Taking a lull in his studies Harry decided that he would like to pay a visit to Hagrid since he hadn't had much of a chance to see the large lady outside of passing her in the halls and he didn't want to seem ungrateful for her introducing him to this incredible new world.
Tonks was following Harry around being that it was the weekend, and she was relieved that he was heading out of the castle rather than remaining in it. She loved that her warlock was so nice to everyone that it seemed impossible for him to have enemies but that friendliness had meant that many witches were vying for a position in the coven and as the head priestess they had to approach her first, which meant they were looking for ins with her or ways to get her out of the picture.
Of course that meant a challenge and in a strange way Tonks liked that, sure the coven that Wood had meant you needed to deal with Angelina and she was backed by Alicia and the Terror Twins, and then you had Diggory's girls which she'd heard rumors that Cho Chang fought dirty. Being that she managed to become head witch as a second year there might be some truth to that. Her on her own against anyone looking to discredit her, or make her look weak to Harry, it reminded her that she didn't want to become an auror because it was easy.
But still, some time away from all that would be nice, so she was thankful that Harry seemed to pick up on her desires without needing to be asked. She couldn't believe how lucky she was to have such a considerate and knowing warlock. Plus Hagrid was pretty kickass and had tons of cool stories to tell about the magical creatures that were a bit more dangerous. Rock cakes were inedible but other than that, it was nice to spend some time in her hut.
"Is that a dragon egg?" Tonks pointed at the clearly large egg shaped object sitting in a pot in the half-giantess' fireplace.
Ruby eyed Tonks for a moment. "You're not an auror just yet are you?" she questioned the metamorph.
"No?" Tonks answered back unsurely.
Nodding her head, Hagrid tossed a fireproof blanket over the egg and just smiled. "Then no, no it is not."
She really wanted to tell him that probably wasn't how that worked but, then again she wasn't an auror yet, so she wasn't going to pursue this, not with Harry excitedly talking to the half-giant about his time at Hogwarts and how many friends he was making. Friends that Tonks might need to keep an eye on.
But Harry suddenly bringing up some cerberus brought her back to the conversation. "What was that?" Tonks asked.
"Yeah where'd you hear about Fluffy?" Hagrid leaned forward because she was pretty sure Harry wasn't supposed to find out about that. It was Dumbledore's orders to keep it secret.
"Wait, there is a cerberus in the school. And you named it!?" turning a shocked look to the groundskeeper who pursed her lips. That was not something she was going to be willing to let go so easily.
"I just wondered why it was guarding a trapdoor," Harry scratched his head because he'd stumbled upon that room once while exploring the castle and that the door had been locked meaning he had an excuse to try out the unlocking charm Hermione had found in a book. It looked quite useful if he ever forgot his key and this would be the first chance to test it out.
"What's underneath that door is between Albus Dumbledore and Nicholas Flamel," Hagrid quickly said before gasping and covering her mouth with her hand. "I shouldn't have said that, you two need to go."
All but being shoved out, which Tonks figured was because the groundskeeper wasn't going to put her hands on a young wizard, especially not in her home just outside the view of the castle. But the message was clear, they weren't welcome anymore today.
Walking with Harry as they went over to the edge of the lake, they sat underneath a tree to watch the water lapping on the shore. "I'm sorry I got Ms. Hagrid all mad at us," Harry apologized as he rested his face on his knees. "I shouldn't have said anything."
"No no Harry," Tonks quickly interjected. "I think it was a good thing you did that, I didn't know about any cerberus and if it got out that could have been really dangerous, they aren't exactly your standard house pet."
"But she was probably keeping it quiet for Professor Dumbledore," Harry exhaled. "I wonder if it has anything to do with the thing she picked up when we went to Gringotts together, that vault got broken into so it must have been important. I just don't know who this Nicholas Flamel person is though."
Tonks did know who the alchemist was and what he was famous for and because of her desire to be an auror she was piecing together the information. It didn't take much for her to come to the conclusion that the headmaster was in possession of the fabled Philosopher's Stone, an insanely powerful magical artifact that could turn lead into gold and create the Elixir of Life. She gulped because it made sense in a way that if Nicholas Flamel wanted to protect his greatest creation from thieves, send it to the most powerful wizard in the world, someone who apprenticed with you, in one of the most secure places in the world.
But that could only mean one thing. Looking down at Harry, she understood that someone was trying to bring You-Know-Who back to life.
