A/N: This piece was written for round 4 of The Houses Competition. Normally I'd publish it in a separate work but since it features Remus and Tonks I thought it would fit better in the one shot collection. Enjoy.
Prompt: Summary: Set during the Deathly Hallows. When the last bit of Polyjuice Potion is spilled at Shell Cottage just before Harry, Hermione, and Ron try to break into Gringotts, they enlist the help of the next best lookalike: Metamorpmagus Nymphadora Tonks. With a clumsy Auror at their side, will they still be able to break in and out of Gringotts for the Hufflepuff Cup Horcrux undetected?
Content warning: some violence, non-graphic injuries
...
The barely-risen sun glitters against the water on the shores outside Shell Cottage. Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Griphook stand on the rocky, sandy beach, ready to go through with the latest plan to find and destroy another Horcrux. Harry is sure that one lies within Bellatrix Lestrange's vault at Gringotts. They will attempt the impossible– breaking into one of the safest places in Britain.
"Are you sure that's hers?" asks Harry, glancing furtively at the single strand of dark, curly hair in Hermione's hand.
"I'm positive it is." Hermione holds the strand gingerly and drops it inside the flask. The Polyjuice Potion bubbles within, turning into tar-like sludge and giving off a nauseating stench.
"Bloody disgusting," Ron mutters, staring at the concoction. Hermione winces, and just as she brings the potion to her lips, a violent wave crashes against the rocky shore, spraying all of them with freezing water.
A blast of salty sea air overtakes them next. Hermione becomes unsteady on her feet, and with another deafening wave of water, she stumbles backwards, spilling the Polyjuice Potion into the rocky sand.
"No!" Hermione cries pitifully, as she drops to her knees, scrambling to collect what remains of the potion.
Harry watches as the potion seeps into the sand, and though he tries to get the potion back into the bottle, it's of no use. Too much has been absorbed and there is no chance of getting it back.
"What are we going to do?" Ron says, panicked. "That was all we had, wasn't it?"
Hermione tries siphoning the potion back into the bottle, frantically moving on all fours to get the potion where it belonged, but the water begins washing it away.
"We'll find something else! Glamour Charms can work!" Harry shouts over a loud roar of crashing waves. "We should go anyway!"
"No," comes Griphook's reply. "You'll never get through with Glamour Charms. Her likeness must be exact." Ron is at Hermione's side, attempting to reassure her.
"We'll have to brew it again!" Hermione says miserably. "I think I've got enough ingredients, but we'll have to go somewhere else so no one knows what we're up to!" She hangs her head, looking wretched, while Ron puts his arm around her shoulder.
Harry groans. A new batch of Polyjuice Potion could take a month to brew, even if they had the ingredients. Shell Cottage is crowded; there's simply no way they could brew a potion there for a month's time, especially if Voldemort becomes suspicious of the trio's plans. His thoughts race with possibilities of impersonating Bellatrix Lestrange without performing magic or making another potion.
A colorful head of hair comes to mind, and though they have their doubts, Hermione and Ron agree it is the next best option. They return to the cottage with a new plan.
Bill raises an eyebrow at them upon hearing their request at breakfast, but conjures his Patronus and sends it off with a message to Lupin and Tonks. Minutes later, Tonks's wolf Patronus arrives bearing a message.
" Wotcher, Bill! I'll be there in fifteen minutes with Remus and Teddy. Hope you and Fleur don't mind."
Harry breathes a sigh of relief. He leads Ron and Hermione outside, near Dobby's grave, and sits down on the sandy soil.
"We tell them we need to get something from Lestrange's vault," Harry begins. "We don't tell them what it is or why it's important – only tell them that it's to defeat You-Know-Who."
"What if Lupin wants to come?" asks Ron. "It'll be four of us now…not to mention Griphook."
Harry frowns. He'd planned on having Griphook with him under the Invisibility Cloak, Ron under a Glamour Charm, and Hermione Polyjuiced as Bellatrix. With Tonks – and possibly Lupin, if he insisted – there would be too many people.
