O'Bannon realized one thing right off the bat.
Tonks was hot . . . in a punk rock sort of way.
Even with her robes, O'Bannon could tell the woman looked very fit. As he did every day with Miss Venatici in History of Magic, he wondered what this Tonks would look like with more revealing clothes, or better yet, no clothes at all.
"Hey. You going into a trance or something?"
An involuntary shudder went through O'Bannon. He felt his face go flush. Had his ogling been that noticeable?
"Sorry. Just . . . the whole thing took me by surprise." He shook Tonks' hand. The woman had a surprisingly firm grip.
"So," he continued. "The Order sent you here?"
"That's right." Tonks sat back down.
O'Bannon picked up his own chair and sat across from her. "And all those hockey questions? Was that some kind of test?"
Tonks gave him a mischievous grin. "Fred and George gave me all that. I mismatched the teams and players just to see if I could throw you. After what happened with that fake Mad-Eye Moody, one can't be too careful these days."
O'Bannon worked his jaw back and forth. "And how do I know you're not an imposter?"
Tonks chuckled. "Anyone tell you you'd make a good Auror? You have a very suspicious mind."
She reached into her robes. O'Bannon tensed until she pulled out a piece of parchment and handed it to him. He held it up so he could keep Tonks in his line of sight, just in case.
His eyes widened when he noticed a swirling kaleidoscope of colors surrounding a golden stamp bearing the letters A.D.
"That's an Incorruptus Charm."
"Correct." Tonks nodded. "And I'm sure you know what would happen if someone tried to forge another's name on that parchment . . . or if someone tried to impersonate the person chosen to deliver it."
O'Bannon indeed knew. The parchment would begin screaming, "FAKE!! FAKE!!" until it was returned to the hands of the proper person.
He started to read.
Dear Jimmy,
I hope this letter finds you well. While I am sure you are glad to be back in your native country, know that there are many students and staff at Hogwarts who miss you greatly. Even though your time here was short, you have made a lasting impression on this school.
Fred and George Weasley have shared your letters with me, and I am deeply concerned at the state of things at Salem. While it is not in my nature to accuse Hogwarts students of wrongdoing without adequate proof, certainly suspicion must fall on Miss Malfoy and Miss Sejant. I have spent much time speculating on Lucius Malfoy's motives for sending those two to your school, circumventing nearly every procedure in place for determining which Hogwarts students should have the privilege of studying abroad. Therefore, I have sent Miss Nymphadora Tonks to Salem . . .
O'Bannon's face scrunched up. Nymphadora?
He shook his head and continued.
Therefore, I have sent Miss Nymphadora Tonks to Salem to determine whether or not Lucius' niece and Miss Sejant are engaged in any activity which could be detrimental to your school. Please give her any assistance you can.
Best of luck to the both of you, and be careful.
Sincerely,
Albus Dumbledore
Headmaster, Hogwarts School for Wizarding and Witchcraft
"Okay." He handed Dumbledore's letter back to Tonks. "I guess you're legit, Tonks. Or would you prefer Nymphadora?" He barely kept a straight face.
Nymphadora Tonks smiled sweetly and leaned forward. "You can call me Nymphadora. But you'll have to ask yourself one thing."
"What's that?"
"Whether you like walking with your legs on backwards and celery stalks growing out your head."
O'Bannon took all of one second to consider this. "Then Tonks it is."
She smiled with satisfaction and leaned back in her seat.
"So . . ." O'Bannon rubbed his hands together. "Cecilia and Serinta are up to something. I knew it."
"We have no proof that they're up to anything. That's why the Order sent me here. To find out."
"C'mon," O'Bannon scoffed. "With a Malfoy in the mix, they're up to something. And speaking of the lovely cousin of Draco and Dipwad, she's been getting real buddy-buddy with one of my best buds, Artimus Rand. She's feeding him all kinds of bullcrap sob stories about how her whole family disowned her and her parents 'cause they weren't pureblood."
"That's true."
O'Bannon's brow furrowed as he canted his head. "Seriously?"
Tonks nodded.
"Huh." O'Bannon stayed silent for several seconds, processing this revelation. "Well, maybe he's bribing her or something. Maybe Lucius Malfoy wants Cecilia to get close to one of my friends so she can do something to me."
"Well, we certainly think we're important, don't we?" Tonks smirked.
"No, no. I'm not being egotistical or anything. It's just Fred and George thought Lucius might do something to me because I beat Draco's team in our hockey game back at Hogwarts."
"With everything that's going on right now, do you really think someone like Lucius Malfoy is going to care about a stupid Muggle game?"
"Hockey isn't stupid." O'Bannon said more forcefully than he intended. He took a deep breath and continued. "I mean, with pureblood fanatics like the Malfoys, who knows what they consider a legit reason for revenge."
"Did you every think those two Slytherins could be here for another reason?"
"Okay, what?" O'Bannon spread out his arms. "I'm all ears."
"You don't need your ears for this one. Just your eyes."
"Huh?"
