It had been three weeks and she hadn't heard a word from Harry. Something was wrong, something was very wrong and it was up to Tonks to get to the bottom of it. But since she didn't know where Harry was living besides, at the Dursley's which she knew to be his aunt and uncle, that wasn't enough to track him down.
Grabbing some floo powder she tossed it into the fireplace to go to the Three Broomsticks, Professor McGonagall would surely have his address.
Walking up the path to the castle, Tonks wasn't expecting the resistance when she was just asking for Harry's address.
"What do you mean, it's for the best?!" Tonks stomped her foot as she had been brought by Hagrid to the Headmaster's office where he was discussing something with Minerva. And his response was not what she wanted to hear.
"I believe it is in Harry's best interest to have as normal of a summer as possible, after everything he went through at the end of the year, less is more," Dumbledore reiterated his reasoning for denying her access to this information.
"Albus this is unusual," Minerva commented because it would be one thing if a random student had come to them asking for personal information of another, but it was well known that Tonks and Harry were friends, if not more.
"Yeah, what the hell," Tonks agreed with the deputy head. "Sir, you can't…"
She paused to take a deep breath. "Sir, I am not asking you as a former student about the whereabouts of another. I am requesting the information on the basis that Harry Potter is my warlock and as his High Priestess I have a right to be by his side."
Albus raised an eyebrow because he hadn't expected Nymphadora to invoke her rights. This would cause problems, because if she took it to the wizengamot, they would have questions as to why even someone such as him was denying a witch access to her wizard. It would likely result in Harry Potter being brought before the body to clear up whether she was a member of his coven or not and it wouldn't do for Harry to interact with the Ministry of Magic when he wasn't ready.
Tonks watched the headmaster carefully because she didn't trust him the same way after last year, he was much too invested in Harry Potter that she wondered what else he was planning for her wizard.
Letting out a sigh because it would be better in the long run for Harry's time this summer to be occupied by Nymphadora and whatever she had planned for him than to let him become involved in the ministry. "Very well, I have his address right here," Albus said as he wrote it down for her.
"Thank you," Nymphadora smiled at the professor before snatching the piece of paper and exiting out of the door.
"Number Four Privet Drive," Tonks said as she walked down the row of houses, counting the numbers of the houses, and when she came to the right house she stopped dead in her tracks.
It was painfully obvious that houses did not normally have bars on the windows, not in a safe neighborhood like this. And they most certainly did not put bars on just ONE window either.
Coming up to the door, Tonks wrapped her knuckles on the wood and heard a voice on the other side. A fat little boy with a candybar in his hands was staring up at her. "Wotcher, I'm not sure I'm at the right place. Is Harry Potter here?"
Dudley's eyes widened as he slammed the door shut and began to shout. "Da, it's the freaks they're here."
Tonks was taken aback by this unwarranted insult as the door was flung open and a truly disgusting man was in her face spewing spittle and threats that Tonks had to step away from the man. "Hey hey, HEY," she finally shouted while putting her wand to her throat to amplify her voice. That seemed enough to make the man at least back off for a second.
"I'm just here for Harry Potter, he hasn't been answering any of my letters," Tonks raised her free hand calmly, as she could see the man was eyeing her wand in fear. "I wanted to see if he was okay."
"Okay?! That blasted boy won't be after I get through with him," Vernon snarled as he stomped back into the house because in his mind the boy had been sending his owl out to talk to the freaks. Enough to have one come here and threaten him, he would tan his nephew's hide until he couldn't sit down for a week.
Tonks, seeing the potential danger to Harry, had struck the muggle in the back with a body binding curse and stepped over him to get up the stairs. It was worse than she thought. "Alohamora," she said as no less than four locks clattered to the floor.
Pushing open the door she cringed at the Summer heat that had built up in the room with it closed up, Harry was laying on his bed with his shirt off sweating buckets. "Oh Harry," Tonks cried out and that had been enough to draw his attention.
