Nothing is mine.

Harry has a lovely dream and goes to meet his cousin at the playground.

To-morrow to Fresh Woods, and Pastures New

Somewhere beyond the reach of all but dreams, Harry stood amidst verdant youthful green. Above him, held aloft on the branches and boughs of countless trees great and small, the leaves glowed like the stained glass windows of a cathedral in the sunlight, letting only slender beams of brightness burst through tiny chinks in their canopy to pool upon the carpet of flowers below.

They were gold, not the golden hue of yellow sunflowers, not pineapple, nor daffodils or banana or lemon, but gold, glinting as if each bloom had been spun from metal, shining not only in those brilliant bars of sunshine but gleaming with their own amber magic. Each petal glowed, and the carpet of flowers sparkled, bright as the countless flashes of sunlight on the waves of the Black Lake. Small motes of gold drifted off the flowers, floating away through the trees toward the slim fey figures flitting among the glorious glades and their distant, childish laughter; they hovered about Harry's bare feet, too, hanging among the dark golden leaves beneath the blooms that held only a little less lustre than the petals themselves. He bathed in the fragrance of them all, breathing in a delicate sweetness that reminded him both of roses at the start of summer and the spring swathe of bluebells beneath the branches, an uplifting scent that left a little smile lingering on his lips after every breath.

A small wren clung to the stem of one golden flower, bending it down to brush the smoking surface of the dark stream winding through the midst of the blooms; it dipped its beak into the twisting, dancing shadows of those ink-dark waters, sipping for a few brief moments before it fluttered away downstream through the forest and up into a small gap in the canopy of glades, soaring out toward the two mountain peaks rising over it all.

And Harry woke still smiling, his thoughts full of golden flowers, half lost, even as he stretched and stumbled from his bed in search of clothes, wandering yet through the breathtaking beauty of dreaming glades, and half admiring the idea of a crown of those glowing amber blooms atop Daphne's head as he kissed her in a garden that was sometimes all red flowers and trees, and sometimes such vivid verdance his heart ached to stand within it again.

It faded as he dressed and he found himself upon the cusp of a quiet summer Sunday morning in Privet Drive. Beyond the faint and distant hum of the main road, and the song of garden birds, only the laughter of children playing somewhere further down the street disturbed the peace.

Harry stuck his sheathed wand to his back, shivering at the flash of biting cold magic, and pulled his t-shirt on. 'Time to find a cousin.' He laughed to himself as he headed downstairs and shoved his feet into his trainers. 'Should be easy enough, she's a real standout.'

'Leaving again?' Aunt Petunia cupped her morning coffee in her hands, her lips pursed and thin. 'Remember you have chores still to do this week. My roses need spraying for aphids again.'

'I'll do it.' He reached for the door. 'Just not right now.'

She sniffed. 'As long as it gets done.'

Harry skipped out, strolling along the concrete drive.

Privet Drive's neat rows of front lawns and gardens stood empty in the weekend calm.

'Well, time to de-aphid,' he murmured, reaching back under his t-shirt and pulling his wand from its sheath. 'It can't be that hard.' Harry ran the edge of his thumb along his wand, imagining each of the little green insects disappearing into darkness deeper than the night, swallowed like the stars; he flicked his wand. 'Let's see…'

Neatly trimmed, green rose stems rose from the bark chipping of the bed, their sharp, red thorns curving out all the way up to the red flowers, but not a single aphid clung to them.

'Perfect.' Harry sauntered down the pavement, slipping his wand back into its sheath. 'Now, where to find my cousin?'

He drifted through the underpass and its faint, lingering smell of weed, coming up on the far side of the main road at the edge of the small park.

Tonks sat on the swings, sweeping back and forth, and bouncing the heels of her black boots along the ground below; her shoulder-length dark curls sailed behind her and her loose black t-shirt rippled with the wind of each swing. The bright pink and purple splashes across the front twisted where she'd tied the front up into a smooth knot to bare her stomach and, at the hem of her short denim skirt, the torn white threads fluttered forward and back, trailing her like loose cobwebs.

