Nothing is mine.

Harry meets a cousin (she's a hottie)...

Confronting Murderous Men

Aunt Petunia stalked back and forth in front of the living room window, tutting under her breath. 'Look at them, Vernon,' she cried, wringing her hands. 'They're drooping! Withering!'

'Yes, dear, I can see.' Uncle Vernon stared deep into the pages of his copy of the Daily Mail. 'I'm sure Harry can run a few buckets of water to them, Pet.'

Harry rolled his eyes as he watched from the kitchen, drying up his breakfast bowl and spoon. 'I can, but I don't want to. I poured twenty buckets on them yesterday, if they're still dying then I don't think it's for lack of water.' He laughed. 'Maybe they're drowning?'

'They're new.' Aunt Petunia tutted. 'New flowers just need lots of water until they've grown a rootbase to get their own from the ground.'

'It's Dudley's turn,' Harry asserted. 'He doesn't know anything about gardening, and he needs to learn, or the neighbours will mock him with condescending compliments about his dead garden in twenty years and his wife will have an affair with the next door neighbour who grows roses.'

'Vernon.' Aunt Petunia turned away from the window and fixed him with a long stare. 'My roses.'

Uncle Vernon laid his paper down. 'Dudley!' he bellowed. 'Come down.'

Dudley's door creaked; his footsteps trudged along the landing and down the stairs.

'What, dad?' he called.

'Harry is going to show you what to do to look after your mum's new roses,' Uncle Vernon said as Dudley stuck his head around the door. 'And then we have a tee time just after lunch so you better get yourself changed and ready into something they'll let you into the clubhouse in.'

Dudley groaned. 'Alright, dad.'

Harry tucked his bowl back into the cupboard and hung the tea towel over the oven door handle. 'Let's go, Diddiekins, a great day of learning awaits.'

A long sigh escaped Dudley. 'Can you stop calling me that?'

'Yes.' Harry flashed him a bright grin. 'Diddiekins.'

'You said—'

'I said I can, not that I will; this is where you should have spent more time reading real books and less time colouring in across the lines.' He laughed to himself as he stuffed his feet into his trainers. 'Right, let's go teach you to water roses.'

'Fine.'

Harry wandered out.

The heat of the height of July swept over him, a hot humid blanket draped beneath the clear blue sky and the blazing sun beyond it; it had scorched the neat green lawns, leaving spots of brown dotted all across the sloping gardens of the close, and melted the edges of the tarmac patching around the drain cover at the end of the concrete drive. Upon the road sign across the road, a young woman sat in a loose white t-shirt and purple mini-skirt, her bright pink headphones covering her ears and her shoulder-length, dark hair. A familiar badge shone upon her t-shirt; a golden sword rather than the bronze one Harry remembered pinned to the lapel of Dawlish's jacket, but identical in every other way.

'Right, so she's definitely an auror, probably the one Dumbledore sent to keep an eye on me, but I guess I can just go and find out.' Harry ignored Dudley's baffled expression. 'What's the worst that could happen?'

'More Dementors,' Dudley muttered.

Harry squinted across the road at her. 'With pink headphones? I sure hope so. I'd just Patronus them anyway, though. Besides, I have already had my near death experience for this year.'

'You have?' Dudley screwed his face up. 'You look fine.'

'I usually come out of them looking remarkably good, and this time I didn't even need to get patched up again first.' Harry beamed. 'It was actually a really good year. Unless you were Umbridge, she inexplicably chose to jump off the seventh floor moving staircase and ended up as jam on the floor below.'

'Moving staircase?'

'Yes, they move from one side to the other—' Harry moved his forearm from side to side '—it sounds cool, but it's actually extremely inconvenient when you're trying to get anywhere and everyone has to keep waiting for all the staircases. Also, it's very unsafe. Only the jampires like them really.'

'So you nearly fell off them?'

'Oh, no, I got into what I think is some kind of honour duel with an escaped murderer in the basement of the Ministry of Magic while trying to steal a prophecy from the government of Magical Britain. It turns out, Dudley, that there are some aurors who are extremely dangerous, and you should not, in fact, challenge them to an honour duel.'

'But you survived.'

'Yeah, she decided she'd rather kill my godfather than me, so she did that instead.'

'Oh.' Dudley shuffled his feet. 'Sorry, Harry.'

'It's not so bad,' Harry replied. 'When we die, part of us goes to another world, the Veiled World, where our magic and souls become a part of everything. He's not gone, he's just… changed. He's in the grass, and the trees, and the rain, and those roses.'

'Like going to Heaven?'

'Kind of,' he said, 'but it feels… more real. You can't see Heaven, or touch it, or taste it, you don't really know it's there. I can see the roses. I can smell them. I know Sirius is still here, even if he's changed now.'

