Harry was, for once, at a loss. He knew how to handle Uncle Vernon's angry raging and Aunt 'Tunia's debasing rants and his classmates and adults and everything else in Harry's short life so far. But what Harry couldn't understand was this wonderful person being a freak like him. Magic was freaky, Harry knew. Then this girl had to be a freak too. Harry had never met a fellow freak before.
Tonks' exuberant voice abruptly derailed Harry's hopeful train of thought. "So... what now? Can ya just, like, forget that," Tonks gestured to her now hot pink hair, "ever happened?"
Harry stared at his fellow freak. She was actually talking to him! In Harry's eyes, this cemented the fact that this new pinkette freak was indeed a freak. She was talking to him!
Tonks noted her new friend's blank stare and sighed. "No, of course not," she huffed. "So, what's your name?"
Distracted, Harry murmured, "Harry Potter, the school freak. Pleased to meet you."
Tonks gaped in shock. "Like, the Harry Potter? The Boy-Who-Lived? Aren't you supposed to have black hair and that scar?"
Harry's mind blanked in the face of this onslaught of questions. He did have black hair. How could he not? Harry stumbled over to a nearby puddle from last night's rain and shook his head in denial. The face looking back at Harry must have been a resident of some imaginary watery world. There must have been something in that dumpster that caused hallucinations. That face in the puddle was not his face.
Harry prodded his new face, explored the face he was currently wearing. Gray eyes blinked intelligently back at the bewildered eight-year-old. Harry tugged on his new chocolate brown hair in utter confusion and abject terror.
He was going to be beaten within an inch of his life for this freakish stunt. Uncle Vernon would never let Harry be seen any different than his normal state of being. Harry had to fix this, and fast. He turned to Tonks, the only person nearby who seemed to know even a little bit about what was happening and how to fix it.
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Tonks looked over at her new friend. He was staring at his own reflection in the puddle with a bewildered expression on his face. She watched him pull on his hair and stare at the mousy brown strands.
"Harry, what's wrong?" Tonks asked, stepping closer to her new friend. Her hair shifted to a curious orange.
Harry backed away from her, eyes darting to the entrance of the alley, planning his escape.
Harry yelled, "It was you! You did this to me! Change me back!" Dread seeped through Harry's being as he thought about the Dursleys' reactions to his new freakishness and the subsequent confinement to the cupboard.
"No! I mean, I can't, Harry!" Tonks cried. "Harry- I think you did it yourself!"
"Are you telling me that I changed my hair? That you can't change me back? Are you out of your mind?!" Harry screamed. He furiously pinched himself, hoping to awaken himself from this nightmare.
"Harry, I know this is very confusing, but you've got to stay calm or those bullies will come back here and find you!" Tonks implored Harry to think logically. She continued, "So what you need to do is imagine yourself exactly as you were. Picture yourself in your mind, standing in front of a mirror. Can you do that?"
A haughty reply came back to the frantic girl. "I am not an imbecile, Tonks. I am completely capable of imagining myself, especially within my own mind."
Tonks sagged in relief and disappointment. "I'm glad ya calmed down, Har, but please don't be that way! Talk to me, please." Harry nodded his assent. "Wonderful! Now push…willpower, I guess, into that image of the normal you. Become that image. It's how I learned."
Sleek chocolate locks slowly faded into a jet-black mop, and steel gray melted into vibrant emerald as silver-white winter melts into lively spring. Harry Potter was himself once more. The aforementioned boy heaved a weighty sigh, an amalgamation of relief, hope, and resignation, among myriad emotions that this eight-year-old child should not have known, but did.
"Thank you, Tonks. I'm really sorry I blew up at you, but I was really, really scared of what Uncle Vernon was going to do to me. Forgive me?" And Harry sent the unprepared Tonks a wide-eyed look of such innocence and hope that she could not help but smile.
"Yeah, I forgive you, you little shrimp," Tonks admitted, but then the last half of Harry's sentence caught up with her brain. "What will your Uncle Vernon do to ya? He's your uncle, for Merlin's sake!"
Harry suddenly found his shoes extremely interesting. "He calls me a freak and beats me up when he thinks I do something wrong but it's always stupid Dudley's fault and Aunt Petunia says I have a nasty common name and my parents were good-for-nothings and I don't want to go there but I have to and help me Tonks will you please-" Harry clung to his newest and first friend and broke down crying, exhausted from the trying events of the day. The little boy's disgust in himself for crying like fat, blubbering Duddykins only served to renew his tears with more physical manifestations of seven years of fear and pain and humiliation and hope.
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Face burning, Harry lifted his face from Tonks' shoulder. He had just cried in front of someone, and a fellow freak at that. The intrepid eight-year-old decided to jump right into the issue.
"So you're a freak too?" Harry inquired innocently.
"What?" Tonks screamed. "I am not and will never be a freak! NEVER call me that!"
Harry, stunned, stepped back several paces and sadly turned to leave. "I'm sorry. I'll just leave now. I didn't mean it, if that helps any!"
"No, it's just… never mind. Why are you a freak? Is it 'cause you can use magic?" Tonks asked.
Harry hissed. That was the one word that would get him a beating no matter what. But she's okay with it, Harry's mind reminded him. Reluctantly, Harry faced his friend and nodded to her question. Tonks adopted an expression of surprise and loathing. Harry, seeing this, again started to leave, afraid he had lost his friend of one hour.
Tonks pulled Harry back to her by the arm. "Harry, you are not and will never be a freak. You're a wizard, a magic user. I'm a witch. And we're both Metamorphmagi or changelings. That means we can change our appearance like you changed your eyes and I change my hair."
Harry stuttered, "B-but Aunt Petunia said…"
Tonks sighed. "My mum can explain this much better than I ever could. Let's go, Harry."
Harry balked at the thought of meeting Tonks' mum. "Aunt Petunia will worry. I can't, "he said sadly.
Tonks retorted, "Mum can fix any problem. She'll deal with anything your stupid relatives can come up with. Now are you coming or do I have to pick you up and carry you like a baby?"
Harry, suitably pleased with Tonks' solution for the Dursleys' anger, ran after her as she began to walk out of the alley. Really, his pride wouldn't survive being carried. The horror!