'Not so baby cuz!' Harry called, wincing at the screech of the metal gate. 'Are you having fun?'

'I am.' She looked up, flashing him a broad grin. 'And I'm about to have even more fun with you.'

'Oh no.' He shook his head. 'I'm growing wise to your games. You can't just stick your boobs out at me anymore, you'll have to up your game.'

Tonks cackled and smacked her fist into her palm. 'I meant I was going to give you more bruises, baby cuz.'

'Oh great,' Harry muttered. 'I thought I was doing well?'

'You are,' she replied. 'But you could be better, and the better you are, the safer you are, so…'

'You just want to hit me again.'

'It puts a smile on my face.' Tonks laughed and leapt off the swing, tripping on the spongy black tiles and planting herself face first into the ground.

'You still alive?' Harry asked.

She groaned. 'No.'

'Does this count as a win for me then?'

'Also no.' Tonks bounced back to her feet and rubbed at the golden sword on her chest. 'Note to self, metal badge stabs boobs through thin bra and t-shirt.'

Harry admired the little obsidian crow upon a silver pin pierced through her belly button for a moment. It sat like a chip of shadow upon the smooth skin of her flat, toned stomach, its wings spread as if in mid-flight.

'Like it?' She followed the line of his eye. 'I thought it was pretty cool, just a shame they didn't do animated ones like they do tattoos. Still makes me look even hotter, though.'

'No easy feat, according to you,' Harry quipped.

'What do you mean according to me?' She snorted. 'Don't think I don't notice your wandering eyes, Mr Underage.'

'It's not wandering if you push them in my face in the middle of a fight and yell surprise attack,' he retorted. 'That's just more molestation. Your auror record should come with an official warning.'

'I tripped,' she asserted.

'Believable, were it not for the yelling of surprise attack right beforehand,' Harry replied.

'You weren't upset about it; you got a good handful.'

'In self defence.'

'Not the second time.'

A little heat crept to his face. 'Admittedly not the second time, but you did dare me to do it again. I quote… maybe grabbing one of your absolute hottie of an older cousin's boobs wasn't enough, maybe my little baby cousin wants a feel of the other one, too. Go on, I dare you.'

'And you were absolutely unintimidated by the taciturn threat of violence from a first-class auror, so congratulations on your bravery, baby cuz.' A wicked grin flashed across Tonks's lips. 'How are the bruises?'

'You healed them all, remember?'

'Oh yes, I forgot I was merciful.' Tonks clapped her hands together, then reached behind her and drew her wand, conjuring a foot long piece of wood as thin as a coin. 'Your weapon.'

Harry accepted it with a sigh. 'I feel like I'm fighting with a toothpick.'

'Well, if you can figure out how to form a blade with Agwyd, then I'll teach you using that,' she replied. 'But I can't tell you how to form one, because if anyone sees, Bonesy will be told, and I will immediately and rightly be held responsibly, and officially reprimanded, and the ICW will be informed of a first-class auror who broke the rules and will probably start keeping an eye on me. Which would be very bad news for most people and is even worse for me.'

'They must be about the only people you don't want staring at you,' Harry said.

'Come on.' She kicked at his foot with one boot. 'Stance.'

He shifted his balance onto the balls of his feet, spreading his weight out.

'Good.' Tonks dropped down onto one hand and spun, hammering her leg into the back of his knee.

Harry grunted at the stab of pain and staggered sideways.

'Also good,' she said, 'but I recommend avoiding it rather than trying to take it.'

'I thought I was supposed to show I could take it,' he protested. 'Otherwise I would have jumped.'

'Let's test those hands—' Tonks tipped him a wink, nothing but mischief in her grey eyes '—a guy's got to be good with his hands, you know.'

Harry flushed, but flinched left away from her punch with half a second to spare.

