Over in the corner, a small shoal of something or other with teeth was worrying what was left of a sack of potatoes. The last twenty minutes had been notable for the absence of any sort of reinforcements and the water was now within a foot of the top of the island. The scrawny sous-chef was volunteering, for the fifteenth time, to jump from the island to the steps and phone the fire brigade and Tonks was beginning to treat this as a serious option when, from the restaurant, she heard the sharp explosion of apparition and then the crunching of feet over broken glass. Transferring her wine to her left hand, she reached for a frying pan.
It had worked before. On the other hand she could only hear only one pair of feet. Snape appeared in the doorway, looking piratical, with an octopus on his shoulder.
'Tonks,' said Snape. 'I hadn't realised that you were quite such a party animal.'
'Catching up,' replied Tonks. 'In danger of losing my 'Drunkenness, Brutality and Unreasonable Behaviour' bonus.' Oh yeah, she thought, I'm pissed.
'In that case perhaps I'd best leave you to it.'
'Snape!' Snape looked interested. Tonks indicated the rising water and voracious fauna. 'Would you mind?'
Snape's wand twitched. The water vanished and predators with feet retreated under cabinets. The ray-shark battled the cabinet door and the lugubrious chef dropped to the floor with a greedy gleam in his eye. Tonks toasted Snape with her glass. 'Ta. Did you catch them?'
'Catch but not capture. Unfortunately. And I'd recommend staying out of the flue system for a while.' He glanced over his shoulder. 'The cavalry.' Snape disapparated.
Not pissed thought Tonks some time later. Rat-arsed. Blootered. Three sheets to the wind.
Styles was attempting to take a statement from a waiter. 'Let me get this straight. The customer yelled "Get down!" You ducked behind the bar, just as the knights who say "Ni" broke in the windows, and then it all went beam me up Scotty?'
'Aye,' said the waiter. 'And then Cyrano stunned us.' The sound of sirens came closer. Clearly someone had dialled nine-nine-nine. 'Personally, I'd have given them the shrubbery.'
Better tell Fortinbras, thought Tonks. With extreme caution she made her way back down the steps into the kitchen just as one of the sous-chefs experimentally chucked a ham bone into the stock-pot which immediately began to rattle, leapt of the stove and erupted. Tonks closed her eyes as warm fluid hit her. She was aware of someone taking her arm, the world folding into far too small a space and then she was being pushed, naked, under a shower. The wriggling, slithering, scratching feeling was falling away with the warm water and then it happened.
'MEHITABEL FORTINBRAS I'LL KILL YOU!' Tonks dropped, folded foetally, to the ground.
'Up now,' soothed Fortinbras pulling her into a kneeling position. 'Drink this.' Through a blur of tears, Tonks could see that Fortinbras was proffering a milky-green potion.
'Tisit?'
'Analgesic.'
'Coul'n't have given it me before you cast . . .'
'Sorry Tonks. As Moody said, the critical element with that particular spell is that of surprise. After we'd chased him all over Edinburgh.'
'Don' blame 'im,' muttered Tonks.
'I'm sorry,' said Fortinbras. 'I know it stings but you were covered in an unknown biogenic substance.'
It hadn't even been Tonks' fault. With magical pseudo-sealife engendering in her underwear, Tonks had been grateful when Fortinbras had taken her arm and side-along apparated her to decontamination. The shower had been welcome. The cleansing charm had come as an extremely nasty surprise. 'Stings,' complained Tonks. 'Mucous membrane . . ..' She blew her nose, tried to wipe away the fluids streaming from her eyes and nose and swallowed the potion. 'Hate you. I really do.'
'I know love. Look, find the cadets, tell them to go home and then go home yourself. I'll sort out the restaurant. Those muggles were marinating that ray-shark thing in fizzy drink and making barbeque sauce. It's not 'Confundus' so Merlin only knows what sort of spell they've been hit with, poor bastards.' She disapparated. Over in the corner, the clothes bin containing Tonks contaminated clothing shivered and leaked violet arthropoda. Tonks stumbled up and turned the shower back on.
Half an hour later, feeling woozy but better, Tonks was looking for Potter and Weasley. They weren't filling reports. They weren't drinking coffee. The big status board, plainly on the fritz again, was insisting that they were at Hogwarts. 'Seen the sprogs?' she demanded of Shacklebolt.
'Hogwarts,' replied Kingsley. 'Snape took something from the scene of the crime.'