Sitting up sharply, Harry tried to get off the bed before he stumbled. "Tonks you're… why are you here?" Harry asked because he never expected to see her again.
"What do you mean, I was worried about you?" Tonks hurried to Harry's side to help him sit back on the bed. "You weren't responding to my letters and I didn't know where to find you. I had to get Dumbledore to tell me."
"Sorry a house elf had been taking my mail, so I never got any," Harry tiredly commented.
"Even still, what is all this?" Tonks looked around the room before conjuring a glass of water for Harry who greedily drank it all. She had to be careful about him because he looked like he was suffering from heat stroke.
"That house elf, it messed with my aunt and uncle's party, levitated a cake," Harry answered as he could feel a chill spread through his body.
"Ahh, Tonks," Harry gasped out suddenly as he felt the tip of her wand press against his back. His breathing was rapid as the cooling sensation surged through him. To stop himself from falling off the bed, he had to grab onto her clothes.
Tonks was so thankful that no one was here to see the shirtless, sweaty wizard panting against her body. "Just a cooling charm Harry. But that doesn't explain the locks or the bars."
"They didn't want me doing anything more freakish until I went back to Hogwarts, so they locked up my trunk downstairs and took my wand," Harry answered, already feeling better.
"And they had to… treat you like a prisoner," Tonks growled because Harry's good nature could only go so far in her mind.
"I probably could have had more water but I needed to share with Hedwig," Harry looked at the bird cage and the snowy owl began to bark at him. She got like that when he was trying to fill her water dish. "I don't think she wanted me to do that."
"Then she's a very smart owl," Tonks agreed with the bird, which clearly meant she had lost her mind. "But we are leaving, I'm taking you with me."
"Don't I have to stay here, Dumbledore said I had to go back to the Dursleys, which is why I wasn't allowed to stay in Hogwarts over the summer," Harry questioned how Tonks was going to accomplish this.
"No, and if he saw this and still thought you should stay here, I'd rip his beard off," Tonks promised. "Let's gather your things and leave."
Coming down the steps Petunia was rolling Vernon onto his side when she saw the pair of magicals. "You did this," she jabbed her finger and that was the last thing she said before Tonks shot her in the face with a powerful stunner, sending her falling down the steps.
"I cannot believe you'd treat a wizard like this," Tonks hissed at the woman, before going to the cupboard and opening it to retrieve Harry's trunk. But it was worse because this didn't look like a cupboard for storing junk, it was a bedroom. Her jaw quivered because this was too much. If she wasn't seeing it right in front of her she wouldn't believe it. Pulling out his trunk and everything else inside, the little toy horses and knights, to the blanket. Everything was brought out.
"What about my relatives?" Harry asked as Tonks was pushing him towards the door.
"That bi- you're aunt will wake up in a couple of hours and if she wants her husband fixed, she'll just have to figure out how to get to the Leaky Cauldron to ask for help," Tonks smirked as she passed by the horrid adults and slammed the door shut.
"Harry, I'm going to side-along you," Tonks offered her hand. "Do you know what that is?"
Harry shook his head in response to the question. "Well it might be a bit uncomfortable the first few times you do it, just hold on tight."
Wrapping his fingers around Tonks' hand he felt like he was being pulled through a small rubber tube, coming back out onto some grass Harry nearly hurled from the disorienting effect. "Where's… Hedwig?" Harry asked as he caught his breath.
"Wrote her a letter with my address on it, she'll find you, she's a very smart owl," Tonks promised since animals really did not like being apparated.
Tonks opened the front door. "Welcome to my house, well it's my mum and dad's but, you know what I mean."
Harry carefully stepped into the home, it was not often he was invited into other people's houses. "Nymphadora is that you?" a voice from another room called out.
"Yeah mum," Tonks answered as she brought Harry's trunk in and closed the door.
"Did you get that business with your warlock sorted out?" Andromeda asked while coming into the room to stop when she saw the young wizard. "Oh hello mesir, my name is Andromeda Tonks, and you are?"
