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Chapter Seventeen—New Allies

"Not that I'm not happy to help you," Tonks says, and turns her hair a dark, deep blue. "But why did you decide that we had to meet in the middle of the Forbidden Forest to talk about this?"

Theo hides a smile. He doubts that Tonks would have wanted to meet them if not for that mysterious invitation. Her eyes are darting back and forth between them, and she's rocking slightly in place on her feet.

"Thanks for coming," Harry says. "And the reason that we have to do this is because the Minister thinks we had something to do with Umbridge's death."

"Well, and didn't you?" Tonks asks instantly.

If he weren't seeing it for himself, Theo never would have believed that Harry could lie so smoothly. He laughs a little. "Why do they suspect us for everything, Tonks? Theo and I both had the ability to hurt Umbridge before this, if we wanted. She had Theo in for a detention and tried to serve him Veritaserum already—"

"What!" yelps Tonks, her hair turning a pink that makes Theo blink, even in the low Lumos Charms of their wands.

Harry nods. "And Theo did report that, but nothing happened, and we didn't try to take revenge. And you know that we offered to have our memories revised before the full Wizengamot, but that didn't go anywhere." He shrugs. "I think the Ministry is looking for an enemy since they don't want to admit Voldemort is back, and I'm a convenient one."

"And your boyfriend?"

"Of course. They know that my loyalty to Harry is unwavering, and that's threatening when they want to blame him for things."

Tonks just keeps studying Theo skeptically, but Theo knows that he's good at lying. He smiles back at her, and smiles, and Tonks finally rolls her eyes and mutters, "Fine, be that way."

"Does that mean you'll help us?" Harry asks, bouncing a little on his toes. He's giving Tonks a winsome smile, and from the reluctant way Tonks smiles back, she's charmed despite herself.

"Yeah, of course. Although there's not much call for the kinds of spells that detect soul magic or artifacts having to do with them. I only know them because Moody was my mentor and the man is bloody thorough."

Theo fights to keep his smirk from widening across his face. He didn't know for sure that something like that would happen, but he appreciates it, and from the way Tonks bends forwards a little, she's not lying about her willingness to help them.

"We need it to fight Voldemort."

Tonks flinched at the name at first, but she's stronger than she was now. Or she's just decided that she has to ignore it. "You think he's tampered with soul magic?" she asks, sounding aghast, and then shakes her head before Theo can laugh at her. "Of course he has, why am I not surprised? Fine. I can teach you these spells."

"And we don't need to promise you any more than that?" Harry asks, a moment before Theo would have asked a similar question himself. "We don't have that much reason to trust you, or you don't have that much reason to trust us."

Tonks's smile lingers on the edge of sadness without crossing the border. Theo is starting to think that she just doesn't get sorrowful most of the time. "I've had a few conversations with my cousin. I know what you did for him, letting him stay in your house, Mr. Nott. And I know that you tried to give him some of his life back, Harry."

Harry blinks and takes a quick breath. "I—I'm surprised that he spoke that well of me and Theo."

"Sirius loves you," Tonks says, her eyes wide and earnest. Theo finds himself shifting his balance, wondering if this is what it feels like to have needles driven into your wrists. "He doesn't know how to express it, and he's done some stupid things, but he really does love you. I could see it."

"And he's your cousin, so you feel that you owe us something for treating him well," Theo says, eager to move them past the awkward moment.

Tonks gives him an amused look, probably because she knows exactly what Theo is doing, but then she just nods. "Yes. And these spells are powerful, but not that complicated. I think you'll master the incantations and wand movements easily."

"Just not the effects?" Harry asks.

"Exactly."

In the end, Tonks is right. Theo can speak the incantation that will let him tell if an artifact is imbued with soul magic by the end of an hour and master the wand movement that goes with it. He's also mastered the spell that will let him tell if an artifact with soul magic was in the area within the last few years.

Well. Sort of mastered.

Tonks wasn't kidding about the power of the spells.

The first time Theo casts the spell that will, hopefully, let them identify a Horcrux, it makes him stagger. Harry turns towards him with his eyes wide and concerned, but Theo shakes his head and stands up. His breathing has quickened, but he's all right.

Feeling like the middle of his chest has been mashed into mincemeat, but all right.

Tonks and Harry both eye him when he's done. Theo gives them a faint smile and just waits for them to get past the moment and stop worrying about him. Tonks turns her hair lime-green and faces Harry with an encouraging smile. "Ready, Harry?"

Harry bites his lip and nods. He keeps his eyes on Theo as he casts. Theo wants to tell him to watch the results of the spell instead, that he's all right and he doesn't want Harry to fall over, but honestly, this is far too flattering.

The spell flattens into a circle of yellow light in the air in front of Harry, and Theo throws his hand up in front of his eyes. This is so bright that his head rings and his vision swims.

