Author's Note: Yes, I know I'm a total ass for not updating in so long but…I just wasn't satisfied with how this chapter turned out! I deleted it then I made another one, declared it as rubbish before going back to this one. I'm very picky when it comes to my stories and the slightest thing just pisses me off. I'm sorry, I'm just a perfectionist, though this chapter is far from perfect

On another note, thank you for the overwhelming response I received for the Prologue. I'll (try to) answer your questions in the next chapter.

Chapter One:

Auror Nymphadora Tonks was feeling miserable. Downright miserable. Quite unusual since the rest of the Wizarding World had been celebrating the death of the Dark Lord nonstop for days. Even now, there were parties going on all around her but she paid no heed to them.

Her feet were heavy on the familiar paths of Hogsmeade as one resounding thought occupied her mind.

Harry hadn't come back.

Over the last few days, once spies had revealed Voldemort's hiding place, some prisoners had been freed and had returned to their families.

Harry wasn't one of them.

There had also been quite a number of people who had been captured and hadn't come back. They were all classified as dead. There was a whole list of them really, most of them Order/DA members.

Parvati Patil, Terry Boot, Cho Chang, Bill Weasley, Anthony Goldstein…

But the one name that stood out from all of them was Harry Potter, the boy she had considered a brother ever since the summer before his sixth year when he hadn't had anyone to talk to except the Order guard stationed outside the Dursley home. And though he talked with Dung Fletcher and Mad-eye Moody, it had been her and only her, he had opened up to about his feelings on his godfather's death.

Perhaps he had only started talking to her because she was a blood relative of Sirius, but what mattered was that he had.

And she, in turn, had opened up to him as well. She told him things she had never told anyone before. How she sometimes wished her mother had stuck with the Black family, how her metamorphmagus powers were a curse in a way.

The two had gradually grown closer over the summer. Both having no siblings of any kind, in a way, they adopted each other.

Now, he's gone, Tonks thought wretchedly as she made her way to Hogsmeade's Apparition Point. She should probably go back to Grimmauld Place, if only to make sure Ron Weasley didn't lay one single hand on Harry's Firebolt.

She was snapped out of her thoughts as commotion erupted from the Hog's Head.

She and several other people walked briskly to the shady pub, curious to see what was going on. Once she arrived at the door of the pub, she had to blink and rub her eyes to see if she was really seeing things right.

What she had expected to be a Fudge supporter and a Dumbledore supporter at odds at who had really won the war turned out to be an all-out duel with a handful of supposedly dead teenagers against adults twice their number. What was even more surprising was that the teenagers were winning.

Yes, there was Anthony Goldstein beating the snot out of Amos Diggory, a staunch supporter of Dumbledore. And Katie Bell, believed to have been killed in an ambush, was sending a Nightmare Curse at a man who was sporting a lime green bowler hat, not unlike Minister Fudge's.

All Tonks and the other spectators could do was watch in morbid fascination as every adult in the pub was knocked unconscious or incapacitated.

As one, the victors turned to them, wands drawn.

"OBLIVIATE!"

Tonks closed her eyes and braced herself for the supposed washing sensation that the Memory Charm was supposed to produce (no one really remembered what it felt like).

When the sensation didn't come, she slowly opened her currently violet eyes. Everyone else around her had a blank expression on his or her face, an effect of the spell. They started to walk away, still looking vapid. Tonks was definitely confused. Why had she been spared?

Cho Chang stepped forward from the group, obviously the leader of the small entourage.

"Nymphadora Tonks, you're to come with us," she told the Auror.

"Like hell I will. You're probably all just Inferi," Tonks spat out before turning around to make a run for it. The thought that Inferi didn't have the ability to cast spells or even speak never once crossed her mind, bewildered as she was.

Cho smirked and pointed her wand at Tonks feet. "Incendio!" Flames erupted before the Auror could take a step forward. "Would an Inferi be able to do that?" she asked. "Stupefy!"

Tonks' arms snapped to her side and she fell backwards, away from the fire.

The former Ravenclaw Seeker nodded at Parvati. "Slip the Portkey into her robes. We don't want to stay too long and risk being seen by anyone else,"

Parvati nodded and kneeled in front of the fallen Metamorphmagus, pinning a brooch to her robes. "Say hi to Harry for me," she smirked and stood up. Apparently those were the activation words because the moment they were spoken, Tonks disappeared from Hogsmeade.

A second later, the group of teenagers followed her.

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Harry leaned his head against his cold cell wall, waiting for a sound. A sound that would signify the Order's triumph over the Death Eaters holding him captive and his freedom from this hellhole.

He waited there for hours, but to him they felt like centuries. Weren't they going to come get him? Surely they would be worried. He had been gone for probably two whole days now.