'Did you not get arrested again?' Dudley asked. 'For trying to steal the thing?'

'I actually did not,' Harry mused. 'I probably should have. But the Ministry of Magic is really bad at its job; they're basically a front for the ICW, who're just a bunch of really old rich families with private armies who just do whatever they want, and they're really corrupt and selfish. Like… I don't know, Mediaeval England, I guess; they're Prince John and the Ministry of Magic is the Sheriff of Nottingham.

'And you're Robin Hood?' Dudley snorted. 'Stealing things from them to give to the poor?'

'No, I was stealing it so somebody else couldn't steal it and start a huge religious war with the ICW,' Harry replied. 'Actually turned out to be a complete waste of time in the end, because the prophecy was about something that's already happened. Bit of a kick in the teeth, that.' A faint sense of frustration swelled inside him. 'Sirius must be pissed about that.'

Dudley stared at the roses. 'So?'

Harry turned away and wrenched open the garage door. 'In there you'll find a bucket. You should know where the tap is already, so what you do is you take the bucket—'

Dudley growled. 'I can fill a bucket, Harry.'

'It would be a bit embarrassing if you couldn't. Anyway, pour a whole bucket right on the roots of all of the new roses, but do it slowly so you don't wash away all the topsoil and expose the roots to the sun. They'll die if the roots are exposed and then your mum will kill both of us because she loves her garden much more than her only child and her nephew combined.'

'That it?' Dudley squinted at him. 'You're not leaving out something important because you think it will be funny again?'

'Not this time.' Harry grinned. 'If I do that every time, you'll stay on guard and I won't get you again.' He sauntered along the concrete drive, picking his way around the half-melted tarmac at the drain, and across the road. 'Hi.'

The girl looked up as his shadow fell across her white trainers and pulled her headphones off, letting them fall around her neck. 'Hi.' Something slightly familiar tugged at the back of Harry's brain at the sound of her voice. 'Sorry, I'm not in the way or anything, am I?'

'So… what are you doing here?'

'Listening to music,' she replied.

'No, I mean, are you watching me? Watching out for me? Watching for someone who might come and kidnap me?' Harry thought about it. 'Kidnap me again.'

She laughed. 'Why does it have to be about you?'

'Because—' Harry pointed at the golden sword on her t-shirt '—I know what those mean, and I'm pretty sure you're not here for Dudley.'

'Ah, not so stupid, baby cuz. I'm Nymphadora Tonks, but everyone calls me Tonks if they like living.' She stuck out her hand. 'Your dad's mum was my mum's aunt, or something like that. Most of the time, we just say cousin, it keeps things simpler.'

'Nice to meet you… Tonks.' Harry shook her hand with a grin. 'I always wanted a cousin.'

'I'm the cousin every boy dreams of having.' She winked at him. 'Hot. Older. Wears revealing clothing. Extremely cool and powerful.'

'You are?'

Tonks patted the golden sword. 'I thought you said you knew what this meant?'

'Auror.'

'Then you only half-know, baby cuz. If it's Bronze, you're a second-class auror. If it's silver, you're second-class and a captain. If it's gold…'

'First-class,' Harry murmured.

'Exactly.' Tonks stretched, thrusting her chest out at him. 'Sorry, baby cousin—' absolutely nothing but mischief shone in her brown eyes as they brightened, sharpening to a familiar slate grey '—didn't mean to do that.'

'Yes you did.' Harry frowned. 'How did you do that?'

'I stuck my arms out and pushed my boobs toward your face,' she replied. 'It's really easy.'

'No, I don't get it, can you show me again?' He laughed as she rolled her eyes at him. 'No, I meant your eyes. How did you make them change colour?'

'Ah, family secret.' Tonks grinned.

'I thought I was family.'

She weighed that up. 'Fair enough. I can shift my form around a bit; it's like self-transfiguration, but I can do it without a wand to myself.'

'Neat. How do you learn?'

'You don't,' Tonks said. 'I can do it. According to myth, it's an ability granted to our family a long time ago. Every generation, a daughter, if there is one, gets either the ability or the strain of madness that runs through the Black blood.'

'Oh, Proph y Sidhe,' he murmured. 'I get it.'

'Yes.' A sharp glimmer of curiosity glinted in her grey eyes. 'I wasn't expecting you to know the Old Ways. I only know them because of mum; if you're not raised in an older family, there's no easy way to learn them.'

'A friend told me.'

'A… friend?' Tonks waggled her eyebrows. 'The sort of friend who's going to get mad when they learn about the hot older cousin you're spending most of the summer with?'