Harry scampered over to Tonks mom and wanted to leave a good impression on her. "Harry Potter ma'am," taking her hand and trying to shake it but she was quicker to kiss his knuckles.
"Oh well it's a pleasure to meet you Mister Potter," Andromeda chuckled because it was not every day she had a celebrity come calling. Then her eyes locked onto his forehead and the infamous scar, then they shot straight to her daughter's choker, and the charm that signified her place in the coven. "Harry if you like, I was just making some fresh cookies in the kitchen, why don't you go on ahead and have some, I would like to have a word with my daughter."
"Okay Mrs. Tonks," Harry obeyed as he went around the mother who kept a smile on her face right up until she knew Harry was no longer in ear shot, then her wand was out and the room silenced.
"You ensnared a first year wizard!" she hissed angrily.
"What no," Tonks took a step back. "It's not like that."
"You played on his innocence to become the head of his coven," Andromeda bellowed at her daughter for doing something so boneheaded as to risk ruining her reputation over getting into a coven.
Tonks had two options, to cower in front of her mother as she always did when she got angry or stand up for herself and in this case for Harry. "I played on nothing," Tonks shouted back, startling the mother that her daughter would try to match her intensity. "When I first met Harry he was just being friendly, it was later that HE came to me and declared that I was his first, in front of a crowd of students. HE was the one who bought the choker that marked me in gold. Harry Potter is MY warlock, because HE chose ME."
Tonks was standing there huffing from shouting back at her mother and was ever so grateful for silencing charms because there was no way Harry wouldn't have come running.
"Explain," Andromeda demanded because she was content to let her daughter keep which wizard's coven she had joined a secret as she had assumed Tonks was in a low position and didn't want to get any hopes up if she was removed shortly after. That the first time back on the train that she got a look at the charm, with it being gold, not bronze or even silver. That sent a red flag in the mother's mind that something else was in play that she didn't see.
Tonks sat with her mother on the couch and talked about her last year in Hogwarts, from the first time she met Harry when he crashed into her to the battle under the school with Professor Quirrel. "I know this isn't normal, but Harry is special. He's my warlock and I care about him so much just as he cares about me. And we only kissed the one time."
"Go and take Harry's things up to the spare room, get it set up nicely for him," Andromeda ordered. "After that you can wait in your room until your father comes home, I want a word with Harry."
Tonks went over to Harry's stuff before stopping at the foot of the stairs. "Just please mum. Please don't hurt him," Tonks begged because whatever happened she didn't want Harry to suffer at all.
Andromeda looked at the coffee table and sighed, this was not what she expected the first meeting of her daughter's warlock would be like. She thought Tonks would come home with a couple of witches and show off some wizard in his fifties and how happy she was that she got picked right out of Hogwarts. But to bring home someone who was just turning twelve in a couple of weeks. That complicated things.
Getting up Andromeda went into the kitchen to see that only a single cookie from the pan was gone and Harry was standing at the sink washing dishes. "Mr. Potter," Andromeda cleared her throat, startling the boy who splashed some water out of the sink.
"Oh I'm sorry, let me get a towel," Harry quickly said as he moved over to grab the one that was sitting on the counter when it flew by him and started to dry the floor on its own.
"I did not mean to surprise you Mr. Potter," Andromeda apologized because that had not been her intent.
"Please ma'am call me Harry," Harry requested because it felt weird for a woman older than him to call him mister, in class it was okay because the professors did that for all the students. For Tonks' mom to do so just didn't sit right with him.
"Very well then Harry," Andromeda motioned to a stool by the bar counter. "I have a couple of questions I would like to ask you. If that's alright?"
Harry nodded his head. "It's because Tonks is older than me right?" Guessing that the mother was confused about their age gap since back on Privet Drive the only time older kids hung out with littler kids was when they were siblings. But Hogwarts was different; they were all in the same school together and students from different years hung out all the time.