"Theo, are you okay? Theo!"

Once again, Theo has to reassure his boyfriend. At least Harry is solid and warm beside him, peering anxiously into Theo's eyes as he supports him with one hand on his shoulder. "I'm fine, Harry. I promise."

"Why would the spell have affected him?" Harry turns back to Tonks, Theo can feel that much, even if he's still blinking the afterimages out of his eyes. "There's no way that he's still suffering from his first attempt to cast the spell, is there?"

Tonks is silent. Theo blinks the rest of the afterimages away and faces her, wondering if there's something about the spells that she neglected to tell them.

Instead, Tonks is silent, her eyes darting back and forth between Theo and Harry. "Is there something you wanted to tell me?" she asks slowly. "Such as that you have an artifact with soul magic here already, or that you were recently close to one?"

Oh, shit. The Horcrux in Harry's scar. Theo never even considered it when they started learning these spells, because he didn't think that Tonks would know all the nuances or that they would be able to cast spells powerful enough the first time to reveal the presence of a shard of soul or—

There are lots of things that he didn't think of.

It doesn't matter. Theo isn't too tired, would never be too tired, to raise his wand and create a fence of shimmering purple light around the clearing in the Forbidden Forest where they've been practicing. This is a spell that he hasn't shared even with Harry, although Harry would only have to ask for it. This is a spell his father invented, and no one can break through it who doesn't have Nott blood or the caster's permission.

It also makes him stagger harder than ever, winded, and have to lean on Harry's shoulder. Harry supports him—not that there was ever any danger of him not doing it—while biting his lip.

"Harry?"

Tonks is turning to face Harry now, and it's easy to forget she's a trained Auror until she moves like this, all smooth and powerful, the clumsiness that Theo is half-convinced is a feint gone as if it's never been. Harry takes a deep breath and says, "It's a secret, Tonks. We can't let you leave until you swear an oath not to spill it."

Tonks pauses, and her nose wrinkles. Then she says, "An oath? Is that all?"

"A strong, important oath. One that you couldn't break. This is a secret that Dumbledore entrusted to us. He doesn't want us spreading it around, but he also wouldn't—I think that he would want you to do certain things if he knew that you knew it."

Tonks pauses again. Theo has his wand ready. She can't get out through the ward anyway, but if she tries to flee, he will hit her with curses that will daze and dazzle her until he can use the Imperius on her.

With Harry's safety at stake, Theo knows he will muster the will to use the Unforgivable easily.

"What is this all about?"

"We can't tell you that until you agree to give the oath."

Theo is so proud of Harry that he can't breathe. Harry has his head proudly lifted, his wand dangling at his side as if he wouldn't really use it on Tonks. And he doesn't need to. He commands Tonks's attention with his voice alone.

Theo despises both the circumstances and the people who have conspired to force Harry into the role of the Boy-Who-Lived, but there's no arguing that Harry wears that mantle better than anyone else could have.

"I want to know," Tonks mutters.

"You can, if you swear the oath."

Tonks glances back and forth between them as if she thinks that Theo will contradict what Harry is saying. But Theo is happy to lean on Harry's shoulder and smile at Tonks and maintain both eye contact and unwavering confidence. He won't hesitate to do whatever Harry tells him to.

Maybe Tonks knows that, or guesses it, or doesn't have a problem with it. She nods, already drawing her wand. "You swear that this vow is only going to be known to the three of us?"

"Yes," Theo says instantly. There wouldn't be any profit for any of them in sharing around that Tonks swore it, not right now. And if there is later… "You would need to give us permission to even tell someone that you swore it."

Tonks blinks and licks her lips and nods. "Then I'll swear," she says, and follows Theo's directions. There's a variant of a wand-oath that will make the person who swears it suffer crippling pain if they even think about breaking it. Either Tonks recognizes the oath she's swearing and has no problem with it, or she doesn't and should have done further research before she swore it. Either way, not Theo's problem.

Harry does shoot Theo a sharp glance, probably over some of the wording that Theo is having Tonks use, but he doesn't contradict him in this, either.

I have the perfect boyfriend, Theo is thinking as he slips an arm around Harry's waist and says, "Harry hosts a shard of Voldemort's soul, a condition called being a living Horcrux."

Tonks chokes.

Theo has his wand up and raised, ready to strike her with a curse if she runs for the ward boundary, but instead, Tonks straightens after a moment of swaying in place. She stares at Theo and blurts, "You're crazy."

"No," Theo says. "It's true."

"You say that, and you're just standing there and not trying to find a way to cure him?" Tonks's hair cycles so fast through colors that it leaves burning afterimages on Theo's vision like Harrys spell did. "There has to be some way—to move the Horcrux out of him, to cure him—you shouldn't be having me teach you spells like this, you should be learning the deepest of Healing—"

"The reason that we need to know these spells is because Voldemort made more than just this Horcrux," Harry interrupts her. "He made a diary that possessed the people who wrote in it, and which I destroyed in my second year. And he made a certain number more. We're trying to make sure that we can find them and destroy them."