Harry ignored that. 'You said Black, right? Like Sirius.' He groaned. 'Does this mean I'm related to Bellatrix?'

Tonks threw her head back and cackled. 'She's my auntie.'

'You were at the Ministry.'

'Yup. Didn't get there in time to save Sirius, but…' Her grey eyes hardened. 'He was very stupid to challenge Bellatrix to a fight like that.' She shook her head. 'Dumbledore told me to check on you, make sure you weren't too upset after what happened to Sirius and all that. Said I should give you space, but I'm not one for beating around the bush, so I'm just going to straight up ask. You good?'

'I'm good.' Harry smiled back at her. 'Sirius isn't lost. Nothing is lost.'

A small grin flashed across Tonks's face. 'You're made of tough stuff, huh, baby cuz.' She stood up and patted him on the shoulder. 'Good for you. Took me until auror training to get used to the fact that people die.'

'I'm used to it,' he said, 'it's something that happens to other people when they try and help Voldemort murder me.'

Tonks cackled. 'Tell that to Auntie Bella; she told me you only know one spell and just tickled her tits a bit before giving me the slip in the room full of glass balls.'

'Okay, but Bellatrix was mildly terrifying,' Harry said. 'How did she even do that light show magic thing? All my spells bounced off.'

'Agwyd,' Tonks said. 'The best translation for it is aspect or aura. Why do you think we're called aurors, Harry? The ICW and the Ministry prefer the English word over the original name, but you'll find a lot of people refer to it as Agwyd.'

'I never thought about it because it's spelt completely differently,' he admitted. 'So, she can just do that? Is it like your thing?'

'It's not like being a Metamorphagus, no.' She reached out and pushed him back a step with one finger on his chest. 'It's about power. And power is something you either have or don't.' Little wisps of shimmering pink light danced atop her shoulders. 'I have it. Most don't.'

'Seems unfair.'

'I want to share a piece of deep wisdom with you, baby cuz.' Tonks leant in close to his ear. 'Life's not fair,' she whispered.

'Weird, I think I heard that somewhere before once or twice,' Harry said. 'So doing that means…?'

'First-class auror,' she replied. 'Doing it properly, though. You have to be able to actually form a true Agwyd, not just push your magic out. Bleeding out loads of magic without actually doing anything isn't a good thing.'

'Fair enough,' he agreed. 'How do you know if you can do it?'

'You try.' Tonks patted him down with a frown until she found his wand stashed up the sleeve of his shirt. 'Dawlish mentioned you kept that in there. Stop.'

'Yeah, I forgot.' Harry poked two fingers up his sleeve and pulled it out. 'Where should I keep it?'

'On your back.' Tonks spun on the spot. 'See?'

Beneath her loose white t-shirt and below the shadow of her bra, a slim dark shape ran diagonally across her back.

'So you just stick a hand up your t-shirt and grab it?'

'Yes. Keep it up your sleeve and someone will kill you before you can draw it. Put it in a pocket and there's a good chance it will fall out. Here's best, though some people prefer to put it on the outside of their thigh.

Harry glanced down at the mini-skirt. 'Show me?'

Tonks cackled and ruffled his hair. 'No, brat. You're too young for me to be flashing my knickers at you like that.'

'It was worth a try.'

'Of course it was.' She flicked him on the tip of the nose. 'Let's go somewhere more age appropriate for you, like the swings.'

Harry sighed. 'I feel strangely emasculated.'

'It's because your hot older cousin is too hot for you and she knows it.'

'You said too old, not too hot.'

Tonks sniggered. 'Also too hot.'

He followed her along the pavement, past a gaping Dudley, and down the close toward the underpass where they ducked into the cool shade of the weed-scented spot beneath the main road.

'There's better,' Tonks decided. 'Where nobody can see us.'

Harry perked up. 'So you are going to show me something?'

'Not my knickers.' Tonks stepped over a few bits of broken glass and swept them aside with a flick of her wand. 'I got Old Bonesy to take you off the watchlist for magic. She wasn't amazingly happy about it, but I asked nicely and apparently her niece only has good things to say about you.'

'Susan?'

'Yeah, her. Short, redheaded girl, great rack for a sixteen year old but probably doomed to permanent back pain by the age of twenty-four.'

'I'm starting to see the resemblance between you and Bellatrix,' Harry said. 'She talked about boobs loads as well.'

Tonks tossed her head back and laughed. 'Aurors like to talk, especially first-class aurors. When you fight with Agwyd, you're unleashing all your magic, imposing your will on everything within your Agwyd. When two Agwydas touch, the stronger overcomes the weaker. You must have sharp focus and absolute confidence in yourself and your cause.' She cupped her boobs and cackled as Harry's eyes dipped. 'If you can't stop yourself getting distracted, you'll die, and, well, use what you were given, right?'