"One of us should stay behind with Lupin," Harry decides. Ron and Hermione exchange uneasy glances.
"I'll stay behind," offers Hermione. "I'm Muggleborn…it's more dangerous if I get caught."
Ron doesn't protest. He merely wraps his arm around her and Harry looks away, wondering if their plan will work.
They return to the cottage and as soon as they sit in the kitchen, there's a knock at the door.
Lupin enters first, holding a blue-haired bundle in his arms. He looks even younger than when he announced his son's birth. Tonks enters next, tired but beaming.
"Wotcher! Long time no see!" Tonks greets joyfully. She gestures to the blue-haired baby and has Lupin bring him to Harry.
"This is your godfather, Teddy," Lupin says warmly, and glances at Harry. "Would you like to hold him?"
"Err…" Harry stammers. He doesn't remember the last time he held a baby – if ever – and Hermione takes the infant instead, cooing at him.
"He's beautiful," she murmurs, brushing his soft blue fringe out of Teddy's eyes. "Congratulations again."
Lupin and Tonks are all smiles for their son. Harry is happy for them but worried. The task ahead might be too much for the new mother, but he has to try.
"Could we talk somewhere private?" Harry says hesitantly. "We have a favor to ask."
Tonks and Lupin's expressions change. They sober and Harry leads them up to the room he and Ron had stayed in after the escape from Malfoy Manor. Ron and Hermione follow, and Teddy fusses. When Teddy is back in his father's arms, contently snoozing against shabby robes, Harry broaches the issue at hand.
"We can't tell you everything…but there's something we need to get at Gringotts. It belongs to You-Know-Who and it'll help us beat him. We need to go as soon as possible – the sooner the better."
Lupin lifts an eyebrow. "You need to break into Gringotts?"
Hermione pulls out Bellatrix's wand. "We need to get into Bellatrix Lestrange's vault. This is her wand – we managed to get it recently – and we'd like to know if you'd be willing to help us, Tonks."
Tonks's jaw falls open and Harry holds his breath. She closes her mouth and blinks rapidly at Lupin.
"Before you say no," Harry pleads, "we have a goblin to help us called Griphook. We have a deal and he's going to help us break in, but we need someone to look like Bellatrix Lestrange. We had Polyjuice Potion and one of her hairs but it spilled." Hermione shifts guiltily and shrinks into her seat.
"I'm not saying no," Tonks says slowly as Lupin sputters. "But even if I look like her, there are a million ways this could go wrong. Are you absolutely sure you need to do this?"
"Yes." Harry, Hermione, and Ron reply in unison. They know the stakes; there is no other option.
"I have my Dad's Invisibility Cloak," Harry continues. "I'll be under it with Griphook. We can't have all of us go…we thought it could be Ron with a Glamour Charm, me, and you. Hermione would stay behind with you." Harry peers up at Lupin, whose lips are set in a thin line. He requests a moment with Tonks, and they step outside the room.
Silence falls over Harry, Ron, and Hermione. Tonks and Lupin are muttering rapidly at each other outside the door; the minutes pass and the door creaks open. Lupin walks in alone, a hard and pointed expression on his face.
"Dora is dropping Teddy off with her mother. She's also getting a photo album to help with Bellatrix's likeness." Lupin sits on one of the unmade beds, running his hand through his graying hair. "Maybe you'll understand one day when you get married…I worry more for her and Teddy than I ever have for myself."
Harry isn't married but he thinks of Ginny often. He worries for her, too.
Stomping on the stairs indicates that Tonks has returned. She has an old, leather-bound photo album in her hands and a darker set of robes.
"I didn't tell Mum much. She knows she'll be minding Teddy until we come back."
"We?" Harry asks.