'Excellent!' She grinned. 'You didn't fall for the distraction this time.'

'I told you, you have to up your game.'

'You're pretty fast,' Tonks said. 'Good reflexes. And you don't instinctively flinch into a bad body position, either; you keep your weight poised.'

'Probably because I used to have to try and dodge Dudley and his friends when they used to beat me up all the time as a kid.'

She cackled. 'Well, what doesn't kill you makes you stronger, and the shoe's on the other foot now.'

'Yes.' Harry waved a triumphant fist. 'Finally, a magical person who knows idioms.'

A peal of laughter escaped Tonks. 'Dad's Muggle-born, baby cuz. Sorry.'

'Damn it—' he shook his head '—the long quest goes on…'

'They have their own,' she promised. 'Just not as many.'

'And now I guess I get bruises?' Harry asked.

'Yep.' Tonks beamed. 'Remember what I told you about balance, keeping your weight poised so you can move, and not trying to stop my momentum but just directing it away from you. Saves a lot of energy.' She inspected the thin piece of wood in her hand. 'You know, this brings back memories of my days training.'

'Many many years ago, before menopause,' he chimed in.

Tonks's grey eyes narrowed, and she touched the wooden blade to her heart, levelling it at his ribs. 'Oh, you're going to pay for that one, baby cuz.'

Harry leant his head to one side. 'Why do you always do that?'

'Because a duel between two first-class aurors is a matter of honour and must be treated as such,' she replied. 'You don't have to do it the same way as I do, but some gesture of respect is expected.'

He weighed the piece of wood in his hand. 'I'll think of something, I'm sure, but for now…' Harry mimicked her. 'Just beat me up and get this over with.'

Tonks lunged, thrusting the tip of the piece of wood at his navel.

Harry twisted aside and stabbed up at the little crow on her belly button, but Tonks's elbow snapped back down and knocked his forearm away.

'Sneaky.' She cackled. 'You know most people would try and get something behind that thrust in case they weren't fast enough.'

'I was fast enough,' he protested.

'I'm afraid that might not always be the case,' Tonks warned, her grey eyes sharp and serious.

'I'm not.'

'Well, in that case…'

She swept forward, coming at him in a flurry of short, sharp slashes. Harry backed away from the first and parried the next two off the edge of his wooden blade, circling away from the fourth and catching her forearm on his as she reversed her grip to stab at him. Her free fist hammered into his ribs, driving the breath from his lungs, but he got his left arm up to stop the second punch, catching her arm by the wrist.

'Bruise number one,' Tonks announced with what Harry felt was unreasonable cheer. 'Time for number two.'

He caught the shift of her weight and switched his feet, her kick whispering past his right thigh as he drew his leg back; Harry drove his knee into the underside of her extended thigh and shoved, sending her staggering back a couple of steps.

'Good.' She clapped her hands.

Harry stole a leaf from Tonks's book and grinned at her. 'I was just hoping if I got a leg under you, that short skirt would come up far enough to give me a glimpse of your knickers.'

'Terrible strategy—' she circled him, her grey eyes full of nothing but mischief '—if you want to see what's under my skirt, you just need to be about three years older and make sure you haven't forgotten your glasses.'

Harry shifted around with her, his weight on the balls of his feet. 'I guess you did say only things above the waist were fair game until I'm sixteen.'

She bounced her boobs on her left arm and winked. 'Come and get 'em then.'

His gaze dipped to the cleavage of her black t-shirt. 'Wait. Shit.'

Tonks lunged, cackling.

Harry flinched aside, feeling the wind tickle his cheek and, seized by instinct, stamped on the back of her knee as she passed. Tonks stumbled, mid-spin, and the wooden blade that would have come back around into his stomach clattered against the ground as she pushed herself back up.

'Yeah, at your age the distraction thing is probably not a good idea,' she warned as he poked his glasses up his nose with one finger. 'Not that kind of it, at least. You've probably never seen a real pair of boobs and your hormones will be all over the place for a few years yet. Better to stick to talking about things that won't come back to bite you.'