'Oh, so it's a deliberate ploy,' Harry said. 'Somehow that's kind of disappointing.'

She rolled her eyes. 'I'm sure. Now, you're not going to run into many first-class aurors, Harry, because most of them serve Pendragon. For a very long time, they've been snapping up talented first-class aurors and keeping them as very well-off retainers on their own estates.'

'The Graal-Kynak.'

Tonks's grey eyes narrowed. 'You really do know more than you should. Bonesy warned me, but…'

'I saw Voldemort and Bellatrix talking to some of Pendragon's servants on Ynys y Cedairn. They mentioned the Graal-Kynak. They're Pendragon's aurors, aren't they? Dumbledore told me a bit about the ICW.'

'That they are. Their leader is Maerdrid Pendragon, the heir.' Tonks wrinkled her nose. 'And by all accounts, there are about a couple hundred of them.'

'That's not loads.'

She snorted. 'Harry, the Ministry and the entire rest of Britain have maybe twenty first-class aurors combined, and we're fighting each other.'

'Oh.' He scratched the back of his head. 'Wow.'

'Yeah, you don't pick a fight with Pendragon unless you want to die. Maerdrid is terrifying enough on his own. He's won almost forty duels alone now; more than anyone else in the last five hundred years.' All the humour died in Tonks's grey eyes. 'And Harry, serious talk for a moment, don't tell anyone about my gift.'

'Okay.'

'I mean it.' A little shudder swept through her. 'I'm not technically part of the Black family, because mum got us all struck off the tree, so I don't have the protection of the Wizengamot seat to keep me from being offered a position as a retainer to Pendragon. If Pendragon finds out there's a first-class auror who can change her appearance the way I can, he'll make me the sort of offer I'll have to say yes to, no matter whether it's getting made concubine to Maerdrid so I pop out a bunch of very useful, powerful Pendragon bastards, or marrying some retainer of the house to make useful powerful aurors, or anything like that.'

Harry scowled, sour, hot distaste twisted in his gut. 'Why not just refuse?'

'Don't be naive, little cousin.' Tonks crushed a small piece of glass under the heel of her black boot. 'If the Pendragons really want me to do something like that, and they will, they'll slaughter mum, dad, and anyone else I care about until I give in and do it. So I keep a low profile. Nobody knows I can do it unless they have to.'

'But if you're powerful, surely they'll notice one day…'

Tonks swallowed. 'I try not to think about that.'

'I'll stop them doing anything like that,' Harry promised with a touch of heat. 'Or help you stop them, since you seem to be the absurdly powerful one of the two of us; I just have a big cut on my face.'

'That's sweet of you, baby cuz—' she patted him on the head '—I appreciate it; I really do.'

'You're making my hair messier,' he accused.

'I think I'm actually making it tidier,' Tonks replied, ruffling his hair a bit more. 'Besides, don't pretend you don't like the attention from your hottie of a cousin.'

'I…' A touch of heat rose on Harry's cheeks as she flashed him a wink. 'Shut up.'

Tonks cackled.

'Just show me what you were going to show me.'

'Wand out,' she instructed. 'Hold it against your heart.'

Harry pressed his fist to his ribs, just as Bellatrix had done. 'Like that?'

'That'll do.' Tonks stuck her head out of the underpass, then stepped back, mimicking him. 'Now, you close your eyes and imagine pushing all your magic out, like a veil of fire streaming off you.'

Wisps of pink light danced upon her shoulders like ribbons of flame, twisting into a blazing shroud of neon-bright magic that shivered and shimmered like heat haze in the distance. A thin, straight blade of it sprang up about Tonks's long brown wand.

'See?' Tonks opened her eyes. 'Agwyd. There are only a few spells that can pierce Agwyd, and they're all unforgivably dishonourable to use against a first-class auror. But most people aren't capable of casting them to begin with, so there's little to worry about.'

Harry let his eyes slide shut.

Behind them, he saw his magic, bleeding out around him like the last light of a dying sun, a bright gasp of crimson, and yellow and orange across the sky upon the cusp of dusk.

'Oh fuck me,' Tonks whispered. 'That's not… that's insane. I was bloody seventeen when I first managed even a few stutters of Agwyd.

He opened his eyes.

In the reflection of her pupils, Harry saw himself; a shape of darkness wreathed by burning gold, all the light of a sinking star about his black silhouette, a staring eye of flame, bright and hot but dwindling all the same, fading out in one last gasp of glory; the final bloodstained breath of the setting sun, eclipsed by shadow.

AN: Loads more via the Discord and up to 20 chapters more via other places!

linktr . ee / mjbradley