually don't dare answer your question until the next chapter... Sorry.
cwam: Thanks!
blackmamuth: Thanks!
badger-dude: Thanks!
Ameria: Tonks ideas taken! Thank-yee!