'I didn't get bitten.'

'No, you escaped,' Tonks admitted, 'I wasn't expecting you to try and counter the attack with so little notice, just to try and get out of the way. If you'd not kicked my knee out there, I would have given you bruise number two.'

'I don't want bruise number two,' Harry retorted. 'You have it.'

'I do.' She flexed her right leg. 'That's going to leave a mark. You're not winning any prizes for strength, baby cuz, but you're not as skinny as you look in your first year photo anymore and you're still a guy.'

'I'm taller,' he asserted.

She flashed him a broad grin. 'Taller than I am, but only by about an inch.'

'Every inch counts. Surely you of all people know that, Nymphadora.'

Tonks cracked her knuckles. 'Oh, that's going to be bruise number three, baby cousin.'

'You said that about bruise number two.' Harry considered adding some more taunting, but opted to just stick his tongue out at her instead.

'Put that away, baby cuz.' She pushed her chest out a little and winked again, shaking her shoulder-length dark curls out from where they stuck to the sweat glistening on her cheeks. 'You don't know how to use that well enough for me to be interested in seeing it.'

Heat rushed to Harry's cheeks. 'I hate you.'

'Awww—' she leant her weight one way, but twisted back as Harry flinched away, and the tip of the blade poked him in the cheek '—but maybe if you're a good boy for your hottie of a cousin, she'll tell you what girls like you to do with your tongue when you're a bit older?'

Harry sighed and pushed the piece of wood away from his face. 'Does it also come with hands-on experience?'

Tonks snickered. 'That's what I said about this, wasn't it? Did you come down here with a little bit of hope that you'd get to feel something up, baby cuz?'

'Yes,' Harry confessed. 'But—' he grinned back at her '—I did, didn't I?'

'Hmmm.' She ruffled his hair. 'We'll call it a draw.'

'Do I get a reward?' he asked, with every bit of dry humour he could manage.

A little snigger escaped Tonks. 'You're a bad influence on me.' She took one of his hands and stuck it down the front of her t-shirt, swiping his fingers through the slick, hot sweat of her cleavage. 'Be careful what you wish for, baby cuz.'

Harry grimaced and wiped the sweat off on the front of her t-shirt, ignoring the flat stare she gave him as he left damp handprints across her chest. 'You're the bad influence,' he said. 'Sticking some fifteen year-old boy's hand on your boobs. You should be arrested.'

'You're sixteen in a week.' Tonks reached out and flicked him on the nose. 'Now focus for a moment.'

'I'm focused. Mostly.'

'Good, because this is the important bit.' She tugged the piece of wood out of his hand. 'You're doing alright, Harry. A bit easily distracted, but who can blame you when your cousin looks like this—' Tonks gestured at herself '—still a bit naive though. Just because I move my weight one way doesn't mean I'm going that way.'

'I know,' Harry said. 'I just see you move a bit, and then I've already moved on instinct and it's too late.'

'You're fast, but kind of twitchy,' Tonks replied. 'You rely on reflexes a lot, which isn't bad, because your reflexes are good, but when someone feints, you're left a bit high and dry unless you can conjure up something like when you kicked my knee out.' Little lines creased her forehead. 'You're not going to hold your own against someone experienced and clever like Bellatrix; she'd slice you into very thin pieces. Hopefully you'll be able to get away from her or survive long enough for help to arrive.'

'She might not kill me,' Harry replied. 'She said she likes me.'

'She also knows your great weakness.' Tonks sniggered. 'Boobs.'

'They are pretty great,' he mused.

'Teenagers.' She shook her head. 'At this rate I'm going to have to actually flash you a few times so you don't get killed staring down Bellatrix's cleavage.'

'I second that plan.'

Tonks rolled her eyes and flicked the tip of his nose. 'Of course you do.'

