3. Halloween: A Bad Day

Harry was mad. Very mad. His anger was directed at Ron Weasley. The git had insulted Hermione for being able to cast a spell no one else could. It was obvious that he was jealous of her being smarter than him, and the worst part was that Hermione got upset and disappeared. No one saw her until that evening, when Lavender Brown informed them that she was crying in the girls' toilets and had asked everyone to leave her alone. Against his better judgment, Harry decided to give her some time alone. He would look for her after the Halloween feast. She would have calmed down a bit by then.

In the middle of the feast, however, Professor Quirrel ran into the Great Hall with a horrified look on his face and stammered at Dumbledore, "Troll! In the dungeons… thought you ought to know." With that, he fainted on spot. Some Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher! Harry thought.

As everyone began to panic, Dumbledore rose to his feet and ordered everyone to be silent. It took some time, but eventually he managed to instruct the prefects to escort their respective house students to their common rooms and called all the teachers to go with him to the dungeons. Noticing that Snape went a different way from the other teachers, Harry followed Percy Weasley to the common room. They were nearly there when he remembered Hermione. She didn't know about the troll.

He slipped away from the crowd and no one noticed him as everyone was trying to get to their common rooms as fast as possible. Once out of sight of the students, he started sprinting. When he reached the girls' toilets, he saw Hermione standing there with tearstains on her face. Allowing her a look of sympathy, he grabbed her arms and whispered, "We have to get out of here Hermione, there's a troll out there somewhere. We have to go to the common room as soon as possible." Hermione's expression of sadness changed to fear and at that precise moment, there was a loud grunt coming from the bathroom. Without pausing to think, Harry grabbed the door and locked it and urged Hermione to run when a scream came from the bathroom.

Tonks was absolutely terrified. A fully grown mountain troll was coming towards her and the worst part was that she was frozen with fear. She let out a scream. On top of everything today, this was too much. She sincerely hoped this was a very bad nightmare and she would wake up anytime and Hestia would be shouting at her to get her lazy arse out of bed. When a small chunk of stone hit her stomach, she collapsed and started crying. Let the troll kill her. It didn't matter anymore.

She dimly registered someone sending red sparks at the troll. She wiped her eyes and saw him. It was Harry. As the troll turned away from her and pointed its club at Harry, her mind stopped working and she just sat there and witnessed what happened next.

Harry's mind worked with amazing clarity. If someone asked him how he planned to get out of this situation, he couldn't say, but he knew he could. When he first saw the troll advancing towards the girl, he knew he needed to distract it. Sending red sparks he caught the beast's attention. He quickly analysed his surroundings. Hermione seemed to have fainted at the sight of the troll. (Why was she in Gryffindor again?) He didn't know any spells powerful enough to cause real damage to a fully-grown mountain troll. He looked at the club that was about ten seconds from being swung back to crush his body.

WingardiumLeviosa!

Knocked down by its own club, the troll now covered most of the floor. Careful not to step on any part of it, Harry went to the girl sitting on the floor in a corner. She had dark brown hair that was mostly covering her face. Feeling extremely awkward, Harry asked, "Erm… are you okay?" The girl looked up and he recognized her immediately. She was the one looking strangely at him at the Starting Feast and at dinner the other day. He realized she probably dyed her hair very often, possibly every day. There was no way three girls with the same face and different hair colours were running around Hogwarts. The girl stared at him for a moment and then nodded. Harry was about to say something but at that moment, the doors flew wide open and Professor McGonagall, Professor Snape and Professor Quirrell barged in the room. Quirrell gasped at the sight of the troll.

After a few moments of the Head of Gryffindor looked at Hermione, then glanced at Tonks and broke the silence. "What happened to them?"

