Author note: This chapter contains a line of dialogue from J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (New York: Scholastic, 2003), p. 869.
Chapter 13: Another Boggart
Returning to Hogwarts the next day, Remus told Neville about his visit to St. Mungo's and added that Tonks remembered him, that she remembered morphing for him, that she remembered reading aloud to him when he was six. Neville's face lit up, and to his glee, he actually succeeded in producing a vaporous, misty Patronus. "It still wouldn't repel a dementor, though," complained Neville fretfully. Remus was in all honesty bound to agree with him. He doubted it would repel a boggart.
Tonks left St. Mungo's on the morning of the day that the Hogwarts term ended. Her hair was pink and spiky. Her face was thin and wan, but she had recovered something of her former spirit. After a lengthy meeting over luncheon at the Burrow, she accompanied Molly and Arthur, Remus and Mad-Eye to the King's Cross to meet the returning Weasleys and Harry. She seemed to take pleasure in standing in Sirius's shoes, in threatening the Dursleys about what would happen "if we find out you've been horrible to Harry—" She seemed to take pleasure in becoming one of Harry's surrogate family.
When the Dursleys, Weasleys, and Grangers were gone, and Mad-Eye Moody had stumped off on a secret errand, Tonks turned to Remus. "Where next?"
"I ought to go to Lancashire, to the Longbottoms. I promised Neville that I would keep working with him, and I don't actually know if I'll have any more free time after the Order's meeting tomorrow." He hadn't told her about the werewolf mission, and technically Dumbledore hadn't told him about it yet, but he was pretty sure he knew what was coming. So this might be it. "Would you like to come?"
Her face lit up. For the first time since Sirius's death, she looked genuinely happy.
He put his arm around her. "Let's go then."
Augusta Longbottom lived in a ramshackle old house in a microscopic village in Lancashire. The house—an Elizabethan core dressed in mid-Victorian frippery—had once been a Muggle parsonage. Francis Longbottom had acquired it soon after the Muggle war of 1914-1918 and "converted" it to wizarding standards just as Muggle grooms, round about then, had been converting other rambling Victorian homes to electricity for their Muggle brides. Francis was nearly ten years dead, his son and namesake tortured into madness, but Augusta still reigned supreme.
She opened the door to them herself, an elderly and intimidating witch in an Edwardian dress of green velvet, her old-fashioned, wide-brimmed hat surmounted by an enormous stuffed vulture. "Remus Lupin," she said loudly. "Nymphadora. I know why you're here."
"I—uh—thank you, Mrs. Longbottom—"
"Come in," she said. "In the parlor. Open the piano."
Remus saw no point in arguing. He followed Tonks into the parlor and opened the piano. A glittering full moon spun out and flew straight at him.
"I've been saving it for you!" boomed Augusta Longbottom. "Ah, here's my grandson! He'll do me proud yet. Go on, Neville." She pushed him into the parlor. Neville tripped on the edge of the rug. The boggart, hearing him, spun around and turned into a dementor.
He's really come a long way, thought Remus, if he's more afraid of fear now than he is of Severus Snape.
"I'll send Poufy up with cocoa," announced Mrs. Longbottom cheerfully. "Have fun!"
"Poufy?" murmured Remus as their hostess strode away.
"House elf," muttered Tonks.
Neville was pointing a borrowed wand at the dementor, shouting, "Expecto Patronum! Expecto Patronum!" The wand emitted tiny wisps of formless vapor.
Tonks stepped in front of him. The boggart turned into a writhing green baby. Neville and Remus both stared. Tonks exclaimed, "Riddikulus!" and forced it back into the piano, to the sound of discordant chords and crushing keys.
"The memory you're using isn't strong enough, Neville," she said. "What else have you got?"
"I've tried everything I can think of," said Neville.
"Sometimes it's best not to rely on happy memories," said Tonks, "especially when you're facing a dementor. Just pick something strong. Here, let's have another go." She opened the closet, and the boggart glided out again.
"Expecto Patronum!" shouted Neville. The vaporous wisps slowed the boggart dementor slightly, but only slightly. "Expecto Patronum!" In sixty seconds, the boggart dementor had Neville on the floor.
