Note: Warning: This chapter contains poor attempts at humour! Because I like chocolate. And because I felt like being funny...or at least vaguely amusing!
This chapter is very much linked to Without a Trace. For those of you who have not read it and want to read it...go and read it before you read this! For those of you who can't be bothered, simply know this: Remus was poisoned and kidnapped by relatives of the Death Eater Rowle, which has left his lungs in a less than healthy state.
Thank you to those of you who have reviewed, you are very kind. =)
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, nor am I making any profit form this piece of writing.
16: Who Likes Chocoballs?
"It's a good thing you're so nosey, Teddy Bear." Victoire announced the following morning as she drowned her cornflakes in milk. "There's no way we can risk using the fireplace to get to the Ministry now Auntie Dora's seen us. If you hadn't gone and stuck your head in that pensieve we'd be completely out of leads."
"It's not much of a lead." Chester grumbled as he hastily scribbled another line of his Defense homework. "All we really know is that Carrow-Smyth is a really nasty bit of work."
"I feel sorry for him." Victoire announced, and Chester promptly choked on the toast he was halfway through swallowing.
"Are you mental or something?" he cried as Teddy reached to thump him rather unhelpfully upon the back. "He's the most selfish, manipulative bastard I've ever heard of!"
Victoire shrugged, seemingly unaware of how utterly shocked the muggle born was.
"I know, but to be fair to him, Auntie Dora's not been a saint either..."
"She and the rest of the girls on the planet."
"...that was a pretty nasty trick she pulled on him in the Atrium cupboard..."
"That was for the good of the Order!" Teddy protested passionately, scowling when the girl merely shrugged again.
"True, but that doesn't mean it wasn't nasty. The poor man's in love with her, Ted, even now..."
"They hate each other." Chester insisted. "They must do, did you hear what Ted said? How rude he was..."
"Boys are often rude to girls they like." Victoire said, and Teddy glanced somewhat meaningfully at Chester, causing him to redden. "And he DOES love her, that's why he's willing to risk his job in order to get Uncle Remus locked up, why he kept saying those horrible things about werewolves to Auntie Dora. He's trying to protect her, because he loves her."
"He's even more mental than you are." Chester scoffed, gaze returning to his half written essay.
"Nobody ever said you have to be a nice person to fall in love, Ches." Victoire reasoned, causing Teddy to shudder. "Just because he's selfish, doesn't make him another Voldemort."
Teddy looked down at Chester's frantic scribbling and, keen to change the subject, told his best friend:
"You're never going to finish in time. Defense starts in ten minutes or so."
"Shut up." Chester muttered, scowling at the essay accusingly. "With any luck it'll start late, your dad hasn't shown up for breakfast yet."
Teddy and Victoire looked over at the teachers' table searchingly and, true to Chester's word, they found that Remus was nowhere to be seen.
"You don't think something's happened, do you?" Teddy mumbled worriedly as Chester turned over his parchment and set about writing on the fresh side.
"Since last night?" Victoire tapped her spoon against the edge of her bowl thoughtfully. "I doubt it..."
"I dunno," Chester muttered as he ruthlessly scribbled out a spelling mistake with a furious scowl. "If they're going to arrest him for assault I don't see why they wouldn't do it in the middle of the night..."
"Oh shut up, Chester!" Victoire snapped when Teddy's face fell at the very thought. "I'm sure he's just overslept or something. That's not too hard to believe is it? You do it all the time."
Chester opened his mouth to retort, only for Teddy's voice to cut him of.
"Mum...?"
His friends both turned to follow his gaze towards the double doors, and sure enough, they spotted Teddy's mother striding into the hall and up towards the high table. At the sudden appearance of the Head of Aurors in their midst, talk up and down the house tables died down as the students of Hogwarts stared at the unexpected visitor.
"Do you think that's a bad sign?" Teddy wondered as Tonks came to a halt before the Headmistress and the two exchanged some sort of greeting. McGonnogal rose from her chair and the two witches both headed for the double doors again.
"Well come on then!" Victoire demanded, getting to her feet and, motioning for the boys to follow her.
Eavesdropping was seemingly an impossible task, for McGonnogal and Tonks were stood just outside of the hall's doors, and Teddy caught only the briefest of words before he was forced to walk in on the conversation, countless eyes of those back in the hall upon his back.
"It's just for a few days, Minerva..."