'It is above the waist.' Harry frowned. 'Wait, what am I saying? I have a girlfriend now. No, Nymphadora, I reject your paltry wiles; my girlfriend is prettier than you are.'

'Oh, what's this? My baby cousin is all grown up and has a girlfriend?' Tonks' grin held an almost predatory air. 'Is it Hermione?'

'No.' He wrinkled his nose. 'She told me I only like blondes, and, honestly, she reminds me too much of Mrs Weasley to want to date her. It'd be like marrying a tyrant.'

'Who is it then?' She waggled her eyebrows. 'Did you make her up to try and get me all jealous, baby cuz?'

'Is it working?' Harry snorted. 'No. I told you. Daphne.'

'Oh.' Tonks's face sobered up. 'Shit.'

'What? Is this a she's going to murder you or betray you to Voldemort thing?' Harry laughed to himself. 'She might murder me, but it will be entirely my own fault and nothing to do with Voldemort.'

'No.' Tonks tapped his elbow with her hand. 'Come here.' She wandered to the swings, dropping down onto one and drifting back and forth until he took a seat beside her. 'Look, I've got nothing against Daphne. I've never met her. I'm sure she's lovely, and very pretty, and really likes you and all that, but her family…' Tonks sighed. 'I don't know a gentle way of saying this so I'm just going to say it, if you want to get all mad we can have another go at each other and let you blow off steam, yeah? Everyone knows that the Greengrass family have some kind of curse that affects the daughters—'

'Oh it's just that.' Harry laughed. 'Yeah, I already know. Her younger sister, Astoria, is lightly touched by it, she has cool eyes, one blue one like Daphne's, and one green one from the malediction. Daphne doesn't have it at all.'

'Well.' Tonks's shoulders sagged and she ruffled his hair. 'That saves me a really horrible conversation trying to stop you from getting your heart broken in a really tragic way.'

'You probably would have egged me into it so you could swoop in and pick up the pieces of your new underage target,' Harry retorted.

'Brat.' She swatted him over the head as she swung back past. 'And there I was thinking about letting you have a pity kiss on the cheek to cheer you up.'

'Upgrade it to a feel of something above the waist and I'll think about it.'

'Already forgotten your girlfriend, have you?'

'No,' Harry murmured; a touch of heat rose in his cheeks and all the butterflies stirred their wings inside. 'She's much too amazing for that.'

Tonks's smile came rather softer than before. 'Good for you, little cousin. Don't mess it up.' She flicked his ear as she floated past. 'And it sounds like you won't have to worry about the blood malediction, unless you forget contraceptive charms and get her pregnant.'

Harry grinned. 'It's fine, I can't forget them; I don't know any.'

'So she's probably already pregnant.'

'I'm not sixteen for another week,' he reminded her. 'Also I only started going out with her officially after my visit a week ago and she was very clearly not pregnant already.'

'I'll teach you a couple for when you need them,' Tonks promised. 'Better to know and not need than need and not know.'

'Well, at least it might one day be useful.' The butterflies clustered into a tight hot ball of fluttering wings and little legs in the pit of Harry's stomach, squirming and wriggling around there as his imagination conjured the recollection of Daphne's breathless kisses, tangling them with the feel of her bare skin and the crimson covers of a bed.

'Daydreaming, baby cuz?' A wicked little gleam shone in Tonks's grey eyes. 'Is it your girlfriend you're imagining or is it your hottie of a cousin who's starring in your fantasies right now?'

'As if you could walk across a flat, smooth stage without tripping over,' Harry retorted. 'But speaking of dreams, you're a first-class auror and a magicmorph—'

'Metamorph.'

'Menopause. Whatever.'

Tonks snorted with laughter. 'Is this actually going somewhere? Sometimes trying to follow your thoughts feels like being attacked on all sides by brightly coloured balloons.'

'I was going to ask about dreams. You're magically powerful, so you must be magically sensitive, right? Did you get any weird dreams? I get them sometimes; I had one earlier.' Harry waited as her swing settled beside him. 'Sometimes it's hard to tell if I'm dreaming or not.'