"I'll be waiting for you in the Leaky Cauldron," explains Lupin, as Tonks sits down with the photo album next to him and begins changing her features. Harry sees old, moving photographs of the familiar witches: proud, haughty Bellatrix, Andromeda, a softer version of her older sister, and Narcissa, blonde and pointed. Before their eyes, Tonks changes her eyes to become more hooded. Her pink spikes become black, curly, and wild. Her lips and jaw shift, and she resembles Andromeda more than anything at first. Then her cheeks become gaunt like Bellatrix's after many years in Azkaban.
Harry recoils, seeing the perfect lookalike in front of him. Ron and Hermione balk at the sight, too, and even Lupin shudders.
"How do I look?" asks Tonks, her smile as cruel and sadistic as her aunt's. Her lip curls further and she pumps her fist.
Ron and Hermione go downstairs, informing the others that Tonks-as-Bellatrix will be appearing. They aren't to panic, though Ollivander half-screams upon seeing Bellatrix's likeness in the cottage. Harry's confidence in the plan grows, and after a few hasty, enigmatic goodbyes, they go back to the shore.
Hermione goes with Lupin to the Leaky Cauldron; she had placed Glamour Charms on herself to change her appearance; only her bushy brown hair was refusing to cooperate. Ron's Glamour Charms give him a long, scraggly beard, darker hair, and a gruffer appearance. His blue eyes and freckles are all that remain of his usual features.
Harry, Ron, Griphook, and Tonks Apparate to Diagon Alley and begin the journey to the wizarding bank. Tonks is wobbly on her feet and nearly trips over herself thrice. The last time, she almost takes off Harry's Invisibility Cloak. Harry begins to wonder if enlisting the clumsy Auror's help wouldn't backfire.
When they reach the tills, there's resistance from the suspicious goblins; Harry casts the Imperius Curse on Bogrod to get through. They set off in a speedy cart; as they descend into the bowels of the bank, there's a lethal waterfall called the Thieves' Downfall.
While Tonks remains looking like Bellatrix through the waters, Ron reverts to his natural appearance. Tonks, though clumsy, manages to stop them from falling to their deaths with a well-placed Slowing Charm.
Harry casts the Imperius Charm on Bogrod again, and the goblin leads them past a shrinking dragon, terrified of the sound of the clapping device. Harry pities the dragon, and Tonks decries the treatment as inhumane. They break into the vault at last, finding the Horcrux. It looks like the worst is behind them, but Griphook double-crosses them. He promised entry; he never said anything about an exit.
Harry, Ron, and Tonks become covered in large, angry welts from the burning, duplicating pieces of gold. Ron takes hold of Harry's ankle; Tonks holds Ron's.
They are nearly out of the vault when one of their members is left behind.
"I'm stuck!" cries Tonks, tugging on her left leg. Harry gapes at the sight; her left leg is stuck in the door. The skin is pierced and blood flows from her wound. Griphook calls them thieves; Harry wonders if it was all for nothing.
"Go! Go without me!" Tonks screams, her eyes filled with tears. "You have to beat him!"
Harry remembers Lupin's face; his newfound happiness is his family, and Harry won't be the cause for its end.
"Ron! Get a way out – I've got to help her!" Harry shouts.
"No! Get out! Both of you!" Tonks sobs, her leg torn apart at her thigh. She can't move in or out of the vault and no goblin will help them now.
"RON! GO!" Ron leaves and Harry goes to Tonks's aid. Blood continues to pour forth from her leg, the muscles now bulging and tearing grotesquely in the doorway.
"You have to go – just let me go!" Tonks whimpers, her face now her own. Harry hears the dragon stirring and Ron's loud grunts. The dragon roars and goblins squeal, fleeing from the beast.
Tonks sweats, struggling lamely with the door. Not knowing what else to do, Harry casts a charm.
" Diffindo!"
A clean cut severs Tonks's thigh in two. She bawls, realizing she has lost her leg, and falls to the ground. The last time Harry saw this much blood, he almost killed Draco Malfoy.
