'She . . . ?'

'Yes.' said Snape.

Goyle tried again. 'She ate . . . ?'

'Would you really rather she hadn't?'

The poultry around Tonks' feet clucked dubiously, evidently having difficulty processing that their erstwhile prisoner had turned into a large reptilian predator and that they themselves were now not so much big scary Death Eaters as potential dinosnacks. Tonks lunged and crunched happily. As birds shot off in all directions, the dinosaur spun, slipped on wet cobblestones and fell.

'I've seen enough,' muttered Tonks. 'Stop the memory.'

The velociraptor was back up, shaking its head. 'Wait a bit,' said Fortinbras. Tonks looked at her. 'You're going to be hearing all about it anyway. Best get the details straight.' Tonks felt sick but Goyle's penseive memory continued relentlessly; Snape was examining a small glass bottle he'd found in one of his pockets.

'Professor Snape?' whispered Goyle.

'What is it Goyle?'

'I don't think I want to marry Miss Tonks, sir.'

'Why ever not?'

'She scares me. And . . . and she's a mudblood, sir.'

'Goyle . . .'

'Yes sir?'

'A mudblood like Harry Potter?'

'Er . . . Yes?'

'And the half-blooded former 'Dark Lord' Voldemort, also known as Tom Riddle?'

'He was?'

'His father was a muggle,' said Snape, 'as was my own.'

Light dawned over Goyle's craggy visage. 'In that case, sir, I don't want to marry Miss Tonks because I'm courting Fiona Finch-Fletchly.'

'I don't think I know a Miss Fiona Finch-Fletchly, Goyle.'

'Her cousin's a wizard.'

'And Fiona Finch-Fletchly?'

'She's gorgeous, sir, that's what she is.'

'Really?' enquired Snape, 'and you're . . . courting her?'

'Every Saturday night,' gloated Goyle, 'whenever her parents are in town, and . . . and sometimes up in the hayloft and the barn. And the long field at the end of the paddock. And the horsebox at trials. And . . .' He stopped, blushing furiously. 'Right talented is Fiona,' he muttered, 'an' a right hard worker.'

'Congratulations,' murmured Snape, 'and now, if you'll excuse me, I think that I should to feed this emetic to Ms. Tonks before she reverts to human form or, perhaps, before supper reverts to human form.'

Goyle pulled a face. 'She seems nice,' he ventured, 'even if she does eat people. Did you really give her a love potion?'

Snape glared. 'Goyle,' he said, 'shut up.' He tossed the little bottle into the air, playing it with his wand like a fisherman a fly, bobbing it above Tonks' dinosaur nose. She gave Snape a dirty look and turned back to the chickens roosting in the gutter above, grinned a reptilian grin, and began to metamorphose.

'Oh no,' whispered Tonks. Once upon a time she'd 'stepped out' with Charlie Weasley and, in consequence, knew more than she'd ever wished to learn about dragons. Sure enough, the velociraptor's arms were lengthening, their orientation shifting: the dinosaur was becoming thinner, leathery webs stretching between sides, forelimbs and lengthening metatarsals.

'Oh yes,' said Fortinbras. 'There are some forms you'll need to sign. Dragon animagus.'

'There is no such thing.'

'There is now. According to the 'Theory of Morphic Resonance'. If you've done it once, you can do it again.'

'I didn't do that!' protested Tonks. 'Weasleys' "Chicken Soup" did that.'

'Even so.' Not seeming to have learnt anything, the chickens were gathering along the lower edge of a sort of lean-to, single story extension, shivering wetly and peering down at the unchanging, hungry grin. 'The thing is,' Fortinbras continued, 'quite a lot of our laws are based on muggle ones, just changing the details here and there. The ones about animagi differentiate on the basis of what you turn into. If you turn into a dog, then you're responsible for what you do as a dog, same as muggles are responsible if their dog bites someone. Would you like a liquorice allsort? She offered Tonks a crumpled, brown paper bag.

'Thank you. No.' The creature had completed its metamorphosis and was making small, experimental hops into the air.

Fortinbras took a sweet and stowed the bag back in her robes. 'Muggles aren't responsible for what their cats do in your garden because that's the nature of the beast. While you might be held accountable for turning into a dragon in the first place, you wouldn't automatically be held responsible for anything it did afterwards.'

'That's bollocks.' Tonks tore her eyes from the dragon.

'I'll have you know it was drafted by experts.' Fortinbras smirked. 'Including a moggie animagus who had several "special friends" on the Wizengamot.' She popped the sweet into her mouth and watched with satisfaction as the dragon's powerful hind legs tensed. Wings whooping madly, it rocketed upwards, talons scrabbling against iron guttering as all but one of the chickens fled squawking; noises immediately buried under the racket of the dragon flailing up the roof and slates raining down, crashing and shattering down in the alley below. It reached a low ridge and, wings spread for balance, began to jump and stagger along it.

Lights were appearing and windows slamming open. Still trying to persuade the Metamorphmagus to swallow the potion, Snape tried banging the bottle against its head. In the dimness, Tonks could see the reptile's lip curl; there was a crunch and then the dragon was spitting glass. With a dismayed expression it slid down into the shadow of a deep gully at the intersection of three steeply sloping areas of roof. Tonks could hear splashing and slurping.

The rain continued raining. 'Is that it?' enquired Tonks.

'Not quite.' Footsteps could be heard approaching from the direction of Diagon alley.

'Hello, hello, hello . . .' Wand light showed red hair, matching yellow and red striped dressing gowns, dragon hide boots and large, multicoloured plastic water guns in the Weasley twins other hands.

'We've had a bit of a break-in,' announced Fred (or possibly George).

'Or perhaps that should be a break- out,' remarked the other twin. 'We're missing most of our latest product.'

'To whit, a cauldronful of "Chicken Soup".'

'And it didn't break out on its own, did it sir?'

'Wouldn't happen to know anything about it now, would you, Professor Snape?'

Snape plucked a stray feather from his robes and shook it lose from his fingers. 'I believe you'd have to talk to Auror Tonks about that.'

'And now probably isn't a good time,' rumbled Goyle.

'We heard that you had dinner with Tonks last night,' the twins persisted.

'So perhaps you can tell us where she is?' Fred, or perhaps George, had cancelled his 'Lumos' and was now idly levelling his wand at Snape. Goyle's hand disappeared into his robes.

'Drop your wands!' demanded a voice from the darkness.

'Oh no,' groaned Tonks, 'Please. Not McLaggan.'

'He was the only one available when the 'Leaky Cauldron' fire called their complaint about the noise and the damage to the roof. And you were the one who wanted to introduce him to, and I quote, "something bad-tempered with lots and lots of teeth". Are you sure you wouldn't like a sweet?' Fortinbras began hunting through her pockets. 'I've some peppermints somewhere.'

Up on the roof, the dragon had spotted McLaggan and, the tip of its tail twitching from side to side, begun a crawling descent towards him.

-


Author's note: if Terry Pratchett's Greebo can do it . . .

(I don't own Greebo (but then I would say that, wouldn't I?))