"Yes, yes, I know that, but really Tonks, there have been enough disruptions this year as it is. Not purposefully of course, but very disruptive all the same...Mr. Lupin, Miss Weasley!"
Teddy vaguely wondered where Chester was, but supposed he was still busy stuffing his essay away in his bag. As he and Victoire came to a halt, the two adults turning to face them, Tonks' expression somewhat despairing, Teddy decided the only thing to do was to simply jump in at the deep end.
"Where's Dad, Mum?" he asked, attempting to keep his tone light, unconcerned. He could not help but feel that he had failed somewhat miserably.
"Ted..." Tonks began a little uncertainly, reaching to sweep the dark hair from her eyes as she eyed her son wearily. "Professor McGonnogal and I are having a talk, it's very important...why don't you and Vic go to class? And I'll owl you as soon as I get home..."
"Has Artemis locked him up?" Teddy asked, flinching at the look that materialised upon her face at his use of Carrow-Smyth's first name. He hadn't meant to do it, but having watched her do the same so often the night before he couldn't help but let it slip from his tongue.
"No, no, nothing like that. Just...go to class, love. I'll tell you later. Now go on, off you go..."
"So it's nothing serious?"
"No...of course not. Just go to class."
"Why? Dad's not here to teach it."
"Because if you don't Professor McGonnogal is going to put you in detention." Tonks waved an impatient hand at the pair of children, oblivious to the Headmistress' raised eyebrow. "So go on, up that staircase, quick march and I'll talk to you later!"
Teddy and Victoire both headed for the marble staircase, dragging their feet purposefully as the two witches returned to their conversation.
"It's not that I want to do it, Tonks," McGonnogal was saying as the children began a slow ascent of the steps. "It's just...getting the cover and sorting out the pay...it's such a hassle and the quality of teaching...! If it's not their subject they just hand out textbooks and tell the children to read, what good is that? I'm really sorry..."
"It's MY subject!" Tonks pointed out rather desperately. "It's my subject even more than it is Remus', if we're talking formal education! I can teach! Keep on paying Remus and I'll teach the lessons until he's better..."
Better? Teddy felt his stomach twist. Better from what?
"...it won't be for long, he'll be back long before my suspension is over!"
Teddy and Victoire did not get to hear what McGonnogal said in reply, for students had begun to make their way out of the Great Hall towards their lessons and they had reached the top of the staircase.
"I wonder what's happened to your dad." Victoire mused worriedly as they came to a halt, ready to go their separate ways, Teddy towards the Defense classroom and Victoire to Transfiguration. "It's not the full moon for a while, is it?"
"No..." Teddy mumbled, adjusting his grip upon his bag and biting his lip in concern. They did not say another word, however, for they nodded farewell to one another and went to their classrooms.
The third year's Defense Against the Dark Arts class quickly descended into chaos without a teacher to keep order, and within ten minutes of the beginning of the lesson the room was alive with noisy chatter and laughter, a few of the Slytherins had begun a paper ball fight and by the time the door finally opened at the back of the room a fleet of paper aeroplanes was in the process of dive bombing the Ravenclaw girls in one corner. At the sound of the door opening the class fell instantly silent, eyes forward until an unfamiliar voice commented:
"Very interesting."
The third years twisted in their seats at the sound of the voice, and all promptly gaped at the woman stood in the doorway, who was examining a stray plane that she had caught in one hand.
The Head of Aurors crushed the plane in her fingers and threw it in the vague direction of the waste paper bin, before striding purposefully up the center of the room towards the teacher's desk.
"Alright," she said as she rounded on the class, leaning back against the desk and looking around at all the faces rather uncertainly. "First things first: Who thinks they can come up with a decent reason as to why I should walk in here and not give the lot of you detention for flying a horde of paper planes around Professor Lupin's classroom?"
There was a long silence before one of the Gryffindor boys finally raised a hand.
"Yes...what's your name?"
"Finley."
"Finley. Go for it."
"You can't give us detention because you're not a teacher."
At the back of the room, a few of the Slytherins sniggered, though most of the class, including Teddy and Chester, were so bemused by the situation that they simply stared at the Auror, who grinned and said:
"Exactly right, Finley! Rule One of defending against the Dark Arts: Stand on your own two feet and don't mindlessly accept the authority of others. That's the Number One Rule, remember that, if we didn't have that Rule the Order of the Phoenix would never have been founded, Harry Potter would be dead and Voldemort would have won the War. Okay, here's another question for you: Who likes Chocoballs?"
