Author's Note: Where did all my lovely reviewers go? Sniff

Woo! On a roll now! Hmm, Percy might have to have a death-bed redemption type thing to make that work, but yep, consider him gone. Also, if there's anyone you'd like saving let me know too. Obviously Harry has to survive and it'd be a bit of a bummer if Tonks didn't, but anyone else just name the fate.

For those of you who feel cheated by the last chapter's revelations, prepare for a few better ones :D I may have pulled the rug as it were, but you're still standing on it folks ; )

Mirror, Mirror

Chapter twelve: A Very Muggle Escape

Tonks' world had fallen apart. The man she thought she had loved was a fraud. Her parents were dead, and now she'd doomed the Order to the same fate. She couldn't breathe; the walls of her cell began to close in. Tonks tore at her t-shirt collar, doubled over and emptied her stomach over the stone floor. The candle on the other side of the bars, her only light source was getting very short indeed. Tonks picked up the wooden chair and smashed it against the bars. She did the same with the small table, small wooden shards sticking in her face and arms. She threw herself at the stone wall of her cell, punching, kicking, scratching til her hands were a bloody mess and her head pounded. She fell to her knees and screamed, her eyes felt as though they might explode. Her clothes now sopping with tears, she threw herself at the barred wall. She couldn't apparate here, which meant that door was her only means of escape. How could she have been so stupid! Guard your wand with your life, that was day one Auror training! As she grabbed at the bars, some kind of magical electric current ran through her, every muscle in her body contracted, every cell was in pain until she wrenched her hands away. Damnit!

Tonks curled on the floor, panting and sobbing, until she came across something in her back pocket; her Swiss army knife. Maybe she could use it somehow, maybe she could escape in time to at least warn the others. It would be hours before she'd be missed, and by then it would be too late. She re-familiarised herself with all the knife's components, then the bottom of the cell bars. She saw the screws and thanked Merlin, and her father for giving the knife to her. She pulled out the screwdriver and bit her lip. Shoddy workmanship. Built to hold wizards, not muggles. She braced herself and began unscrewing the lower bars in short bursts, the current becoming more and more painful. On she persevered, despite the pain, and eventually she had removed two small bars from the door. By the time she had finished Tonks had bitten so deep into her lip it was seeping with blood.

She put away her trusted tool, and scrambled her way through the small gap. She made herself as thin as she could, but still managed to bush the bars a few agonizing times before she was all the way through. Tonks emerged from the gap exhausted and shaking violently. She tried to pick up the candle, but dropped it, plummeting her into darkness. Once again her father came to her rescue as she remembered the small torch embedded in the knife. She flicked it on and stumbled through the dark passage in search of a way out.

Tonks went through several corridors before finding a set of stone steps. She made her way slowly up, to freedom, or death.

She breathed a sigh of relief when she got to the top. Rodolphus had been telling the truth then at least, there was no-one there. She searched the few rooms and found little of note; an abandoned meal for seven, some moth eaten books, some papers which she grabbed just in case and not alot else. She found the main door easily, but it was shut fast. It would take her forever to get through it and that was time she didn't have. She looked around for a window, maybe she could attract someone's attention, ideally someone with a very large axe. She found what was once the living room and peered out of the half boarded windows thick with dirt. She pulled at an old dust sheet and smeared the dirt. It didn't make an awful lot of difference. She spotted a small crack in the boards and peered through. Tonks laughed out loud. Rodulphus had lied. There was undoubtedly a silencing charm on the derelict building, but it was in reach of civilisation. She knew exactly where she was. She was in Dufftown.

Tonks jimmied the board off with the blade on her knife and squeezed through the gap, getting her hair caught in the process. She was too tired to transform, gaining her freedom at last with one final burst of pain and several damaged follicles. She looked at the small clump of brown hair hanging from a twisted nail, a wry smile creeping over her weary face. She quickly carved a message into the chipboard, just in case he came back, or if anyone should be looking for her. Tonks had to walk for her life. There were very few chimneys on the floo network here, and she was too weak to think, let alone apparate.

She walked towards the main hub of the town in search for the route to Hogsmeade, leaving her message behind her.

"Uncle Rod,

Something to remember me by,

Ymp."

Tonks varied from sprinting to walking for over an hour before she could keep going no longer. As she fell to the ground a dark yet amusing thought crept into her fleeting mind. Maybe luck would be on her side, maybe she'd snuff it as soon as she'd sent word. She chuckled as much as her parched throat would allow. Heh, if only.

As she sat on the dirt footpath just over halfway to Hogsmeade, she pulled the papers she'd snagged out of her pocket. She might as well see what they were while she was resting. Most of it was useless; public transport timetables, blueprints of the floo network, receipts, and only copies of her bloody letter is all! Something wasn't quite right. There was a copy of each letter she had recieved from R, as well as those she had sent back to him. Reasonable enough, if it had been the plan all along, but they were hand copied, and the handwriting was niether her's nor whoever had sent them to her. That was not the only odd thing about them. There were huge spelling mistakes, errors and even had words missing. It was as if someone had copied them in a hurry. But what could it mean? Her head hurt too much to think properly. Her legs were aching from the run, her hands were swollen and she was having trouble moving her fingers. Her whole body hurt from the shock charm, and her soul pained with the knowledge of her parents' deaths. She was ready to give up. In fact, even if she had wanted to carry on, her legs would probably have ignored her commands.

Tonks remembered seeing people on her father's television in similar situations, soldiers lost in enemy territory, that sort of stuff. Whenever they felt like they couldn't go on any further, they'd find a photo of their sweetheart, or their children maybe, and that would be all they needed to finish their journey. Tonks wished she had such a momento, more to the point she wished she had a 'someone' behind the watch, locket, cigar case or whatever it was. But she didn't.

Her parents were dead. Sirius was dead. Nacissa and poor Draco were too. Bellatrix, she knew to be incapable of procreating. A blessing in itself.

She was the last in the Black line, and things didn't look good.

Tonks remembered one of the last things her mother had said to her only the day before. It seemed like an age since she'd popped round for tea, but it was still only yesterday that everything was normal.

"Family's a strange thing. You might not always like them, but they're always there."

Where was Tonks' family now?

She lay down on the dry summer grass but didn't dare close her eyes for fear that she might never open them again. The sky was clouding ominously above her, the wind dropped quite suddenly and the temperature was rising, not just in Tonks. Right now she would have welcomed the rain, but she feared this would be no ordinary shower.

The first droplet splattered down, landing on the pile of copied letter in her lap. Tonks held it to the sky and watched the ink bleed. Another drop landed between her eyes, and a third on the parchment held loosely in her bloody fingers. As the water and ink swirled around the page, Tonks noticed that there was something else written there. She flipped it over and examined it with her stinging, sore eyes. She bolted upright and rifled through the other copies, they all had notes on the backs! The notes were in the same hand as the hasty copies, albethem neater. As she scanned page after page, she found herself laughing! Rodolphus had tricked her, but he had not seduced her. The correspondence between her and R had been intersepted fom the beginning. It had been an oppertunist attack, which meant that her R was still out there somewhere. Now she had her trinket. She had to go on, send word to the others. She had to find him and take him back with her to safety. That is, if he wasn't there already.

She stood after several attempts and staggared on towards Hogsmeade, towards her destination. Now death and happiness shared a path.