"That would be one of them, yes," Andromeda confirmed that had been part of the discussion. "I'm a little concerned."
"I bet it looks weird, I'm just a kid after all but Tonks is, Tonks is the first friend I ever made," Harry smiled wistfully remembering their run in and how she took him to see the kitchens, showing him that there was more to the castle than any school he'd ever been in before. "And she did so much for me last year, I… I never wanted to be apart from her.
Tonks had saved him from Professor Quirrell during his first quidditch match; she went with him into the forest, underneath the school. She had his back the entire year.
"So I wanted to spend time with her, to be with her ma'am, I just…" Harry stopped because he recalled how his heart ached seeing Tonks cry on Valentine's when he screwed up and forgot her present, and that if he tried, he could remember the feel of her lips when she kissed him. "I love your daughter. I'm sorry that's pretty goofy since I'm just a kid and she's a grown up. But I love Tonks."
Andromeda exhaled heavily. "I see, well that does answer some of my questions. But who else is in your coven, might I ask?"
"Coven?" Harry tilted his head and Andromeda's eyes widened in shock.
Nymphadora was sitting at the dinner table having spent the entire afternoon in her bedroom, grounded like she was a child, during the meal she could tell her mother was clenching and unclenching her hand like she wanted to do or say something, but what worried her was that the entire time Harry kept his head down. "So Nymie, who's the lad?" Ted asked because he'd only been told Harry was going to be eating dinner with them.
"Dad this is… this is Harry Potter and he's my warlock," Tonks confirmed for his father who slowly lowered his spoon.
"I see," Ted clicked his tongue before looking at the boy. "And does he know this?"
"He does now," Andromeda assured Ted that her daughter was not fibbing or fooling anyway, that conversation with Harry had been long.
"You do not know what a coven is?" Andromeda questioned because Harry's response to her request to know who else was a part of the famous wizard's coven shouldn't have been confusing.
"Um, well I'd heard the word before Hogwarts, it's when witches get together and make potions," Harry answered before rubbing his hands together. "And… I'm guessing that's not right."
"No, no it is not," Andromeda confirmed that the muggle understanding of the word was incomplete. "A coven is when witches gather for a goal, pooling their knowledge and skills for the betterment of one, this would be their warlock."
"A warlock is another word for a wizard right?" since he'd heard that before, it to him had been interchangeable with wizard and sorcerer, like soda and pop.
"Somewhat correct," Andromeda informed. "In our society a wizard will select witches that he believes will be beneficial to him, for many reasons, those witches will form a coven, in some covens the witches will suggest other witches to join. Surely at Hogwarts you had seen girls wearing chokers like the one you gave to my daughter?"
Harry thought back and he had. "Oh like Katie Bell she got a bronze one after she came back from the holidays with Oliver Wood, it was like… Angelina Johnson's. That's what that was."
"Yes and the purpose of that is so others know their status," explaining what that meant to the wizard who was starting to catch on.
"So because I gave Tonks one, I just told the entire school that she's…" Harry stopped because he still hadn't quite compared what that meant, was it girlfriend or something else.
"It means that for all intents and purposes Tonks is the head priestess of your coven, she is the one any other witch needs to approach if they wish to bond with you, and the one they must bring down to take her place," telling him what she had seen in the castle during her time at Hogwarts, some witches could be right nasty in their attempts to get a wizard. It was a wonder that no one tried to get Tonks out of the way for her position with The-Boy-Who-Lived.
"But wait that… none of this makes sense," Harry blurted out. "How does this all add up?"
Andromeda was starting to catch on that Harry was quite clueless about the magical society, if he was blundering his way through making so many faux pas. "What do you know about the magical world?"
"Just that a book about Merlin said there were four witches to every one wizard but that's not how it is now," Harry answered because he hadn't really gotten more details than that as it really hadn't been a priority with everything else going on at Hogwarts.