'Shit.'
Tonks ran.
She apparated to Hogwarts' anti-apparition perimeter directly from the broom closet, crossed the outer wards, and mounted her broom. At least this time she wouldn't lose House Points for flying in the corridors; just bits of her anatomy if she didn't manage to fly a bit straighter.
When she got there, the door to Snape's chambers stood open. 'Sir,' Potter was saying, 'I owe you and I don't want trouble. Just hand it over and we can go home. Please.'
She pushed open the door and stopped dead. In Snape's darkened sitting room a section of bookcase had been replaced by a large, iron lace and bevelled glass aquarium that seemed to recede into the wall behind. Moons of pale gold light, floating at various levels with in the tank, cast a gentle illumination on a bottom consisting of chunks of quartz and fine white sand. It was utterly beautiful. From an ancient looking amphora, wedged amongst the rocks, a single bluish tentacle extended slowly towards one of the light spheres. 'A pet?' Tonks asked in amazement.
'A study,' replied Snape. 'However, as the creature succeeded in sticking Bellatrix Lestrange's own wand up her nose, I see no reason why it should not be comfortable.'
'And that's what the Ministry want back?' queried Tonks.
'Could be dangerous,' supplied Weasley.
'Indeed?' said Snape. 'I am qualified to handle anything. I require formal authorisation only for the most dangerous of creatures.'
'Ok,' said Tonks. 'I'll confirm the authorisation. You two go and sort out a team. We'll need to arrest those responsible for its creation. Not the muggles, obviously. It's not a crime to make soup. What did you say fell into it?'
'A portable swamp I had confiscated from one of the second years.' Snape said mildly. 'The label indicated that it came from Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes.'
'Oh bugger,' muttered Ron.
'Right,' said Tonks. 'Obviously you won't want to be involved in your brothers' arrest but perhaps you know who their financial backers are?' If Potter and Weasley had actually eaten what the muggles were reported to have been cooking they couldn't have looked worse. She waited but a reply was not forthcoming.
'For fuck's sake,' blazed Tonks, 'you're Auror Cadets. Do you think that either one of you could possibly be bothered to engage whatever passes for a brain occasionally? Who sent you?
'Dawlish,' whispered Potter.
'Dawlish is not your friend,' stated Tonks. 'Dawlish does not like you. Or trust you. Dawlish thinks that you are a threat to the magical world and, to him, you may well be.' Tonks shut up. Rubbing her face, and knowing that she had said much too much, she continued more gently. 'Go home. It's normal to play tricks on newbies. That's all this was; right? You've just made fools of yourselves. Everyone does. It's not important. It's late so take tomorrow morning off and you can work on your reports over the weekend and show them to me before you submit them.' Tonks sighed. 'Potter. You did well earlier tonight. You both did.' Potter and Weasley continued to stare at the floor. 'Well?'
'Professor Snape was paid for that catwalk thing today,' said Potter, wretchedly.
'So?'
'Under the terms of his License of Release from Azkaban, Professor Snape is required to detail all personal expenditure and any money he has exceeding ten galleons must be handed over to the Ministry.' Both Potter and Weasley looked miserable. 'No action will be taken against him on this occasion but we've been told to collect the cheque.'
'McLaggan has it,' said Tonks.
'That's not bloody right,' burst out Weasley. 'If it wasn't for Professor Snape, Harry would be dead and the bastards would be reporting to Voldemort!'
'I know,' said Tonks. Weasley and Potter glanced at Snape's mask like countenance, and then trailed, very quietly, out of the door. 'I didn't know,' said Tonks, 'and they're right.' As they closed the door behind them, Tonks turned to the sound of a slow hand clap from behind her.
-
The 'Knights Who Say Ni' are from 'Monty Python and the Holy Grail'. They contrive to be both scary and ridiculous and demand a shrubbery.
'Beam me up Scotty' is from 'Star Trek' and denotes a situation from which those involved would very much like to depart – something not achievable by conventional means.
'Cyrano' is Cyrano de Bergerac, the eponymous hero of a play by Rostand. 'Roxanne', a film with Daryl Hannah and Steve Martin was an adaptation of the play in which the big nosed duellist, with a winning way with words, gets the girl.
The Barbeque Sauce is courtesy of 'excessivelyperky'. (Crustacia may contain traces of Vogonity).
999 is the number for the Emergency Services in the UK.