Gulping, Harry said, "Hermione fainted when she saw the troll and I think she is just in shock." After reviving Hermione (who looked ready to faint again when she saw the troll lying on the ground and the three professors facing her) and checking on Tonks, McGonagall demanded an explanation from Harry. He told her that he came to the bathroom to warn Hermione and they found 'that girl' already inside and that he levitated the club and dropped it on the troll's head. McGonagall considered him for a long moment and then asked them to leave but not before awarding him fifteen points for bravery. Snape looked like he had swallowed a lemon, but remained silent the whole time.

Once out of the bathroom, Tonks cleared her throat and called "Harry?" When he turned to look at her, she pulled him into a hug and whispered "Thank you, Harry." Harry was flabbergasted. This unknown girl was hugging and crying on his shoulder and needless to say he felt terribly awkward, but in a strange way, it also felt good. No one had ever hugged him before and the friendliest touch he'd received before Hogwarts was his maths teacher patting his back when he got the highest in the test, but later he was locked in his cupboard for three days for getting better marks than Dudley. He hesitantly patted the girl's back and she freed him after a moment, apparently embarrassed.

Tonks was not embarrassed. She was mortified. How could she lose control like that? In front of Harry, no less! In her defence, she'd had a truly horrible day. It had started with her date with Eddie Carmichael.

Tonks wore her normal pink hair and a warm jumper with jeans. She wasn't a bit nervous. She knew it wasn't going to be anything big. She hoped she would have a good time with Eddie and maybe sneak in a Firewhiskey later. When they met in the Great Hall (Eddie was from Ravenclaw) Eddie immediately said, "Tonks, you look nice but can you turn your hair blonde for the day?" She was offended a bit but did as she was told. Their journey to Hogsmeade was pleasantly normal. They chatted about school work, mutual friends and people around them. When the carriages reached the village, he informed her that they would be meeting a couple of his cousins at the Three Broomsticks for lunch. Shrugging, she took off her cloak, it was warmer than she'd expected. Out of the corner of her eyes, she saw Eddie checking out her bust. Smirking, she made them a bit larger and was amused to see the gobsmacked look on the poor guy's face. Caught in the act, he asked nervously, "You can… er… change your body parts too? I thought it was just your face and hair." Laughing, she replied, "I can change whatever I have. For instance, I could look like a guy very convincingly, but I can't grow a banana or berries if you know what I mean." She gave him a cheeky wink as he turned red at the mention of "banana and berries". After they calmed down he suddenly perked up and said with a glint in his eyes, "Hey can you keep your chest like that till lunch? My cousin Alan always takes really hot girls for dates and used to tell me how I couldn't have someone like that. It would be awesome to watch his face when I bring someone as hot as you look right now!" She offered him a nod and a chuckle but inside she was telling herself that lunch was not going to be a pleasant event.

Their time before lunch was surprisingly okay. Except for a sense of apprehension, Tonks felt at ease. They went to Honeydukes where they tried the 'Unusual Tastes' like the Blood Lollipops and the Hairy Floss. Tonks was brave enough to try a Cockroach Cluster and to her surprise, it tasted good. They browsed Zonko's for a while and Eddie tried to coax Tonks into going to Madam Puddifoot's, but she firmly refused. After taking a peek at Gladrag'sWizardwear, they finally headed to the Three Broomsticks. Eddie called out to his cousin Alan who was talking to Madam Rosmerta. Alan came over and greeted her with a smile and a nod and shook hands with Eddie. They approached an empty table but before they could sit, Eddie tried to take her arms or her waist or maybe he had some completely different intention but his action resulted in Tonks being pushed to the side and consequently trip over ,but thankfully she caught herself before she had to land arse first on the floor. Stammering an apology to her, Eddie quickly sat down before anything else went wrong. Wise choice you stupid Ravenclaw.

Once they settled down, Alan looked at Eddie and asked him, "So who's your pretty friend, Ed?" Tonks smiled at him and he grinned back. Eddie proudly announced, "This is Tonks. We are on a date. Tonks dear, say hello to my cousin Alan."

Trying not to laugh at Eddie's pompousness, she winked at Alan."Wotcher, Alan."

