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Chapter 4 – Happiness in Misery

The Hogwarts Express had arrived at Hogsmeade Station. Hundreds of students were so eager to get off the train and resume classes. She kept looking for Harry, but never spotted him. She spotted Ginny, Hermione, and Ron, but not Harry. She found that peculiar.

She waited until all the students were off the bus before she began to panic. She looked through the train windows and noticed that one of the compartments had all the blinds shut. She decided to check it out. Once she stepped onto the train she kept casting the Revelio charm and waited until she found Harry. When Tonks arrived at the compartment with the closed blinds, she said Revelio and out of nowhere Harry appeared.

"Wotcher, Harry."

Tonks released a red light and Harry's body unfroze. He pushed himself into a more dignified sitting position. Tonks grabbed the Invisibility Cloak while Harry was wiping blood off his bruised face. He looked up at Tonks. Tonks noticed that the train was beginning to leave.

"We'd better get out of here quickly," she said, as the train windows became obscured with steam and they began to move out of the station. "Come on, we'll jump."

Harry quickly followed behind Tonks into the corridor. She pulled open the train door and leapt onto the platform, which seemed to be sliding underneath them as the train gathered momentum. Harry followed her closely. Tonks could see the train disappear out of sight when she turned around to check on Harry. The cold night air was soothing. It reminded Tonks of the long walks Remus and she took when they were first getting to know each other. She was beginning to feel her throat constricting with agony when she shook off her feelings and turned to Harry. She handed him the Invisibility Cloak.

"Who did it?"

"Draco Malfoy," said Harry bitterly. "Thanks for… well …"

"No problem," said Tonks, without smiling. Harry looked at her in a different way. She tried her best to hide how miserable she was, but it was hard to when she was sporting her mousy brown hair. She knew that not many people had seen her in her natural appearance, but she was too upset to care or change it for that matter. She wanted to say something funny to him, but she just couldn't think of anything. "I can fix your nose if you stand still."

Harry seemed like he was contemplating letting her to this, but he closed his eyes and stood very still.

"Episkey," said Tonks. In a spit second, his nose was healed.

"Thanks a lot!"

"You'd better put that Cloak back on, and we can walk up to the school," said Tonks, still unsmiling.

Harry swung the Cloak back over himself. Tonks realized what she would have to do, and swallowed hard. She closed her eyes and thought of a memory of the happiest she had ever felt.

Remus and she were walking out of the Department of Mysteries after guard duty. They held hands and apparated outside Grimmauld Place. The snow was fluttering down rapidly, she could barely see Remus and he was less than two feet away.

Tonks was about to walk to the front door when Remus grabbed her hand and sputtered, "Hang on just a second… I have to tell you something." He looked anxious.

"Can you tell me inside, I'm freezing?" She turned around to face him and he grabbed her other hand.

"No, it can't wait." Remus blurted, looking directly into her brown eyes. "I have never been this happy before. These past few months have been remarkable…. the best in my life."

She gave him a smile and said, "They have been for me too."

He wrapped his arms around her and she grabbed the back of his neck. They were in a warm embrace when he whispered in her ear, "I think I'm falling in love with you."

Before she had time to respond, she pulled her head off his chest and pressed her lips to his. When she pulled her lips away, she looked deep into his blue eyes and responded, "I think I love you too, Remus."

Warmness filled her entire body. She waved her wand and thought to herself, Expecto Patronum. An immense silvery four-legged creature erupted from the tip of her wand and streaked off into the darkness.

"Was that a Patronus?" asked Harry.

"Yes, I'm sending word to the castle that I've got you or they'll worry. Come on, we'd better not dawdle." Thinking about that memory was like the Cruciatus Curse to her heart. Tonks tried to think of anything to get her mind off of it before she started to cry.

About that time Harry asked, "How did you find me?"

"I noticed you hadn't left the train and I knew you had that Cloak. I thought you might be hiding for some reason. When I saw the blinds were drawn down on that compartment I thought I'd check."

"But what are you doing here, anyway?" Harry asked.

"I'm stationed in Hogsmeade now, to give the school extra protection," said Tonks.

"Is it just you who's stationed up here, or…?"

"No, Proudfoot, Savage, and Dawlish are here too."

"Dawlish, that Auror Dumbledore attacked last year?"

"That's right."

They trudged up the dark, deserted lane, following the freshly made carriage tracks. When they made it up to the castle gates Harry said, "Alohomora!"

"That won't work on these," said Tonks. "Dumbledore bewitched them himself."

Tonks knew that the only way into the castle was if someone let you in. Harry looked around for another route in. "I could climb a wall," Harry suggested.

"No, you couldn't," said Tonks flatly. "Anti-intruder jinxes on all of them. Security's been tightened a hundredfold his summer." She admired Harry for trying.

"Well then," said Harry. He looked very stumped and annoyed. "I suppose I'll just have to sleep out here and wait for morning."

"Someone's coming down for you," said Tonks. "Look."

A lantern was bobbing at the distant foot of the castle. Tonks was hoping to see Hagrid, but the figures shadow was seemed small to be Hagrid. It was not until the glowing yellow light was ten feet away from them, and Harry had pulled off his Invisibility Cloak so that he could be seen, that they both recognized, with a rush of pure loathing, the uplit hooked nose and long, black, greasy hair of Severus Snape.

"Well, well, well," sneered Snape, taking out his wand and tapping the padlock once, so that the chains snaked backward and the gates creaked open. "Nice of you to turn up, Potter, although you have evidently decided that wearing of school robes would detract from your appearance."

"I couldn't change, I didn't have my…," Harry began, but Snape cut across him.

"There is no need to wait, Nymphadora, Potter is quite… ah… safe in my hands." Snape gave her an unusual look, one she had never seen him give anyone.

"I meant Hagrid to get the message," said Tonks, frowning.

"Hagrid was late for the start-of-term feast, just like Potter here, so I took it instead. And incidentally," said Snape, standing back to allow Harry to pass him so they were now speaking in private. "I was interested to see your new Patronus."

Tonks thought to herself, a new Patronus? That's obscured, how did her Patronus take a new form without her knowledge?

He rudely shut the gates in her face with a loud clang and tapped the chains with his wand again, so that they slithered, clinking, back into place.

He whipped around causing his cloak to billow behind him dramatically, when he decided to turn back around. "I think you were better off with the old one," said Snape, the malice in his voice unmistakable. "The new one looks weak."

Instantly it was as if her veins had turned into ice. She didn't know if she was angrier at him for what he'd said or shocked at how callous he was.

As Snape swung the lantern about, Tonks wanted nothing more than to give Snape a piece of her mind, but she was a loss for words. Harry and Snape began to disappear into the darkness when she heard Harry call out to her over his shoulder, "Good night, thanks for… everything."

"See you harry."

She couldn't believe Snape had been that disrespectful. She had always known him to be cruel, but never that cruel. How did he know what was really going on? She would've thought he would be oblivious to these types of things. She then realized that he gave her strange looks earlier this morning. Tonks then realized that Snape was right. She was weak, everything about her was weak and she detested herself because of it.