She wanted to kiss her warlock for giving her the clues she needed to uncover this wildly insane bordering on unbelievable conspiracy, but that wasn't proof she could take to the DMLE, hell she'd be hard pressed to get her head of house to believe her and she once convinced Professor Sprout that those baby carrots animated to vibrate found in her bedsheets last year hadn't been hers.
Now it was just the problem of getting evidence.
Christmas was coming up shortly and Harry watched sadly as the majority of the witches in the castle left on the train, the only girls still in Gryffindor were the Weasleys minus the twins who had gone off with the rest of the quidditch team, including the new addition Katie Bell, but coming down to breakfast he was surprised that Tonks had stayed. He had figured she was going to spend the holidays with her parents.
"What, of course I'm sticking with you Harry," Tonks playfully rubbed his hair. She wanted to spend his first Christmas with him, and if she got into the auror program it might be the only one for a long while. That and she had written home to her mother that she was finally in a coven. Her mother hadn't tried to impress upon her that she needed to, after all Andromeda Black had committed one of the ultimate taboos in their culture, she married a muggle man, Theodore Tonks, he was a young up and coming law school student when her mum was in her fifth year. There were of course some issues when she came to him with the claim of pregnancy but keeping things hush hush for a while and no one questioned the timing. On the magical end the other witches didn't care she had gotten pregnant, just they detested the marriage aspect of it. She knew her Aunt Narcissa took the traditional route to join a coven. Her Aunt Bellatrix however, had been fully committed to the Dark Lord, along with her second cousin Regina Black, with a nasty thought about the last member of the family to be a Death Eater, Serena Black.
She detested how nearly all the witches in her family were darker than their namesake, so her mother wouldn't pressure her to follow any old customs that she didn't want to, but the excitement in the letter from her mother that she had found a warlock to guide her was, in a way, nice. Like she had some more connection to her mother that didn't exist before now that she was following the old ways. Her father still didn't quite get it, but he had added in the note that he got used to the existence of magic so the fact that his daughter was dedicating herself to a wizard who would take more witches to lead as a powerful family was going to take time.
She had left out that her warlock was so much younger than her and quite famous, she wasn't quite ready to open that bottle of a conversation but she had gotten their blessing to spend the time in the castle with him.
She knew upon seeing Harry's smile she had made the right choice though.
"So Harry, do you want to open Christmas presents together?" asking him during dinner on the eve of the holiday.
"Not going to try to get him to open anything else of yours?" a fellow seventh year girl teased Tonks only to look smug as Tonks glared at her in the hopes she'd shut up.
Harry just looked up from his plate. "I'd really like that Tonks, I've never opened presents with someone before."
That was another one of Harry's odd statements that told her something was off. He'd talk about first time experiences for things that she'd done before she had even gone to Hogwarts. But he also didn't really speak much about his time before Hogwarts, course the Harry Potter book series which many children read growing up certainly painted the picture of a suave, debonair wizard who had seen and done it all but as she spent more and more time with him, things did not add up in her mind. But unless she prodded him for this information she'd slowly gather it as he fed it to her.
On Christmas morning, Tonks gathered up the gifts that she was sent and headed to the Great Hall to wait for Harry to arrive. She sat a bit away from the main table so that Harry had space for all the presents he would no doubt be getting. She was tapping on the tabletop when Harry arrived and instead of a mountain of gifts that she expected a celebrity like him to receive or even from other girls looking to make an impression, he had only four things in hand. She had gotten more presents in her stocking.
"Is one of the Weasley girls helping you bring down the rest?" Nymphadora looked behind Harry at the door for the two remaining red heads to be lugging forty boxes each.
Harry just tilted his head at that question before shaking it. "No, this is it," he answered and Tonks looked at them and one was just a fifty pence piece.
As a result it didn't take all that much time for him to open his gifts, there was a wooden flute from Hagrid, likely carved herself. That girl he saved had gotten him a chocolate frog and a packet of Bertie Botts, but that was it. No, cards from well wishers, nothing from his housemates to celebrate any of his accomplishments.
It just didn't make sense to her that Harry would receive next to nothing but here he was sitting with a happy smile on his face. "So far this is the most presents I've ever gotten and I get to spend it with friends. Christmas has been amazing."
Tonks opened her mouth to start to ask Harry just what happened in his past before deciding it didn't matter, she wouldn't ruin his first Christmas in Hogwarts with an interrogation. "What about that one?" pointing to a small box that Harry had set aside.