She swishes her wand at her wound, gasping an incantation Harry doesn't know, and it partly cauterizes. The skin is stitched together sloppily, making it no longer a fatal wound, but blood still escapes.
He removes her cloak and wraps Tonks's stump in it tightly. She howls in agony as the cloak becomes drenched in blood.
He lifts her gingerly from the floor. She cries with each step Harry takes and he becomes filled with guilt. It is short-lived, however, as he hears his name called.
"HARRY! JUMP!"
Harry doesn't jump. Ron casts the Levitation Charm, and as they are brought up to the dragon's back, Harry throws his body on Tonks and pins her to one of the dragon's bony spines. She yowls with the impact, but the dragon begins to fly upwards, startling her away from her pain.
The dragon reaches the roof of one of Diagon Alley's abandoned shops. Knowing they must return to Hermione and Lupin, Harry takes hold of Ron. Together with Tonks, he Side-Along Apparates them off of the dragon's back and directly into the Leaky Cauldron.
The pub descends into chaos with their arrival. Tonks loses consciousness, slumping against a table and knocking it over. Lupin is at her side, pushing Harry off.
"We've got to go!" Hermione says, shoving Harry further away. "You can't be seen!"
Harry struggles to see how Tonks is faring, but the spot where she lay is now empty, save for the blood left behind. Hermione yanks Harry's arm and suddenly they are in a field far away from London.
A blinding pain comes over him and after another vision, Harry realizes the last Horcrux is at Hogwarts.
All thoughts of Tonks and Lupin are put aside, for the war is coming to an end.
…
Nineteen years later, Harry is with his own family at King's Cross. The Lupins are there, dropping off their daughter for her seventh year. Hope Lupin is Gryffindor's Quidditch Captain, and James Sirius Potter is determined to make the team in his third year.
Tonks clunks her way across the platform to meet the Potters, her clawfoot leg always a reminder of the Auror who trained her. Lupin managed to save Tonks alone, using his lifelong skills in healing almost-fatal injuries to stop her bleeding. There was no way to regrow limbs, and Tonks chose to take on a clawfoot leg. She stomps loudly, her clawfoot clunking menacingly, but she has nothing but a smile for the Potters.
Lupin, following his wife, is fully gray-haired. He is as happy as he was on the day he announced Teddy's birth. Harry no longer feels guilty for Tonks's injury. She lives to tell the tale – the time she rode a dragon out of Gringotts – and Lupin continues to be lauded as her knight in shining armor.
"Wotcher, Harry!" she greets, warmly as ever. "Where's my godson?"
"I'm right here," Albus says quietly. Harry's second son has been subdued all morning, and he suspects it has to do with James's relentless teasing over Al's upcoming sorting.
After Harry consoles Al, Hope takes him by the shoulder. Of all his older cousins, Hope Lupin has always been particularly kind to Albus. She winks at Harry over her shoulder, taking Al on the Hogwarts Express with a warm, reassuring smile.
"She's just like you," Harry tells Tonks.
"I know. Teddy's all Remus, but Hope is a girl after my own heart."
"Do you think your life would've been any different if you'd been at the Battle of Hogwarts?"
"Maybe," Tonks shrugs. "We didn't know about the battle until you'd won. I was dead to the world after all those potions Remus gave me for my leg. I suppose we'll never know what could've been."
Harry often wonders how the Lupins would've fared if Tonks had never agreed to come with them to Gringotts. He is certain they would have come to the final battle, then, and they'd surely have survived with Tonks's leg intact.
However, such speculations don't matter anymore. Tonks and Lupin are alive and they'd done plenty for the war effort. Despite the loss of Tonks's limb, they all agree it was a small price to pay for the defeat of Voldemort.
Harry's mind turns to his sons, sitting side by side in a compartment with Hope. Lupin sheds a tear of joy, seeing his daughter off, and Harry smiles softly to himself.
All is truly well.