His ears perked up as he heard hurried footsteps. Finally, he would be out of here. He would be free.

The cell door slammed open and Harry felt as if it were his hopes that had been slammed against that wall.

"So, it's really true, then?" Draco Malfoy sneered as he stood in the doorway. "The Great Harry Potter has been captured. Oh, I could hardly believe my ears when father told me, Potter. But here you are, Gryffindor's Golden Boy bro—well, not quite broken, but I can surely help with that,"

"Tell me, Malfoy," Harry spat the last word out as if it was something vile he had eaten. "When your father tells you all these things, is it a reward for kneeling in front of him and opening his trousers?"

Malfoy's sneer disappeared, replaced with a snarl. "We'll see how long you can live under our tender care. None of your little friends are coming for you now," He took out a chain of spikes and grinned maliciously. "Do you know how long I've been waiting for this opportunity, Potter? Since forever."

"I'm touched, Malfoy, but really, I don't swing that way. I mean, the whole bestiality is just disgusting,"

Malfoy growled and lashed out.

Harry clenched his teeth to keep from crying out in pain as the spikes dug into his clothes and skin. Bits of cloth and skin were torn out as Malfoy retracted the spikes.

The Boy-Who-Lived grinned through a mouthful of blood before spitting the liquid out. "Is that the best you can do, Ferret? My friends are going to fry you alive when they bust me out of here!"

The Slytherin let out a harsh laugh. "Didn't you here me, Potter? None of them are coming here to save you. They can't and they won't. Weasel's too self-absorbed to notice you're gone and the Mudblood? She's hasn't left the library since you left. I actually think she's set up camp in there. Dear old Dumbles has been too busy with my Master. No one's going to come save your hide, Potter."

He lashed out once again and this time, Harry couldn't help but let out a cry.

"C'mon, Potter, scream. Scream, Potter."

"Potter!"

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"Harry!"

The Gryffindor shot out of bed, breathing deeply as if he had been running. He looked to the side and saw Katie Bell standing over his bed, obviously startled.

"We've got Tonks," she told him, looking away from his naked and still somewhat scarred chest.

"Thanks, Katie," muttered Harry, raking a hand through his rumpled hair. "Did you have to Stun her?" he asked, pulling on a shirt.

"Yeah. Tony and Terry brought her into the Parlour and are probably reviving her about now," reported Katie.

Harry nodded. "And how is she?" Katie knew that he didn't mean Tonks.

"Asleep. I don't think she's fully recovered yet," They walked out of his room, heading downstairs.

Harry sighed, his eyes wandering to the doors of the master bedroom. "I haven't either." His head felt like it had been bashed with a club…repeatedly, and then pushed in front of the Hogwarts Express. "Has Bill returned with the things I asked for yet?"

Katie shook her head.

"Dammit," an expensive vase blew up as they reached the bottom of the stairs.

Harry ignored it and stalked off towards the Parlor, leaving Katie behind. The doors flew open of their own accord and Terry Boot and Anthony Goldstein stumbled backwards at the sudden movement.

Harry nodded at Tonks. "Revive her," he told them. Normally, he didn't like ordering people around but seeing as his wand had been snapped when he had been taken into captivity, he had no other choice. He would have to wait until Bill came back. Thankfully, the others' wands hadn't been snapped, just stowed away, as they had not been deemed dangerous enough.

Anthony pointed his wand at Tonks. "Enervate!"

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Tonks opened her eyes slowly, waking from her forced sleep. She blinked once she saw who was standing right in front of her. When the vision didn't disappear, like she had thought it would, she sat up abruptly.

"Bloody hell! Harry!" she exclaimed.

"Keep your voice down," Harry said harshly. "You don't want to wake anyone up."

"You're supposed to be dead!"

A sneer formed on the males' faces. "Anthony and Terry are supposed to be dead, too," said Harry, making Tonks finally take notice of the two former Ravenclaws. "And so are most of the people in this house but yet they're breathing, talking, walking," He arched a cool eyebrow at her. "Don't always believe what the paper says, Tonks. You should have learned that lesson ages ago."

The Auror stared at him for a good few minutes before instinct took over and she threw her arms around him, causing him to stumble backwards slightly before he hugged her back.

"You put me through hell, you know that?" she said through uncharacteristic tears.

"I was put through hell, Tonks. But I'm back, aren't I?"

"How did you…" She reeled back as realization hit her. "You did it! You killed Voldemort!"

"Caught on, haven't you?" But the voice didn't come from Harry. No, it came from the direction of the doorway.

Tonks whirled and her eyes bulged as she saw who was standing there.

"YOU!"

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Author's Note: Another chapter done! And I promise that the next chapter won't be so late. Hopefully, my friend Mr. Writer's Block won't be coming over to stay.

Bet you've already guessed who it is, haven't you? smirk