Seeing where the confusion was coming from, Andromeda was finally thankful for all the lessons Aunt Walburga had instilled in her growing up, they had been intended for her to get a warlock of her own to bring back to the Black Family, but now they would serve the purposes of helping her daughter's warlock. An interesting turn of events.
"That book was correct, but in recent years, conflicts have resulted in few wizards," Andromeda added onto that incomplete information. "Many died during the events of the Wizarding War started by Gellert Grindlewald and… that monster was killing them before they had a chance to grow up."
"You mean Volde-" Harry started to say before Andromeda cut him off.
"His name is a Taboo, do not speak it in my home," Andromeda warned as she did not want her home to be known to the death eaters, she had married muggle, one of the worst offenses in their world and she didn't want to tempt that her husband would become a target. "But yes, he was killing young wizards, to prevent them from rising up against him. This means there are some larger than normal gaps."
"Okay," Harry said because that made sense if this You-Know-Who was killing baby boys and anyone else who was trying to stop him then he would have been a target eventually and there wouldn't be any wizards his age in hogwarts. "That still doesn't explain why covens exist."
Looking down at Harry she explained to him that witches had limited options. They could, as most did, seduce muggle men to make children, usually obliviating the men of ever meeting them; or they could as she had done married a muggle man, but as wizards were rare their attention was vied for by the witches and they believed the children of a witch and wizard would be far stronger than from a muggle, a pureblooded child they were called. "So it's a status thing?"
"Not always," Andromeda admitted because she had a bit more cynical view of it all. "As you saw with Oliver Wood, he has those girls because he loves quidditch and spends time with them and they in turn spend it with him and become more intimate, the coven formed naturally."
"I guess that makes sense, so me choosing Tonks even if I didn't know it was…" Harry stopped because it seemed wrong on one hand but the society wanted wizards to form covens he had just started earlier than most. "It just was."
"That much is true, now that you understand what position you put my daughter in, do you wish to keep it as it is," Andromeda asked whether the young wizard was okay with having started his coven this way. "You won't see her very often after the summer begins. No one would fault you if you broke things off."
This was a lie, Andromeda knew her daughter's reputation would take a hit if she wasn't just demoted in a coven, but kicked out, that held a very large stigma in their society. The best Nymphadora could do would be to say it had been a mistake because Harry had been eleven at the time and maybe some people would believe that. "Does Tonks want that?" Harry asked.
"Why would that matter, you are the warlock, you make the decisions," Andromeda expressed that it was up to him.
"But just because I'm the warlock, doesn't mean she doesn't get a say, you said it that as the high priestess she has a role and that's to be there for me, why should I have ultimate authority," Harry said as he stood up. "I don't want to lose Tonks, but if she… if she wants to be rid of me to find a more suitable warlock then that's what'll happen."
"I think you should discuss that with her later," Andromeda said with a smirk, she had wondered what type of person Harry Potter was, and it would seem he was going to be a wonderful warlock for her daughter, able to take charge when needed but to also care for her feelings, that was much better than some covens she knew of, her sister Bellatrix had come to mind and Narcissa, poor Narcissa.
So Harry finally worked up the courage to look up from his plate at the table. "Tonks, am I a good warlock? Do I make you happy?" Harry asked because he hoped he was able to be everything she wanted, but he doubted that.
"Harry you're, you are a wonderful warlock. And I am so happy with you," Tonks answered because while an older wizard might have been easier to be with since there wouldn't have been any questions coming their way, she doubted that she would have gotten so much attention from anyone else who would have prioritized the witches in his coven that had been there longer than her. She would have missed out on all those special moments she would cherish forever.
"If you found another wizard who asked you to join him, would you?" Harry looked up and waited for Tonks' answer.
She shot a look to her mother for clearly planting that idea in his head and she was going to squash that down. "Absolutely not, Harry no wizard could ever compare to you. I'm with you until the end," Tonks said confidently to make sure her mother knew that this relationship was not going to be broken up by her meddling.
Harry was awash with relief that Tonks still wanted him, now he just had to figure out how to become a better warlock and what that even meant.