Tonks blinks her eyes shut and lets her head sag slowly forwards until her forehead is resting in her hand. "Oh, Merlin," she whispers. "This is madness."

"We have to do it," Theo says. He's more relaxed now, ready to strike at Tonks if she runs, but less certain that she will. He'll attack without mercy if she does, though. "Dumbledore knows what's happening with Harry, and he would—do something much less than pleasant to Harry if he thought he could get away with it."

"But why? Dumbledore has to know what destroying the Boy-Who-Lived would do to the hope and mood of our world."

"What do you think would happen to the hope and mood of our world if they knew what I was?" Harry asks. Tonks flinches, and Theo tightens his arm around Harry's waist, in case he's grieving over being a Horcrux. But Harry just presses a hand flat to Theo's arm without looking away from Tonks. "People have already turned on me in the past for supposedly being a cheater and the Heir of Slytherin. Dumbledore would be able to convince them that I should be destroyed to destroy Voldemort. If he had to. I don't think he would be happy about it, but he would do it."

Tonks opens and closes her mouth. Then she whispers, "Good point."

"You see now why we had you swear the oath. Dumbledore might try to kill Harry now if he knew that we were talking to other people about this and trying to find some solution to the Horcrux problem that doesn't involve Harry dying.

"Of course he's not going to die."

"But that's the kind of thing Dumbledore embraces, and he was trying to make Harry embrace. He was doing his best, when he told us about it, to make it seem like there's no cure and Harry should give up loving me so that he would be more willing to die. And I should be thinking of Harry as an object, a thing, instead of someone I would be willing to fight and die for."

"I never knew that—that Headmaster Dumbledore is so ruthless."

"I don't think he likes being that way," Harry says, in the kind of weary voice that Theo keeps quiet about, because he knows it will convince Tonks more than anything Theo could do himself. "I don't think he would rejoice if he had to cast a Choking Curse on me or whatever. But he's dedicated to the defeat of Voldemort before anything else."

Whatever objections Tonks might have raised before, this appears to calm them. She bites her lip and says nothing, looking back and forth between Harry and Theo.

When she speaks again, it's to whisper. "There are no Dark curses without a counter. It's one of the things that we learn first in the Aurors. Even if someone invents a new curse—it's always possible to invent a counter."

Theo thinks about some of the things his father taught him, that his father invented, and has to work to hold back a sneer. But Harry is looking intently at Tonks. "So you think there's a way to counter a Horcrux? Without destroying it?"

"There has to be. You might be the first living Horcrux in history, but do you think that no one who made one of those things ever regretted it? Never decided that they did want to move the shard out of the artifact they put it in and into something else?"

Theo can feel Harry flinching at the words "things" and "artifact," and opens his mouth to shout at Tonks. But Harry steps on Theo's foot and speaks while he's wincing. "So you think you can find a spell to help me move the Horcrux shard?"

"I think I might even know one, I just can't remember it right now." Tonks's hair cycles into a blinding white that makes Theo glance away with a wince. He doesn't know what that says about her mood, but what he hears in her voice is unshakable determination. "I'll find it. Or invent it. Or get someone to teach it to me."

"Why would—I mean, we're not close, Tonks. Why would you do all this for me?"

"Because part of you is the hero in the stories Mum told me as a kid." Tonks speaks with great conviction, even as her hair turns lime-green. "So many people would be running away from dealing with a thing like this, or just comatose with fear and anger, but you're standing up to it, Harry. My mum raised me to honor courage in other people. I need to honor your courage."

Theo has to close his eyes. He wanted to laugh or lash out when Tonks mentioned the children's stories about Harry, but it seems that sometimes, they inspire someone to just believe in Harry.

Theo was starting to think that no one except himself was really capable of that.

"Thank you, Tonks," Harry whispers, his voice trembling with emotion. "I—I'd really appreciate it if you looked around for spells that would let us do that. But we also need to learn the spells to find Horcruxes, because he's got more of these out there."

Tonks seems as if she'd like to ask other questions for a second, but then she just nods with a grim expression and raises her wand. "Then let's start working."

Theo does manage to cast the spell to find Horcruxes by the end of the training session without collapsing, and Harry does the same thing. They lean on each other as they walk back to the school, hiding their light panting.

At least most people will assume they were doing something else, if they see them together looking ruffled.

"I'm glad that we have other allies," Harry says, keeping his voice low as they enter the school's doors.

Theo nods, and thinks that it's also a good thing they have the oath to ensure they can trust Tonks. He would hate to kill someone who obviously believes Harry and believes in Harry because they were careless enough to leave a loophole in their contract.