"You've seen what's been happening around Salem. I'm sure your letters only cover a fraction of it."
O'Bannon's head lolled back and forth. "What? You mean everyone stressing out? With the workload we've had how could anyone here not be on the verge of a breakdown?"
"My Seventh Year at Hogwarts was hell, too. But I don't recall people going so mental they started womping on one another. Oh, by the way. That boy who hit you in the head with a stick. Pinder, was it? Is he a Seventh Year?"
"No. Fourth Year."
"And are all the students who've been having rows with one another and trying to kill one another all Seventh Years?"
O'Bannon paused. "No."
"So all this . . . disharmony at Salem can't just be the result of sadistic professors burying Seventh Years in homework."
"Well, maybe not. But in Isaac Pinder's case, he was downright obsessed with making my dorm's hockey team. His brother was one of the best players Blazenrowe ever had. I guess the pressure was too much for him."
"Uh-huh." Tonks nodded. "And what excuse do all the other non-Seventh Years have?"
O'Bannon stared at her in silence. His mouth slowly fell open. He leaned his head back, stared at the ceiling and shook his head.
"Dammit!" He looked back at Tonks. "Either I'm really selfish or really stupid. Here I thought this had to do with that game between the Triad and Slytherin. But . . ." He grunted. "It's been going on all around me. And I just thought it was typical school stress."
O'Bannon then remembered what Rosa had mentioned to him several weeks ago, about how she couldn't remember students being so stressed out during their entire time at Salem.
"So you think someone is casting a spell to make everyone here, like, super pissed off?"
Tonks folded her hands in her lap. "From what I've learned from your letters and what your headmistress told me, I'd bet my next month's pay someone is manipulating the emotions of the students here."
O'Bannon stared past Tonks. He thought back to his meltdown after the Blazenrowe/Ardenturo hockey game. Yeah, he didn't like to lose. Yeah, he'd been in games where his team played like crap. He'd been mad about it, but nowhere near the level of last Saturday.
Oh my God.
A burning cold sensation covered his flesh and dug into his bones. His legs began to quiver.
He'd never known fear like this. Fear that someone, or something, had gotten inside him, messed with his mind, his emotions, his very being. His self-control had been taken away, making him do things he otherwise wouldn't.
Like yell at three of his best friends in the whole world.
C'mon, man. Get a grip.
O'Bannon pressed his hands on his legs and looked at Tonks. "Okay. So, take me out of the equation. Why then, for argument's sake, would Lucius Malfoy send Cecilia and Serinta here?"
"For one thing, Salem and Hogwarts have always enjoyed close ties . . . well, at least for the past hundred and ten years or so, once all the bitterness from The Great Break subsided. And Professor Dumbledore is trying to rally as many foreign witches and wizards as possible to oppose You-Know-Who. So it would be in the Dark Lord's interests to want to disrupt things at a school that could be most helpful to Dumbledore and the rest of the Order."
"So how are they doing it?" O'Bannon asked. "Some sort of spell?"
Tonks shook her head. "I've checked, and so has Headmistress Esmeralda. If someone was manipulating the students here by wand we would have detected certain fluctuations in the local magical fields."
"What about an Imperius Curse? They're pretty hard to detect."
"That involves one wizard controlling one other. It would be impossible for one or both those girls to use it on so many students at one time."
"So what then?" O'Bannon slumped in his chair, staring at the wooden floorboards under him. Could it be cursed jewelry or other accessories? No, not everyone here wore earrings or bracelets or whatnot. A potion? And how would someone get every student to take it?
His head snapped up. "What about the food?"
Tonks smiled wide. "Like I said, you could make a good Auror. Someone could mix some sort of potion and put it in the school's food. That would ensure it got to every student at Salem."
Again O'Bannon shuddered, not liking the idea he unknowingly ate or drank something that had turned him into a raging lunatic.
"So what do we do?"
"Get some of the food from the kitchens, see if it's been tampered with."
"How do we do that?" O'Bannon asked.
"I would ask Headmistress Esmeralda to order your house elves to bring us some samples. Outside of you, she's the only one who knows my true identity. But I'd rather not involve her in anything directly, in case whoever's behind all this is having her watched. Probably best if we sneak into the kitchen, get it ourselves, and sneak back out."
"Whoa." O'Bannon held up a hand. "You want to sneak in to our kitchens?"
"Why not?" Tonks shrugged. "Me and my friends used to sneak into the Hogwarts kitchens all the time. Fred and George told me you tagged along with them quite a bit when they did the same. Besides, your house elves . . ."
"Servant elves," O'Bannon corrected her.
"Fine. Your servant elves won't tell anyone we've been down there."
"Ya think so?"
"Of course," Tonks eyed him curiously. "House elves, servant elves. If we tell them to keep quiet that we've been in the kitchens, they'll do it. They always follow orders without question."
O'Bannon threw his head back and howled with laughter.
"What the hell's so funny?"
O'Bannon nearly hyperventilated as he answered her. "Boy, are you about to get an education on servant elves."
TO BE CONTINUED