'Yeah, I had some,' she murmured. 'They're magical, so they're not entirely nonsense; think of them like divination, some magic is involved, but it's magical nonsense. When I was about your age, and my magic was just starting to really kick on, I used to dream I was made of water. They were such vivid dreams; I used to wake up sweating and terrified that I might just melt and trickle away at any moment.' A little shiver swept through her. 'I never did, but it scared the life out of cute little teenage me. I always reckoned it was something to do with being a metamorph, you know. Me changing shape and water being all fluid.'

'Yeah, I see what you mean,' Harry replied.

'Have any watery dreams, baby cuz?' A flash of mischief passed across her face. 'I bet any wet dreams you have are probably all about me and Daphne not wearing very much.'

'And Fleur Delacour in her silver bathing suit.'

'The veela girl from the Triwizard Tournament?' Tonks rolled her eyes. 'Boys are such suckers for a bit of skin or something tight. Anything that shows off a couple of curves and they can't take their eyes off you.'

'You enjoy it.'

'Only when it's the right sort of guy.' She mussed his hair. 'And you, baby cousin; teasing you is great fun.'

Harry laughed. 'Well, you'll be heartbroken to know that I've not dreamt of you at all.'

'Ouch.' Tonks pressed her hands to her chest. 'Maybe I will have to up my game. So is it Daphne, then?'

'No, I dreamt of green again this morning. Everything was green. And it was so beautiful. I know it sounds weird, but I woke up really longing to see it again, because it was just… I don't even know how to say it really. It was just… beautiful.'

'Sounds like you got a better deal than my nightmares of water.' Tonks bumped her swing into his, tapping his knee with hers. 'Don't worry about the dreams, little cousin. In a year or so, they'll all settle down. You have to get used to your own magic around this age, is all.'

Harry smiled. 'That's good, because honestly some of them were kind of terrifying. The Voldemort ones were alright, I saw all sorts of interesting things as well as the disturbing red crayon times, but the ones in the snow…'

'Nobody likes snow.' Tonks patted her denim mini-skirt. 'Can't curbstomp in a mini-skirt when it's that cold. And, coming back to curbstomping for a moment; I want to try helping you with your actual Agwyd once you've got a slightly better handle on how not to get loads of bruises from me.'

'Like what?' he asked. 'I thought I could do it?'

'You can,' she muttered, 'which honestly is kind of terrifying because you're about three years early to that party and it's a pretty exclusive invite-only place.'

'So what are we doing?'

'I'm teaching you a lot of the skill stuff at the moment,' Tonks said. 'Because if you don't know what you're doing, someone will kill you. But… all that skill stuff will be useless if your Agwyd is weak and whoever is trying to kill you can just slice through it like butter and kill you anyway.'

'Right. I have to not doubt or something.'

'Doubt is the kiss of defeat,' she whispered. 'It is the heart's downfall, the first small step into indubitable oblivion. Doubt nothing. Doubt nothing; know only victory.'

'Do you know that off by heart?'

'It works.' Tonks's grey eyes turned sharp as steel. 'It almost certainly comes from the Graal-Kynak, and while they've always been admired and feared, Maerdrid has made them into something so fearsome that there are rumours the Graal-Kynak are the ICW's chosen tool for enforcing the will of the high council on reluctant families. They are all trained to fight from a young age, trained hard, they are all Agwyd-capable and they're all utterly loyal. They don't run. They don't fear. They keep fighting until they're all dead or their enemies are, and the number of duels Maerdrid has won should tell you how that usually goes.'

'Maerdrid again.'

'He is the lynchpin of it,' she said. 'He wields Kalydvwlch, an ancient, powerful blade once gifted from the Veiled World. And he has never known defeat.'

AN: Loads and loads more of this and other things via the linktree!

linktr . ee / mjbradley