Once again there was deafening silence.
"Nobody?" Tonks perched upon the desk, swinging her legs back and forth as she looked around at the class. Finally, Chester raised his hand and mumbled:
"I do..."
"Excellent!" Tonks leapt from the desk, causing a few of the Hufflepuffs in the front row to jump. "You can go first, Chester."
"Mrs. Lupin...?" the girl sat beside Teddy called as Chester rose uncertainly to his feet. "Um...where's Professor Lupin?"
As she reached into the pocket of her robes and drew out the largest bag of Chocoballs that Teddy had ever seen (did they even sell packets that big?), the professor's wife frowned ever so slightly as she replied:
"Professor Lupin has been taken ill."
"What's wrong with him?"
"That's a good question...what's your name?"
At the questioning look she was offered, the girl supplied:
"My name's Amanda."
"That's a good question, Amanda, I'll be asking the healers at Mungo's the exact same thing this evening. But don't worry, twice as much chocolate gets handed out when I teach his lessons. So...Chocoballs..."
Chocoballs were not nearly as nice as they usually were when you found yourself huddled in a corner of the classroom, a mass of tiny chocolate balls flying towards you at such speed that if you blinked you would miss them colliding with your face.
Surely chocolate couldn't really be so...painful...?
"Come on!" Teddy heard Tonks call as he made a dive for the teacher's desk, crouching underneath in relative safety. "It's simple enough: stun the chocolate, eat the chocolate! I want it all eaten before the end of class, else Filch is going to have my head on a pole!"
It had been quite possibly the most brilliant lesson in Teddy's living memory at first, when Tonks had first bewitched the bagful of chocolates causing them to float around the room at a subdued speed. They were easy targets, Teddy had eaten at least five before Tonks had grown bored of the classes' success and, with a flick of her wand, had turned the search for chocolate into a fight to remain free of sticky splodges all over their clothes as the confectioneries committed kamikaze on their robes and jumpers. The Head of Aurors settled down in the chair behind the desk, took out a compact mirror, and busied herself with morphing her hair a brighter, more cheery colour, pausing every so often to take lightening fast aim with her wand at an approaching chocolate, wordlessly stunning it and plucking it out of the air. After some five minutes of chaos she was at last satisfied with her sky blue locks, the mirror disappeared back into her pocket and she looked around the room to assess their efforts.
Orion Lynch and his fellow Slytherins had barricaded themselves in a corner with some upturned desks, Amanda was being pelted with chocolate as she consistently failed to stun the balls in time, Teddy and Chester were both huddled by Tonks' feet under the desk, the remaining Gryffindors had resorted to using their textbooks as shields and one of the Hufflepuff boys had given up all together; he stood stock still in the center of the room, splatters of chocolate all over, mouth open wide in vain hope that one of the balls might fly straight inside.
Tonks sighed heavily, and was about to raise her wand to summon the wayward chocolates back into their packaging, when the Hufflepuff boy's tactics finally paid off. A Chocoball shot from somewhere near the ceiling, like a bullet from a gun, straight into his mouth...
And down his throat...
"Bugger..." Tonks muttered as the boy's eyes widened in shock, hands reaching to claw desperately at his throat. As his knees buckled beneath him and his chubby face began to look distinctly purple, the Head of Aurors got reluctantly to her feet and, with a mumbled word and wide sweeping gesture, stunned the remaining chocolates. "Nobody panic!" she announced as she strode over towards the choking child. "Just watch carefully, this is pretty cool..." She pointed her wand directly at the boy's throat, and Teddy was pretty sure that if his eyes had not already been as wide a snitches they would have widened in further alarm, before giving her wrist a flick, and the offending ball of chocolate shot back out of the boy's throat, out of his mouth and into the opposite wall with a wet little slap.
The Hufflepuff boy drew in a deep, gasping breath as his classmates made a collective grimace at the display, and Tonks reached to pluck another stunned chocolate from it's place by her elbow, popping it into her mouth as she went back to perch upon the teacher's desk. Teddy couldn't quite believe that she could eat another one after the grotesqueness of what had just happened, but he did not comment for he and Chester were too busy scrambling out from under the desk to make room for her swinging feet.