"Pleased to meet you, Tonks." They had a nice lunch together where they talked a bit. Tonks was talking more with Alan as he was much more easy-going and friendly. To her relief, Alan didn't try to flirt with her or anything. She wouldn't have minded if he did, but she was sure Eddie wouldn't be very understanding if his cousin bested him again. As it was, Eddie wasn't happy when they parted. He was cold and even rude to her on their way back to the castle. Realizing it was only delaying the inevitable, she grabbed his arm and forced him to face her. He had an expression of disgust and anger etched on his face. Sighing, she asked "What's wrong with you?"

"You are wrong with me, Tonks. You!" he said with a sneer.

"What's that supposed to mean?" she asked with gritted teeth. He laughed humorlessly at that.

"Oh I don't know! I bring a girl on a date and she flirts with someone else; how could that possibly be wrong?"

Tonks was losing her patience. "I did not flirt! If you can't tell the difference between flirting and normal conversation, it's no mystery why you had no luck with girls before." He turned red at this. "You don't know what you're talking about! Alan tried to make me look stupid by taking you away, because for once I had someone who had a better figure than his usual dates. You should've talked with me so that he could understand that you chose me over him, but no! You had to be a complete bitch and laugh with him because you can't get enough guys in your pants. It's no wonder you didn't have a boyfriend for more than a couple of weeks. Once they're done shagging you, they don't bother to-"

SMACK!

She slapped him hard on the face. Tears were threatening to burst out of her eyes, but she used her ability to hide them for the moment. "So it wasn't about me; you just took me because you wanted Alan to think you're shagging a hotter chick than he is, and that had to be me because who better than a metamorphmagus who can fit her arse and tits to any size and shape you want? You know what I think of Alan? He might be a player, but he knows what to do around a girl and that's why he, not you, gets the good birds. And about my boyfriends, I don't have to share the reasons behind my break ups but I know that people want to go out with me, unlike you-"

"That's only because you can look like their best fantasy in bed! What else would a bloke date you for?" he shouted angrily.

There was a very uncomfortable silence for a few seconds. Eddie seemed to be coming to his senses and realized what just came out of his mouth, but Tonks pointed her wand at him and his hair vanished and painful boils covered his head. Screaming, he threw a tooth growing curse at her and ran away.

Using her abilities, she shrank her teeth to normal and calmly headed to the girl's toilets. Another girl was crying in there. A first year Gryffindor, as much she could understand in her troubled mind. The bushy hair was somehow familiar, but she didn't have the heart to find out. She sat down in a corner and started to sob. Eddie's words hurt so much because everything he'd said about her was true. She didn't have anything else that could catch a guy's attention. Who would look at an average looking tomboyish girl who was more often in trouble than not? She cried until she didn't have any tears left in her and then she heard a loud grumble and the ground shook. A troll was walking towards her. When a stray stone hit her stomach, she cried again.

Now she was standing in front of Harry Potter, the boy she'd just hugged for saving her life. For her it wasn't a big deal, she hugged everyone she knew. But Harry did not know her and probably thought that she was touched in the head. Harry sure had a nice impression of her.

"Er… do you know me?" he asked, as if afraid to offend her. But she was troubled. She would've told him all about their past, but she felt this was not a good time.

"Of course, who doesn't know Harry Potter? You are the freaking Boy-Who-Lived!" she said with false enthusiasm, but it was hard not to notice the darkening of his eyes as she said it. What did I say wrong?

"Oh. I guess." He replied. She managed a smile and said "I'm Tonks, by the way. Sorry for getting all over you. I tend to hug people a lot. And thanks for saving me."

He returned an awkward smile and said "No problem. Nice meeting you Tonks. See you around."

As she bid him goodnight and saw him leave for the Gryffindor common room, she swore he turned his head a bit but stopped himself. Sighing, Tonks whispered to herself, "You don't remember me, do you?"

A/N: I hope you liked the idea of Harry saving Tonks instead of Hermione. She was already friends with him so I didn't want to waste such an incident. Please review. I love it when you review. :)