"This is for you Tonks," Harry said as he passed over the wrapped parcel to set it in front of her. "I asked some of the girls in Gryffindor what I should get for my first friend ever but they all looked to Angie, and she told me well… I'll let you open it."
Angelina Johnson was an interesting choice for helping him pick a present, was it because she was the first in Wood's coven that he went to her, or because she was just the oldest witch in Gryffindor that Tonks had seen him interact with often enough. Sometimes she wondered if Harry knew what he was doing or not, but regardless he always seemed sincere. Slowly taking off the ribbon, she figured based on the dimensions this was jewelry of some kind, leave it to a wizard to get you an accessory.
But lifting the lid Tonks was staring at a sleek black ribbon, and she knew where that was meant to be worn, slowly picking it out of the box the flash of color caught her eye. It was a golden lightning bolt, dangling from the center. Harry had to have custom ordered this, and whether or not he understood what this would display to anyone who saw it, she slowly wrapped it around her neck and felt the cool touch of the metal just above the valley of her bosom.
"Do- do you like it?" Harry nervously asked after she finished putting it on. Angie had gotten a catalog that she had used for one of these and explained to him that Nymphadora wouldn't just want one, she was expecting one. It made sense to Harry, even he knew girls like jewelry, that was all the advertisements showed and they couldn't all be wrong. But once he saw how it didn't hang like a necklace but instead seemed to wrap around her throat, he was at least relieved that the company who made it had charms that let it stretch a little bit.
Tonks touched a fingertip to the golden charm which would be used to show off her position, it wasn't common for the girls in Hogwarts to wear one as everyone knew who was in a coven and who wasn't and only the new girls had them, like she expected to see one on Katie Bell once the holidays ended or if there was a change in position. But for the witches in a coven it was a sign of pride and the different ore denoted the position. Gold, told everyone she was the head witch in charge.
"I love it Harry," Tonks admitted because while Harry had surprised her in the relentlessness of his pursuit of her, something a few witches had expressed jealousy about that the wizard had approached her and not the other way around. And she wasn't entirely sure he understood all the protocol he was adhering to, she could tell that he truly did care for her. "I love it."
That put a huge smile on his face because he hoped that she'd like it a little, but Tonks seemed to think it was the greatest gift in the world the way she was softly touching the charm every so often. After he had written to the company about it they had a load of questions for him and when he told them who he was they jumped at the chance to make it for him.
"Well Harry, there's one more present for you," reaching next to her for the carefully wrapped package, she didn't know what to get a wizard as a gift, let alone her warlock. But she had scoured the town of Hogsmeade for what she thought would be the perfect gift. So she hoped it was as thoughtful as what Harry had gotten for her.
Opening the box, Harry looked at the leather wrappings. "Oh what is it?" Harry said as he took the item out of the box.
Scratching her cheek Tonks, motioned for Harry to hold out his wrist. "It's a wand holster, safer than your pocket and faster to draw it too," she explained as she rolled up his sleeve to strap it to his forearm. "Next you just slide your wand in like this and flick your wrist, but remember to catch it. There's a couple of neat tricks you can do with them too, like spinning it and such."
Harry nodded and tried it out and found it was quite intuitive to use, this would be much more helpful in class since he didn't have to deal with putting his wand in his pocket and now if he didn't have pockets which for some reason the pants the clothing store sent him didn't come with them. He'd have to remember that next time he ordered clothes, he must have selected the ones that didn't have them on accident.
As the two left the Great Hall, they bumped into Professors Flitwick and Vector. "Oh and a happy Christmas to you two," the quarter goblin nodded before smiling at the new choker Ms. Tonks was sporting, very noticeable.
"And a very happy Christmas to you as well professors," Tonks nodded her head to each of them.
"This is the best Christmas I've ever had, and Tonks said she would show me some fun things to do with my wand," Harry explained to the professors what they were going to do, since he wanted to try some spells out that he'd been reading about.
The two adults nearly choked as Harry pulled Tonks along with him to go out to the lakeside. "Harry that's not," Tonks tried to clear up the confusion before they decided to sick Fluffy on her but Harry was too excited to listen.
"Do you think he's doing that on purpose?" Septima leaned over and asked the charm's master.
"It's a possibility," Filius admitted that Harry Potter was either the most innocent wizard he'd seen in decades or he was a mastermind teaser for what he was subjecting Nymphadora to.