"Well..." the Head of Aurors said as the students set about putting the desks and chairs back in their rightful spots. "I've got to admit...that was rubbish." When a few of the Hufflepuffs who were helping the purple faced boy back into his seat shot her suitably offended glances, she smiled at them, which only seemed to offend them further. "I wonder...are there any aspiring Aurors in this class?"
A few hands were raised as the last of the students took their seats, and Tonks eyed the future candidates with a frown.
"Well I'm not employing you," she finally said, pointing in the direction of the Ravenclaws sat behind Teddy and Chester. "You spent the whole time hiding! What sort of future Auror hides from a ball of bewitched chocolate?"
Teddy was just glancing over his shoulder to see who she was pointing at when she said:
"And besides, I don't believe in nepotism. You'll have to wait for Harry to knock me off my perch, he's more up for it than I am."
Teddy stared for a second at the row of Ravenclaws, their hands all in their laps, before turning back to face his mother with wide eyes.
"ME...?" he cried, feeling his face flush in embarrassment.
"I might take you, though." Tonks mused with a grin as she pointed at the Hufflepuff who had choked. "I like your optimism." She summoned the remaining chocolates back into the packet before stuffing it back into her pocket. "Your problem, all of you, is that you're much too slow. A slow Auror is a dead Auror. Fact. So, those of you with grand plans, sharpen up or you'll never make it. And the rest of you can be a bit more on the ball too, have you seen the state of this classroom? It's going to take you until the end of the lesson to clean up, because you were SLOW."
"You spent too much time with Mad-Eye Moody." Teddy grumbled a moment later as he passed her on his way to clean up another splatter of chocolate on the back wall of the room. "Dad would never make us clean up like this."
"I know." Tonks said with an infuriating smile. "But he's much better at cleaning charms than me."
By the end of the lesson, however, the Head of Aurors was certainly back in the class' good books, for she had pointed out that, since she wasn't a teacher, she supposed she couldn't set them homework.
"Plus, marking's boring." she concluded, much to their delight as they filed out of the classroom.
Teddy waited behind and watched his mother clean one last splatter of chocolate from one of the desks in the front row.
"What's wrong with Dad?" he asked, and her enthusiasm and cheer seemingly evaporated on the spot, replaced with the rather worried, tired face that he had seen in the Entrance Hall earlier that morning.
"I'm...not entirely sure, Teddy love." she admitted as the final student disappeared through the door and it swung shut, leaving mother and son entirely alone. "He...had a bit of an accident last night."
"What sort of accident?"
"He started coughing...and he just...didn't stop."
"He didn't stop?"
"No...well...he didn't stop wheezing, at least. So I took him to Mungo's."
"What was he doing?"
"Before? He'd just flooed home. Before that...I'm not sure."
Teddy allowed himself to slump forward until his cheek came to rest against her and she gave him a hug.
"He said he was better now, he said that the healers had made him better..."
"He is better, love. At least...as better as he can be. Sometimes when healers fix things...like Dad's lungs...well sometimes they can't make things as good as new, just...good enough. They'll have him sorted out soon enough, they're sick of the sight of him already, they'll patch him up and kick him out before you know it. It's not life threatening, as long as we can get him to the hospital in good time."
For a brief moment, Teddy felt relieved, until something terrible occurred to him:
"What if we can't? What if...what if he can't go to the hospital? Like...what if it's full moon?"
He had hoped for Tonks to say something to dismiss this anxiety all together, but she simply tightened her grip upon him and murmured:
"We'll cross that bridge when we come to it." She drew back from him and reached to smooth his disheveled hair with a smile. "Don't worry about Dad, he's survived two Wars, a werewolf attack and being married to me. It'll take more than a pair of weak lungs to bring him down." She smiled and began to lead the way over to the classroom doors. "The healers are keeping him in hospital for a few days to decide exactly what to do with him. They are potions that can help, you see, but they need to figure out which one will be best. And then they've requested you and I pop over there for a little chat."
Teddy bit his lip at this revelation.
"What sort of little chat?" he asked, not liking the sound of it at all.
"It's standard practice, apparently. One of the healers is going to teach us what to do, in case it happens again. See, he might not even wind up in hospital next time, if there is a next time."
Teddy dreaded the visit to St. Mungo's. Ever since Remus' last stay there the boy had developed a deep unease about the place. But had he known what he would discover there, he might have found himself filled with excitement as well as dread.
Note: Since I keep on writing these end notes, I'm going to write one here...
No. I will not apologize for my epic cliff hanger! XD