Poufy entered with a silver pot of cocoa and three china cups on a tray. She was very small, even for a house elf, and although it was hard to discern a house elf's age, she looked like an underfed adolescent maidservant in a toga made of sheeting. She took one look at the dementor and dropped her tray on the fraying Persian carpet. China shattered and chocolate spilled. The boggart dementor whirled around, transformed itself into a pretty blue frock, and flew at her. Poufy ran away squeaking.
"She's been well treated," commented Tonks, "for a house elf."
The boggart saw Tonks and turned into a writhing blue baby with red hair.
Remus propped Neville up against a chair leg. He poured the dregs of cocoa from the silver pot into the only unbroken teacup and handed it to him. "Drink," he said. "Carry some chocolate with you at all times from now on. It's a good remedy."
"Neville, what's on your mind?" asked Tonks abruptly.
"The Department of Mysteries," blurted Neville. "The Death Eater's head in the jar. He broke my wand—"
"Use it," said Tonks.
"U-u-use it? It's not a ha-happy m-memory—"
"It's strong. It'll do. Use it."
Neville looked from Tonks to Remus. His mouth formed a question.
"You were happy to be fighting, weren't you?" asked Remus quietly.
"I was excited. And scared. I told Harry he had to let us come—"
"Use it, Neville," said Remus.
Tonks handed off the boggart. It turned into a dementor and glided forward. Neville screwed up his face and cried "Expecto Patronum!" His wand released a silvery bowtruckle—misty but distinct.
They spent the rest of the afternoon putting Neville through his paces and stayed to supper. "I'm glad some good came of that battle in the Department of Mysteries," remarked Tonks as they strode out into the yard to disapparate.
"Considerable good came of it. The prophecy was smashed; there's no way Voldemort can get it now. We don't have to expend time and energy on guard duty any more. And we put, oh, six or seven Death Eaters back in Azkaban."
"But not Bellatrix Lestrange."
"But not Bellatrix Lestrange," acknowledged Remus.
Tonks sighed. "Sirius died alone, didn't he? I mean—he had us. And Harry. But no parents, no children, no siblings, no wife, no girlfriend. Not even a fierce old grandmother. I don't know if that's good or bad."
"Sirius didn't have girlfriends," muttered Remus without thinking. "He had one-night stands."
Tonks flinched.
"I'm sorry, Tonks, I shouldn't have said that. I'm probably not being fair."
"You probably are being fair."
Remus shrugged. "Probably. I knew him too well to—well, I knew him well enough that I know things about him that probably ought not be said."
"I'll always be glad to hear you talk about Sirius. Good or bad or all mixed up. Anything you remember, anything you can tell me. Don't protect me."
"What are you chuckling about?"
"You and Sirius. Rake and celibate. Daredevil dog and tame werewolf. What a pair. Did James represent a normal, happy medium?"
"James represented the adoration of Lily Evans. Always and only Lily. Lily by day, Lily by night. Lily in summer, Lily in winter. Year after year after year. It drove me batty, and I had a crush on her myself." Remus paused. "Don't blame Sirius too much, Tonks. It was a phase. Those two years after he ran away from home, before he joined the Order, were hard years for him. He took it out in—various ways. It wasn't entirely his fault that he was wild."
"Oh, and you had a much easier life."
"I did rather. I had parents I loved, and I didn't have a younger brother who was an aspiring Death Eater. I had friends who cared about me enough to become Animagi on my behalf. Not such a great idea, really, but we were sixteen—" He paused, wondering how much he could tell her. Should tell her. He took the plunge. "Until I was sixteen, I thought that being bitten by a werewolf was the worst thing that could happen to a person. Then I realized that the worst thing that could happen to a person was being a werewolf who bit someone."
She blanched but held herself steady. "How—what—"
"I didn't do it. I almost did. Severus—while, you know Severus was in my year at Hogwarts. Severus was bright and nosy and he had that running feud with James and Sirius. Like James and Sirius, he noticed that I got sick every month, at regular intervals, and he became curious about it. Sirius tipped him off about the secret passage and how to get past the Whomping Willow. He followed me one night—I didn't know—and even if I had, the wolf has no judgment and no pity." Remus sighed. "James found out—he ran after Severus and pulled him back. He saved him. He probably saved his life."
"Sirius did that!"
Remus took her hand and rubbed it gently. "I know. I know."
Tonks was silent for a long time. "I really miss him," she said at last.
"So do I. So do I."